Porsche opens facility for classic car restoration
Yahoo Finance autos reporter Pras Subramanian breaks down Porsche Cars North America CEO Kjell Gruner’s latest comments regarding the automaker’s 2023 outlook and new restoration facility for classic car owners.
Video Transcript
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JARED BLIKRE: Also, Porsche has been in the news today about an expansion of its classic business. And Pras, you spoke to Kjell Gruner, President and CEO of Porsche Cars, North America. What did he have to say about this?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, Kjell Gruner, yeah, yeah, the Porsche US CEO. So you know, they’re investing in the classics business. But also, before we get into that, I want to talk about IN the business right now. They had a crazy, great record 2022, right? So the question is, is that performance bleeding into 2023? Here’s what Kjell had to say about that.
KJELL GRUNER: You know, It was a record quarter. It was the record December. That shows you that we started this year with a lot of momentum.
So the brand is very strong. The product pipeline is very fresh, very attractive. Our new cars, the Carrera [INAUDIBLE]– that car has a great reception end of last year at the LA Auto Show, the world premiere, a lot of momentum.
And this year we will for instance get the new Cayenne, which will be super important for our business. So the brand has a lot of momentum. There’s a lot of love for the brand both from our sides– we love what we do. Our dealer partners do that and the customers as well.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So Porsche would have sold more cars like the Taycan EV if not for supply constraints, Gruner said.
JARED BLIKRE: All right, well, Porsche is opening a new expanded Porsche Classic facility at its Atlanta headquarters. And can you tell us something about that?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, yeah. So you know, Porsche had a great year last year, but they know where their bread is buttered, right? It’s the classic car business, their enthusiast fans.
They love these air-cooled Porsches. So they investing in that business there to kind of assuage those fans. But in a $50 million new facility that will refurbish and renovate these classic cars, but in order to really compete with this– sorry– to interact with these customers in a more one on one way. So, here’s what he had to say about that.
KJELL GRUNER: It comes from the core of the brand. It is something that we love. And then obviously, it’s always great when you do things that are also economically feasible because that makes them sustainable. That means you can do them over time, and that also means you can invest in them. So, you can see that with our expansion of our campus here in Atlanta, so there, we invest a lot into our classic business.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So he says it’s sustainable, but the US is Porsche’s largest classic market– over 300,000 cars. And they sell 80,000 parts for those cars. So it’s a business too.
JARED BLIKRE: It is. But when we talk about some of these older vehicles too, I just– I’ve had uncles tinkering in the driveway with these things. We’re talking about a new era. There’s just a lot more, I guess, infrastructure that people need to gear up for in the EVAs. So Pras Subramanian, thank you for that.