customer ordered cars versus cars just shipped over from the factory

[Dmill]

A friend recently got a very nice low mileage '72 S in the shop. The car was sold new in the south, yet it did not come with A/C, does have sunroof, leather steering, wheel comfort seats, tow hook

This lead me to think about my '73S. radio delete, no A/C (A/C installed at the dealership) comfort seats, sunroof and the stock fake leather steering wheel....I always thought my car was a weird combination of options.

All of this has me wondering....I wonder what percentage of S's sold were special order cars versus cars that were just shipped over for dealer inventory.

I think my '73S must have just been a dealer stock car....who would have ordered a sunroof and no radio and comfort seats...as the sunroof was one of the more expensive options.

I wonder if the US distributer had any influence in what options were chosen for cars shipped to the US..or was it just some guy in the factory throwing darts at a board with options listed on it.

It seems logical that there would be more S's special ordered than the other models as they were the top of the line and the folks who could afford an S would want it with their choice of options....but as I see more and more cars with option choices that don't seem to go together, I question my own assertion.

[Chuck Miller]

I think the folks on this board that worked for (or close to) dealerships back in the day will have some enlightened answers to your question... Our friend Harvey Weidman is one.....

[911T1971]

IMHO I would be careful about interpreting options&equipments ordered +40 years ago on those cars and of what would be today desirable or not.

As for your 73S, its seems pretty "logical". He ordered standard seats as most customers did, wanted a comfortable option of a Sunroof but was less into listen to Radio. Plus had the Apperaence Group option automaticially included on a S.

Here are some interesting infos:
*Most expensive model of the 911 line up was not the 911S Coupe but the 911S Targa.
*Even today highly desirable on a car (Recaro Sport seats), those not only were much less often ordered than standard seats but Sports Seats were at the similar price or in exchange of Standard seats (depends markets).
*A/C: While one could order a sunroof only at the factory, A/C could be later dealer installed at anytime.
*Most expensive option in 72/73 were Sportomatic, all leather interior and an electric Sunroof.
*M470: Both in 1972 and 1973 911S came standard with Option M470 ie Appereance/comfort Group.

Selling the Porsche, Dealer training book, issue 1972

[Harvey Weidman]

All of this has me wondering....I wonder what percentage of S's sold were special order cars versus cars that were just shipped over for dealer inventory.

ALL Porsches were "custom" ordered. There were no "standard inventory" cars.
I remember hearing of some spec 911Es and 914/6s that the Culver City distributor ordered and they were a sales flop.
But, even those were custom ordered.....I was told they took forever to sell. And it wasn't that many...maybe 10 or 20....
A percentage of the cars were customer ordered and by the late 60s it was very small.
The dealers had the best handle on what would move. And..what they wanted traded in the next go around....
So they would order cars for their own "speculation" based on what would sell or could be easily traded (for an odd color for example), they made their orders.
The really odd combinations were frequently a customer order or a dealer mistake in reading the option codes.
One of my jobs was to help the sales dept translate the options to sales lingo...And hopefully, stop a mistake in time.....
Most of the years, there was an allocation number that the dealer had to order otherwise you would loose the cars for the following year.
So we would blindly order up to our limit as soon as we could just in case they would let us have any other dealer's allotment at the end of the year.
H

[BrentF]

One thing is for sure: The target market for 911s was men and not men and women, as evidenced by the training manual that reads "if your prospect.....tell him....finds himself...."