A New Era for Official Porsche Centres

The trend to online sales is a challenge for every vehicle manufacturer. How do you embrace the ‘click to buy’ generation while also engendering a sense of community that builds loyalty? For Porsche, the answer is to evolve its Porsche Centre concept from ‘a point of sale’ to ‘a point of brand experience’ that will provide “an emotive, tactile and physical presentation of (our) cars and brand stories”.
 
From a brand experience perspective, online selling is distinctly one-dimensional. Research shows that customers value an experience that touches all their senses; it gives them confidence, brings the brand to life and helps them imagine it in their lives. Seeing and touching options like extended leather and beautiful stitching can also push up highly profitable option sales, so encouraging customers into the showrooms has stayed high on the priority list.
 
The Destination Porsche concept recognises this and brings the digital and physical together. Like many of Porsche’s new vehicle models, it wraps a radical change around an aesthetic evolution, building on familiar design themes to bring them thoroughly up to date for a new age.
 
Porsche Centre Reading, one of five Centres owned by the company’s in-house Porsche Retail Group (the others are West London, Guildford, Hatfield and Mayfair), was the first to be transformed, followed by Nottingham, High Wycombe and Newport. This last is owned by Dick Lovett, an impressive family-owned business that has been a good friend of Porsche Club Great Britain.



Passion for classics
A Porsche 356 was the second car sold by the eponymous Dick Lovett after he began trading in 1966, quickly followed by a rare 904. By 1971, the company was selling new Porsches too but, in a sign of the times, they didn’t open a standalone Porsche dealership (in Marlborough) until 1980. Today, they operate four (in Bristol, Newport, Swindon and Tewkesbury) as well as dealerships for Aston Martin, Ferrari and a handful of premium brands.
 
I meet Simon Lisemore at Porsche Centre Swindon, where he is the dealer principal. As soon as we shake hands, it’s clear he’s from a different mould to many senior dealership staff. Welcoming and friendly, he’s straight into how much he enjoys Club events. A video of a recent Club meet at the dealership springs onto the screen and we are immediately into serious Porsche talk.
 
We start with Porsche Classic. Swindon was one of Porsche’s first Classic Partners, joining the scheme in 2016. Like many Club members with whom I’ve discussed the topic, I’ve always been a little cautious about taking a classic to an OPC. Aren’t they more interested in modern cars into which they can plug their computers? Do they have the skills to fettle carburettors and mechanical injection systems?
 
Porsche considers a classic to be any model that has been out of production for 10 years or more, so the list includes the 997 generation of 911, the 987 Boxster/Cayman and the E1 (first-generation) Cayenne, an example of which Swindon ran for their own use and later restored as part of Porsche’s Reinvent Programme.

“With this generation of car, and even some of the air-cooled cars, we have technicians who worked on them in-period. We also have the original manuals and specialist tools,” explains Simon. “We’re finding that the younger technicians love the character of the older cars and enjoy learning what you might call more ‘traditional’ diagnostic and maintenance skills from the more experienced hands.”
 
Porsche treats classics very seriously, so there’s also a robust training programme. Classic-accredited technicians are sent on dedicated training courses in Germany and, more recently, to courses held at Porsche’s UK headquarters in Reading too. Training to the highest level of accreditation takes three years.



Behind the scenes
Directed through the ‘staff only’ door that separates sales from service, I’m greeted by manager Simon Gough. “When you host open ramp days for the Club,” I ask, “what are the biggest surprises for our members?” 
 
“It’s when our team starts talking about how we source the parts,” says Simon G, without hesitation. “We located the last-ever new front bumper for a super-rare 968 Turbo S, but it’s the anecdote about finding a new 993 fabric soft top – it was in a dusty storeroom in Australia – that really gets them.”
 
Most classic parts are considerably easier to track down because more than 60,000 are available through the normal parts system. It’s when a request is received for something particularly challenging that the full might of Swindon’s classic parts research centre (a computer terminal in a corner office, operated by an impressively thorough parts specialist) swings into action. Swindon is one of five Classic Centres with Special Procurement capability, which means they can search every Porsche dealership worldwide and can even request remanufacture of out-of-stock parts. “We are happy to spend time diving deep into the global parts system and, if we can’t find the piece you need, we can often ask for it to be remanufactured, either in batches at the factory or individually using 3D printing,” says Simon G.
 
I pop the most difficult question: why would an owner bring their classic to a fiendishly expensive OPC instead of a trusted local specialist? “That’s easy to answer,” says Simon L. “First, we aren’t expensive. Our daily rate is probably higher but, because we have rigorously trained classic technicians with access to a vast parts stock and most of the original specialist diagnostics and tools, we can often complete jobs more quickly. Sometimes we can be cheaper than an independent.”
 
Second comes the value that a Porsche stamp in the book or a Porsche invoice for the repair can add to a car. “And, of course, there is also the convenience of having the same level of service that you’d expect if you brought us a new car,” adds Simon.
 
This commitment to classics isn’t just through a passion for maintaining Porsche’s fine heritage: it’s driven by a commercial objective too. In 2000, Porsche global sales had climbed slowly to around 50,000. By 2018, they were 200,000. That means the trickle of cars hitting classic status will soon become a flood, so classics are a growing business opportunity for Porsche and for its dealers.



Brand Destination
Porsche CEO Oliver Blume has announced that ‘luxury positioning’ is his number two objective, behind financial performance. Heading out of the workshop, along the office corridors and back to the boardroom at Porsche Centre Swindon, Simon L returns enthusiastically to the Destination Porsche concept and its role in easing Porsche even further into the luxury and lifestyle sector.
 
You’ll notice the differences as soon as you pull into the car park. At a Destination Porsche centre, the outside space is substantially larger, designed for hosting community activities and to welcome even more people to the dealership. High-speed EV chargers are available not just for Porsche owners but for all electric vehicles, hoping that the luxury experience will encourage brand conversions.
 
“We used to see a chap arrive quite regularly to charge his BMW. Sometimes he’d pop in for a coffee,” says Simon L. “One day, he popped in and bought a new Porsche.”
 
Every step in the journey has been thought through with meticulous Porsche attention to detail. Enter through the automatic sliding doors (chosen to minimise the barrier between the outside and the inside) and you will be presented with a vast, open space, high like a cathedral to Porsche and long like a fashion runway. At the end is a vast screen displaying Porsche motorsport and other brand-affirming images. Porsche says the new interiors are “characterised by an inviting and emotive atmosphere” that “immerses the visitor in the brand experience”.
 
The furniture is more than lavish; it’s utterly superb. Wonderful mid-century-style sofas and armchairs, many exquisitely upholstered in fine leather, invite you to luxuriate while awaiting your appointment with the ‘visualisation lounge’. Here, you can configure your new car in lifelike detail, supported by the usual displays of fine materials to touch and smell. Soon, a Virtual Reality capability will be added, allowing you to ‘sit’ inside the car and switch between options in radiant three dimensions.
 
Spending large sums of money is not, however, a prerequisite for entry. Simon explains that Destination Porsche centres are designed to welcome owners even if they have no business to progress with the Centre. For Club members waiting as their car progresses through the workshop, the new customer facilities add a very welcome level of additional convenience. Fine coffee can be sipped at work pods where customers can plug their laptops in and there is a luxuriously appointed meeting room so business can continue as normal.
 
Now that Dick Lovett has opened the impressive new Destination Porsche centre in Newport (replacing Cardiff), the next step is to redevelop the Bristol centre, which has just made a temporary move while the existing site is transformed. Simon L’s Porsche Centre in Swindon will be next, with plans for substantial upgrades already in development.
 
“Dick Lovett’s Official Porsche Centres recognise that we should be as much a part of the community as the Club, welcoming customers as fellow community members,” concludes Simon L. “Destination Porsche builds on that concept, giving us even more opportunities to engage with fellow enthusiasts.”