PORSCHE CAR CONFIGURATOR EXPERT TIPS

Porsche Centre

Willoughby Sales

Executive Stewart Budd shares his Porsche Car Configurator expert tips and insight into building your dream Porsche.

Expert Tip: If you have decided on a bright loud colour on the outside, my tip is to contrast that with a quieter interior shade on the inside. This advice also works in reverse when you go for a more toned-down exterior choice then you have more options to play with the interior and making the inside unique.

A great starting point is to first choose a model from the Porsche line up. From there we can discuss what variant is most suitable from within that chosen model range. For this example, let’s choose the 911 model, next you are selecting an appropriate power level which begins at the Carrera and increases throughout the Carrera S, GTS and the Turbo etc.

We also need to discover if the client wants 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive and lastly the body shape in Coupe, Cabriolet or Targa.

Colour is often the driving factor with clients, the colour then dictates or guides many interior colour choices or avenues. It's very rare that a client would not have a strong opinion on either exterior colour or an interior they want which in turn then dictates the exterior.

I would show the client around the dealership and point out colour and wheel options which are available on the Porsche configurator.

A Carrera and Carrera S in Coupe are the most popular cars, so for this example we will configure a 911 Carrera. The important main colour choice for this example will be Aventurine Green. Wheel choice is a personal preference, I personally like either the 20-/21-inch Carrera S wheels in silver or the 20-/21-inch RS Spyder Design wheels with the dark Aventurine Green on the Carrera. Keep budget in mind here as wheels can be a big-ticket option, a choice needs to be made if a wheel worth $7150 is better than a wheel which costs only $3400. Potentially that budget saving could be used for a sunroof etc. The configurator really is a game of compromise if you wish to keep to a specific budget, definitely a Porsche Sales Executive can assist here.

In choosing the silver RS Spyder Design wheels I recommend that silver be the theme to flow through other options as we have a lot of elements that adhere to the theme i.e.: the badges, pipes and headlights are silver. If you would like to have a black theme, then I would recommend you have to change the associated elements to match.

The coloured Porsche crest really upgrades any wheel and tire choice.

Moving onto the interior there's a lot of choice. Just like the exterior the main choice here is whether you go for a light interior or a dark interior, note 90% of the cars in our showroom have a dark or black interior. I would explain to the client the meaning to the term ‘full leather’. When we say full leather, it means the dashboard, the tops of the doors and side elbow level trims in the back of the car and the steering column.

Expert Tip: To make the most of your wheel selection I recommend going to ‘Wheel Accessories’ and changing the centre cap to ‘Wheel centres with full-colour Porsche crest’.

If you wish to specify a light interior and you are happy to opt for full leather, that opens a lot of options for leather colours, quality, and stitching.

Our choice of the Aventurine Green exterior colour, gives us many options, we could choose a classic Two-tone Black and Mojave Beige or choose a lighter option with Slate Grey and Crayon. Truffle Brown is certainly a great choice to accompany Aventurine Green exterior, but for this example we will choose a Club leather interior in Agave Green to emulate classic 911 and 930 heritage cars which were Green on Green.

Let’s talk seats. To me the standard 14-way seats are a great choice, they have everything most clients require. The alternatives are the 4-way and 18-way seats, they have the same look, yet the 18-way has more adjustability and memory options. The best way to make a choice is to see which seat best fits your body, I would definitely have my client come into the dealership and sit in the driving position to understand how each seat feels to ensure they make an informed choice, especially if they are new to Porsche seats.

There are larger interior option packages which group certain exclusive options together, these packages may have restrictions on colour and associated options.

Moving back to the exterior there are five things that I would advise here. First I would advise on selecting a sunroof or glass roof, we are choosing the glass roof to keep the line of the 911 pure. Another option is to take an extra step towards 911 tradition and select Edging trim strips for the side windows in high-gloss anodised Aluminium ‘Trim strips in Aluminium’, normally this element is platinum silver, you can also choose Black (high-gloss). There is also a large selection of decorative Porsche decals as options in this section.

If you wished to put silver on the rear engine grill element this option is only available on the Carrera S model, you can have small strips of body colour added to the rear grill if that was important to you on the Carrera. Note to train spotters, this is how to tell a high spec Carrera from a Carrera S.

Moving on to the 'Drive train / Chassis' the ‘Lifting system front axle’ is a lifesaver if you have a steep driveway entry but most Carrera owners will not need this option which is aimed at the GT cars. Sport Chrono Package is a popular option that many people will opt for. I must say that apart from the handy mode selection dial, the use of other options in the Sport Chrono Package like Sport Plus, Launch control and the Lap timer will on the most part go unused for many Carrera buyers. I like to know the car has dynamic engine mounts even if I can't feel them in use, and yes the analogue and digital stopwatch on the dashboard is a handsome addition to the interior. Defer to your budget when selecting this option, it is purely a client choice and there is no right or wrong answer with Sport Chrono.

My recommendation on the glass, is that it should be left clear on a 911 to best show off the wonderful and iconic traditional 911 window line. It is subtle but the tinted glass can work against this flow and divide the glass in two parts visually. We are leaving the matrix headlights as standard, the option ‘Tinted LED main headlights with matrix beam’ tints the silver black and because we are themed in silver on this example, we'll leave that standard.

Expert Tip: Selecting the ‘Sports tailpipes in Silver’ without ticking the full ‘Sports exhaust system’, to me the car is loud and on full throttle it makes a great noise with the factory exhaust. With the Sports Exhaust System there will be more noise while low-speed driving with associated pops and bangs, when the throttle is down both exhausts make a great noise. So selecting just the Sports tailpipes in Silver option is an inexpensive way of getting the visual upgrade of the 4 pipes without the expensive exhausts upgrade.

A client's buying experience for example may entail an initial enquiry here in the dealership on a Saturday where I would show them quickly the options on the Porsche they are interested in, then potentially they would go home and play on the Porsche configurator themselves and then they would come back in and I would help refine the specification and make any recommendations to assist, before moving forward with a clients special car.

Expert Tip: Now with this collection of options, it is wise to remember if you're building a Carrera as a guide, one should aim and keep the overall price under the RRP of a standard Carrera S.

There are a few safety systems you can option like, ‘Active Parking Support’, ‘Lane Keep Assist’ and 'Night View Assist' which is helpful in country areas to assist in seeing animals on the road ahead, it will alert you and flash them. These layers of protection depend largely on the use of the car.

There's an option to change the steering wheel slightly, this option removes the trim of silver and also the standard heating as we're going for the heritage look we'll keep this standard also.

There's an interesting option to brighten the edge of the dashboard which is a nice way to brighten the interior specification without needing the aluminium insert. There is also a no cost ‘Storage package’ option which comprises a luggage net in the front passenger footwell and two luggage nets in the luggage compartment.

You can also change the colour of the central dial to match your colour theme or use it as a highlight element. I like to draw attention to the subtle elegance of the 911 dials in their standard form here.

In the next ‘Interior in Leather’ section there are two things I would recommend one of them is the ‘Porsche crest on headrests’ and my signature option is ‘Steering column casing in leather’.

In the ‘Audio and Communication’ section I find the standard offering of the Bose system is amazing, the optional Burmester is out of control good. If music is your life and the intricacies of sound is your passion then select the Burmester High-End Surround Sound System box, the Bose stereo is more than adequate for most clients.

Now at the end of the configurator, we are taking stock of what options are selected and we've added $24,830 in options, the main items here are the leather, sunroof, and the wheels. If this is not within my client’s budget, we can go back, and I can show them any alternatives that we can select to achieve a similar look to meet their budget.