Carpokes Porsche Forum

So the difference in my case is that I never signed any agreement. It was a wide open, anything-can-happen situation going in that we all understood. If I had demanded a set price as a condition of accepting the allocation, there was no way the dealership would have complied - it would have been business suicide for them to do so. They stated flat out that no one at the dealership or at PCNA or at Porsche AG had a clue as to what might come down the road regarding tariffs, trade negotiations or reciprocal agreements. Pricing down the road was an unknown. (By the way, reciprocals have become the biggest area of importance in the trade talks going on around the world. Yesterday's settlement with Japan was largely about that. The agreement with Japan represents another step in the direction of hopefully getting these negotiations completed everywhere. The Nikkei 225 agreed, soaring over 3.5% by yesterday's market close.)

One thing I wrote in my post above that came directly to me from the person above the dealership's sales mgrs was that this increase, while steep, now represents a locked price that will be honored by Porsche regardless of where tariffs end up. (I believe that Porsche has a good idea of what the trade numbers are going to be, barring an EU/US negotiating implosion.)

As I said in that post, I'd rather face the known as opposed to a possible 10% or more tariff surprise that would have been a deal-breaker for me. Porsche knows this - namely that customers would run the opposite direction if things were to get seriously out of hand. The company is trying to stem the financial hemorrhaging without losing all their customers.

Could that promise be taken away by some sudden pivot to an all out trade war shutdown with, for instance, enactments of 50% or 100% tariffs? Absolutely. Nothing is in writing and anything can happen. If something like that were to occur, I'd just walk away from the car. However, any scenario like that would likely kill Porsche, the company. Sadly, in a situation like that they'd have no control of their fate.

Hi Tom,
As I dug deeper into the paperwork, I found additional information protecting Porsche AG on their prices and possible build changes. You are correct that it isn't a true contract. So, either party can walk from the deal. Thank you for the conversation and clarification.

SouthBoundCJ wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 1:39 pm Hi Tom,
As I dug deeper into the paperwork, I found additional information protecting Porsche AG on their prices and possible build changes. You are correct that it isn't a true contract. So, either party can walk from the deal. Thank you for the conversation and clarification.

I'm not at all surprised to hear that, though I would argue the dealer mishandled your situation by not making that clear when you signed (or worse, as I suspect, actively implying and/or encouraging you to believe it was binding). When I bought my first brand new Porsche in 2017, I had a great sales guy (Vinnie, RIP). He got out the same paperwork and made it super clear that it meant virtually nothing. The only thing it really did was document the fully refundable deposit I gave him that day. He said he'd do everything in his power to sell me the car at msrp (in the days before that changed every month) but he also made clear he had very little power if market value of the car went up. As he pointed out at the time, if the market dropped, customers expect the lower price, so the dealers take the same position when the market goes up (absent a darn good relationship with the dealer anyway). That conversation was all about ADMs, but the underlying point is the same -- no one is bound to anything until you actually buy the car and get the key.