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supply a new 996 engine, fully dressed, for around
£8000. Well a new crankcase cost £3000 so a
rebuild just isn’t economical. The problem some
customers have is that their car isn’t worth the outlay
of a new engine. Obviously Autofarm and Hartech
have come up with very good solutions to prevent
failures, if the fault can be diagnosed in time that is,
but if you’re too late you’re left with a worthless car.
And that’s not good for Porsche,” muses Paul.
He makes a good point, and soon the topic turns
to Porsche’s, and ultimately VW’s, decision to push
the sports car firm down the high volume route. “Why
is it doing this?” asks Paul. “The cars should be
more
bespoke. By chasing volume it is watering down the
product and it needs to be careful not to erode away
all it has built up over the last 60 years.
“When I first fell for Porsche it was its concept and
philosophy that I liked,” Paul recalls, “it produced
small-engined, high-performance cars that were
special, knocking the biggest car corporations – like
Jaguar, British Leyland, Audi and Ford – off the
podium with its low volume sports cars. And it wasn’t
just in endurance racing, but rallying, too. Porsche
was an inspirational company back then.
“Don’t get me wrong, it still is today, but only to
people like you and me. I worry that the volume
customers are buying the cars not because of what
has gone before, namely the hard-worked reputation
that has been built-up, but because it’s an alternative,
affordable badge to a BMW, Mercedes or Audi.”
It’s purely by chance that our time with Paul
coincides with our
First Drive
review of the 911 GT3
RS4.0, the last Porsche 911 that will feature an
engine that can trace its routes back to the 964 RS
and beyond. “What a great engine that is; it optimises
everything that Porsche stands for: great engineering,
reliability and incredible performance.” Paul enthuses.
“It’s a classic, but I can’t see its like ever appearing in
a Porsche again, and that’s sad.”
Of course, like many of us, Paul will stay loyal to
Porsche no matter where its future direction takes it.
“Recently we’ve lost a couple of customers on the
racing side who have sold their 997 GT3 Rs and
RSRs to go and race quicker Ferraris, but they will be
back as soon as Porsche builds a competitive GT car
again,” he reveals. “But then we’ve also picked up a
number of customers who are moving into historic
motorsport, too.”The perfect illustration of this is the
911 2.8 RSR rally car that is currently sharing
workshop space with a recently arrived, fresh-out-the-
box 911 RSR. “We will, despite me saying this for
many years, also move into the sales side of things.
It’s the only aspect of the business I’ve never got
into, and while some may think it’s an already
crowded market place for Porsche sales, I think we
can delivery that something extra,” Paul concludes.
As with the a select few in this industry, Paul Robe
is one of the Porsche guys you could spend hours
talking to, listening and learning what went on in the
past, hearing the current hot topics and, perhaps
most interestingly and intriguingly, his feelings and
thoughts on Porsche’s future. Porsche may be at a
crossroads, but with people like Paul being part of
the Porsche specialist network there will always be a
select few who will be able to make sense of it all.
And for that, we should be grateful
l
92 WWW.GTPURELYPORSCHE.COM
in the
trade
Over 25 years of running Porsches in the world’s leading motor racing series has provided PARR with a wealth of knowledge that keeps competitors coming back, year after year.
The road side part of the business means it can apply its know-how to customer road cars, too. Tuning the 911 GT3 for the track has been a speciality for some time
Below: PARR prepares the Carrera Cup GT3 (left) for the Carrera World Cup at the Nürburgring while, far right, sits the factory-fresh, brand-new 911 RSR GT race car
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