Photo: Reuters
Just over a week ago reports came in that the ship Felicity Ace was set adrift in the Atlantic Ocean with a cargo hold full of luxury automobiles on fire. Luckily all of the crew was rescued from the ship, and nobody was injured or killed in the process. Unfortunately that means something like $40 million dollars worth of cars were left onboard to be ravaged by fire, including several freshly-built Porsches.
Back in 2019 a ship called the Grande America sank en route to Brazil with 37 Porsches onboard. This included a quartet of limited production 991 GT2 RS models, which had already exited production by this time. Because Porsche is the stand up company that it is, that assembly line was re-jigged to run an extra four GT2 RS through for those customers with abandoned cars. It was a costly and tough decision, but ultimately Porsche moved heaven and earth to ensure that its clients would get the cars they ordered.
It would seem that the North American customers who were excited for the Felicity Ace to deliver their shiny new P-car will be treated to the same experience. Some of these cars were ordered months and months ago, and the wait was nearly over. Amidst supply chain woes, higher-than-ever demand, and a total lack of semiconductor chips means cars have been taking longer and longer to hammer out. In spite of all that, Porsche is working to expedite the production process for all of these ordered-but-lost 911s, 718s, Taycans, Macans, Cayennes, and Panameras.
“We are already working to replace every car affected by this incident,” Porsche spokesperson Marcus Kabel replied in an email to driving.ca. “The cars will be as close as possible to their original, ordered specification.”
based on feedback from customers, most are looking forward to receiving reordered vehicles.”
On the details of the specific cases, this is between the dealer and the customer. We are working to expedite the delivery of a replacement vehicle as soon as possible. We are working on this as a priority; the first cars will be built soon.”
Porsche has given anyone affected by the fire the opportunity to back out of their order, returning their deposit in full. It seems like most have chosen to re-start the build process. Porsche, being Porsche, has moved them to the front of the line. Where before these cars were subject to an eight to ten month waiting period (for non-PTS colors), some are reporting expected delivery dates in June of this year, which seems pretty quick.
I don’t know where Porsche is going to get the extra parts supply or factory capacity to hurry this along, but hopefully it comes from somewhere. The magicians in Stuttgart are standing by.