Posts Tagged sports cars
Used Ferrari – Still Selling Consistently
Posted by in Uncategorized on November 19, 2009
With the current economic crisis continuing to unfold and lead many of us to the poorhouse, you wouldn’t be blamed for expecting to see a significant drop in the number of sports cars and prestige cars sold around the world. However, it would appear that sales of these car models have remained fairly consistent especially in the used sector. The question is; why are members of the public opting to buy used sports cars instead of new models?
There is one word that will adequately answer this question; depreciation. Depreciation is the market effect that stings a lot of new car owners as soon as they drive their shiny car away from the dealership’s forecourt. A car can lose up to half of its value as soon as it has been owned by someone other than the dealer; even if that ownership is only a few seconds old.
As a result of this the cars value drops significantly and the resale value drops like a lead balloon. For the current owners this is very bad news as they won’t make any kind of return on their investment should they choose to sell it. However, the prospective future buyer would be right to rub his or hers hands with glee at the savings they could be making.
A model such as a Used Ferrari could be bought up for nearly half of its original retail price even though it may only have a few thousand miles on the clock. In this respect it looks as though there may be many more sports cars sold in the current recession.
Tags: dealer, dealers, dealership, new car, sports car, sports cars, used sports car, used sports carsRelated posts
Did You Know That Porsche Once Built Airplanes And Tanks?
Posted by in Uncategorized on November 18, 2009
Okay, not really but the founder of Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche, was an important developer in the engineering of airplanes and race cars plus in tank building for the Wehrmacht.
Many people do not realize what a prolific inventor this man was, he had over one thousand patents issued! Early in his automotive engineering career Ferdinand was chief engineer for none other than Mercedes Benz, after being dismissed for disagreeing with their engineering methods he started his own engineering firm in Stuttgart where he was responsible for the design of the Volkswagen Beetle that be came so popular.
After the second world war, Porsche began building cars with Ferry Porsche, his son and they called their first car the Porsche 356. The car was a small sports car very similar in design to the VW with the same four cylinder rear mounted engine.
It was a far cry from the Porsche we know today with only 40 horsepower and a maximum speed of only 87 miles per hour. They first designed the 356 to be a convertible but later it was redesigned as a coupe by Erwin Komenda, a master designer for Porsche who had been the head of that department since the days when they developed the Beetle. With its new innovative fastback design, the 356 coupe became the sports car poster child.
The Porsche tradition of signature sports cars continued to grow and with the introduction of the 911 developed by Butzi Porsche, Ferdinand’s grandson, and Komenda the popularity of the Porsche nameplate exploded! With the easily distinguishable sloped nose and the big frog eye headlamps, the 911 stood apart from the crowd and screamed its name to everyone.
This new Porsche became the cornerstone that Porsche wanted to display. Attempts to move away from the roots by building cars like the 924 and 928 almost ruined the company and were nowhere near as popular as it had been thought they would be.
After narrowly escaping financial disaster in that partnership with VW on the 924 and 928, the company came to the realization that what some of the engineers had thought of as being limiting was not that at all but was actually a niche market unto itself with the timeless features of the Porsche 911 design.
Now the company went to work with a design team that focused solely on improving the 911 and by 1999 the company released the all new Boxster, re-establishing the popularity of the sports car company.
Tags: mercedes benz, sports car, sports cars, tanks