Best Porsche Car Show this 2009

Porsche is a German luxury car currently owned by the Volkswagen Company. The company was founded in 1931 and has been touted to be a luxury car for the rich and famous. Since the beginning, Porsche has always catered to an exclusive clientele.

The current Porsche cars include the Boxter Roadster, Cayman, Carrera and the Panamera. Unlike many other car companies, Porsche has had the ability to weather the financial crises of the 40, 70s and 90s. The reason has been chiefly due to limited car production, good engineering and reasonable price.
Parts of the car are made in various European countries and then the car is assembled in Stuttgart. Recent reports indicate that Porsche remains the most successful car company both in terms of profitability and stability of ownership.

Porsche' major competition both on the racing circuit and the consumer market has been Ferrari. While Ferrari is prohibitively expensive and has done well on the racing circuit, Porsche on the other hand has done well with the consumer market. In the consumer market, Porsche competes with Mercedes, Audi and BMW.

The great engineering and innovational skills have allowed Porsche to be a consultant for Audi, SEAT, Subaru, Daewoo and Yugo.

Since the 60s, a lot has changed about Porsche. Porsche has always lent its engineering skills to others car manufacturers and has now teamed up with Toyota to develop the next generation of hybrid sports car. The four door coupe Panamera will be the first hybrid for Porsche. The all time most costly Porsche is the Carrera GT, currently costing close to $500,000 in the USA and is the most expensive Porsche ever built.

The company has gone extensive re-structuring by Volkswagen. In 2000, the famous 911 has again regained its name as the top selling Porsche of all time and continues to sell well world wide.

With solid finances and a great car, Porsche has not been hit with the global economic downturn. With all the money available the company should remain stable for many more years.

Learn more about Porsche at http://www.eurorennen.com and sign up for the Porsche Car Show

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A New Brand From Toyota?

Although Toyota is one of the leading auto manufacturers in the world, the late 1990's saw a shift of younger consumers away from the Toyota brand. This is not a new concept, as most car manufacturers have had to deal with this unique shift at some point in their histories. Industrial psychologists throughout the twentieth century have concluded that the issue stems from a natural need for human offspring to develop independence outside of the parent-child relationship. Studies show that younger consumers naturally make choices that allow them to develop a separate identity. Brand shifting is just one more way that the next generation establishes this unique identity.

In order to combat this, Toyota announced plans in the latter half of the nineties to lure generation Y back to the Toyota brand. The project was entitled Project Genesis. While the project itself was not successful, the Scion line grew out of this failed attempt.

The public got its first glimpse of Toyota's new concept car at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show on January 2, 2003. The xA and XB were the 2004 models that were displayed at the show. Toyota introduced the vehicles slowly. The cars were made available at just 104 dealerships and were limited to California only. The next year Toyota made the cars available nationwide. The Scion xB was unveiled in December of 2006. Scion currently has three models available to buyers in the United States. These include the tC, which is a three-door lift back, a five-door box shaped compact wagon and the xD, which is a five-door subcompact car.

Toyota has changed its sales strategy for the Scion line up, calling it Value Innovation. The concept is founded on key factors that include price, options, performance handling, confidence in buying and 21st radio. Scion has incorporated into its sales strategy a concept it calls "Pure Price" and monospec trim levels. The monospec allows for a wide selection of factory and TRD accessories.

The "Pure Price" strategy entails listing the price of the vehicle, whether on the car, in an advertisement of on a display board at the dealership. The price includes the vehicle, accessories, finance and insurance products. Whatever price is listed is what the customer pays. This removes any negotiation from the price. It was meant to entice buyers by offering a simpler and cleaner process that was open and balanced. The strategy is not a new one, having been used by both Geo and Saturn with mixed results.

The monospec strategy offers consumers only one trim level with the ability to make the car unique to the individual buyer. To do this Scion has joined with various aftermarket companies to give each buyer up to 40 different options from which to add to the vehicle. The success of this has yet to be determined and as some critics have pointed out, Toyota is taking an unusual risk in terms of its history of quality automobiles. Because aftermarket items have proven in the past to be of far less quality than the products that Toyota installs while vehicles are assembled in the factory, Toyota may be jeopardizing their to date sterling reputation for produce superior automobiles.

Ronnie Tanner is a contributing writer at SW Engines. He writes about used Scion engines and other departmental updates for the company.

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Tesla S a Luxurious Electric Sedan

This past March, Tesla Motors unveiled a prototype of its second vehicle, dubbed the Tesla S. Following on the heels of the recently released Tesla Roadster, the Tesla S takes the automaker in a slightly different direction - seeking to appeal to mainstream buyers, particularly those of less costly sedans with long term higher ownership costs.

Initial Appeal For The Sedan Is Strong

A seven passenger model, the Tesla S will not be going into production until late 2011, which means that when the sedan hits the market it will be cast as a 2012 model. That is still a long way off, but interest in the car is rising steadily. The automaker made a recent announcement that more than one thousand people have plunked down a $5000 refundable deposit on the sedan, signaling that the appeal for this car will eventually prove to be strong.

The Tesla Roadster made its debut in 2008 and is the first pure electric car of its kind. Powered by lithium-ion batteries, the Roadster is famous for going from zero to sixty in just 3.9 seconds while emitting zero emissions. Priced at around $108,000 before a $7500 federal tax credit kicks in, the Tesla Roadster is for the hard core sports car enthusiast, thus it is a low volume vehicle. To date, Tesla has produced just 400 copies of the Roadster although many times that number of people are on the their waiting list.

Going For A Broader Audience

With the Tesla S, Tesla Motors decided to go with a wider audience in a bid to attract customers. Priced at about $57,000, the Tesla S will get the same $7500 federal tax credit Roadster buyers receive, pushing the car's price just below $50,000. Styled like a European luxury sedan, the S will seat five adults and two children, an unusual configuration for a car in this class.

Like the Roadster, the zero emissions S will appeal to environmentally concerned drivers. Powered by a lithium ion battery pack the sedan should have a driving range of about 300 miles. At this time, the automaker says that they are working on a QuickCharge onboard recharging unit, a device that could recharge the sedan's depleted batteries in as little as 45 minutes. This means that for the person taking a long trip, they could stop long enough to enjoy dinner before heading out in their freshly recharged sedan without having to lose out on travel time.

All The Amenities Luxury Drivers Demand

Inside, the design of the Tesla S will astound buyers especially as they take note of a whopping seventeen inch display panel for navigation and offer all of the technological feedback and enhancements that today's luxury car buyers demand. Premium car buyers who are attracted to a BMW or a Mercedes will feel at home in the Tesla S, perhaps finding that the car's power and low ownership costs beyond the base price make it an attractive vehicle for them.

As far as the mass production of the Tesla S goes, a lot will depend on customer demand at that time. Several other automakers are coming out with their own electric sedan, including the Fisker Karma which will be priced some $30,000 more than the Tesla S model.

Matthew C. Keegan is a freelance writer who resides in North Carolina. Matt is a contributing writer for Andy's Auto Sport an aftermarket supplier of quality parts including BMW rims and Ford Mustang rims

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