Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…The new VW CEO, he actually gets a pretty good deal out of this. He deepens the relationship with Ferdinand. He gives the car fully to Porsche. But in exchange, VW takes over all of Porsche's distribution in America. A huge deal for VW. We're starting to re-intertwining these companies just a little bit. That deal is an enormously wide-ranging partnership, because you're trading distribution from one side of your business with the ability to create a product on your other side. It's basically merging the companies because it's so massively intertwined now in this partnership, where it's not like, oh, yeah, we partner with them on this one small little thing. It's like, no, our car that we expect to sell more of than any other car, is made by this other company. Meanwhile, on the VW side of things, it's like, America, the most important and largest growing car market in the world, we now own the distribution for Porsche. Even if it's not structured this way, this is a merger. If history were a straight line, what you were saying would come to pass. Unfortunately, it's not a straight line or fortunately for drama on our show. You're absolutely right. The 914 goes on to be a huge success. It sells way more units than the 911, which was the whole strategy. Porsche is cool with this. They're like, great, we're making our profits on the more expensive 911. We've segmented out our market. The 914 is the entry level Porsche. It sells 100,000 units in the eight years that it's on the market. I think it really shows. Doug, you can comment on this. There is also a market for mid-engine Roadsters, including the one sitting behind us, regardless of price. These are pretty amazing sports cars.…

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