By Tim Harris · January 19, 2026

Here’s the uncomfortable truth Porsche doesn’t want to hear:

It’s not losing on performance.
It’s losing on philosophy.

Porsche used to sell cars. Now it increasingly sells specs.

Paint-to-sample debates. Stitching color arguments. Wheel finish discourse. Forum threads dissecting whether a car is “right” or “wrong” before anyone asks how it actually drives. That mindset used to live squarely in Ferrari-land.

Now it’s creeping into Porsche culture.

And once that happens, the product roadmap follows.

Ferrari learned long ago that it’s more profitable to sell personalization than reinvention. Once buyers obsess over build sheets instead of balance, the incentives change:

Porsche is drifting into that same trap—encouraged by buyers who care more about resale optics than steering feel.

The result?
Bigger cars. Heavier cars. More expensive cars.
And a generation quietly checking out.

There used to be a clear progression:

Cheap fun → serious fun → aspirational Porsche

That ladder is collapsing.

An $80K–$90K entry point isn’t a “starter Porsche.” It’s a financial cliff. And once buyers miss that early emotional bond, they don’t magically return at 45 with a 911 allocation request.

They go elsewhere—and stay there.

Here’s the part that should worry Stuttgart.

Other manufacturers are zigging while Porsche zags.

Mazda is rumored to be doubling down on the Miata’s original mission—not electrifying it into irrelevance, not bloating it into a luxury toy, but refining lightness, simplicity, and feel. Less screen. Less weight. More driver. A car that knows exactly what it is.

Toyota—the company no one accused of passion for decades—is doing something even more dangerous:
reviving emotional nameplates.

These cars aren’t trying to be everything. They’re trying to be right.

And that’s exactly where Porsche used to dominate.

It needs another entry point.

Not a detuned luxury car.
Not a limited-run heritage cosplay machine.
A simple, analog, modern Porsche that real people can buy, drive hard, fix, modify, and keep.

Right now, Porsche risks becoming Ferrari with a friendlier logo:
a brand admired, collected, and spec’d to death—while fewer people actually drive the hell out of them.

Younger enthusiasts aren’t waiting.

They’re buying:

They’re learning suspension geometry, not options codes.
They’re bonding with brands that meet them where they are.

And once that bond forms, it sticks.

Porsche has two choices:

If Porsche doesn’t do this, someone else will—and they already are.

The tragedy wouldn’t be that Porsche lost lap-time supremacy.
It would be that it lost its next generation without realizing it until the showroom got very quiet.

Porsche doesn’t need to be faster.
It needs to remember why people cared in the first place.

— Tim Harris

🏁 The Full Throttle Talk Team
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