A customer ordered a Porsche 918 Spyder, paid $2 million for it, and hoped to receive it by Friday. However, his car disappeared during a cross-country shipment, and the truck's tracker was turned off the entire time. What was the shipping company hiding? The dealership found out.
Shipping a super expensive exotic item across the country is a harrowing process. Anything can happen in transit. Fires, accidents, theft. Tell someone, it's happened before.
Recently, the unique and priceless Ford Probe Ghia concept car was completely destroyed in a fire that engulfed both the car and the enclosed trailer that was transporting it to storage after being displayed during Monterey Car Week.
Matthew Ivanhoe is the owner of The Cultivated Collector. Located in New Canaan, Connecticut, the dealership sells exotic and classic cars. It may seem like a dream job, but it’s one that occasionally causes him a lot of headaches. The latest such event was transporting a Porsche across the country.
For two whole days he had no idea where the car his dealership was supposed to deliver, or what truck was supposed to deliver it. Insurance would cover it, but was the car really gone?
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A customer once bought a Porsche 918 Spyder in GT Silver Metallic. He was so excited and eager to have it that he even asked the dealer to deliver it by Friday. He had already paid for it earlier in the week. He wanted to invite his entire family over for the weekend and show everyone his brand new Porsche.
Matthew would leave no stone unturned to get that car delivered on time and make the customer happy. However, he didn't know that much didn't depend on him.
He started making phone calls. He got much higher prices for having the Porsche delivered so quickly. He found a team of two drivers who would drive non-stop across the country. Matthew even flew to his customer's city and personally delivered the car.
The car has been picked up from the shop. Matthew is already on the plane. When he lands, he gets a message from his office. The truck has broken down. The customer took it lightly.
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The next day, the truck would be ready for delivery. But the next day, when he checked the truck's tracker, he got no information. He had no idea where the truck was. The company told him it would be there before the end of the day, but then they stopped answering calls from Matthew and the dealership.
Eventually they figured out why the tracker was off. The two drivers drove across the country so fast that they were close to their destination more than a day early. So, they decided they had just enough time for one more delivery. They left the Porsche in a parking lot and planned to return and deliver it on time.
The truck never broke down. He had kept the owner informed, what would he tell him now? The office manager asked someone to go and check the car. It was fine. He also tracked down the truck, which was delivering a vehicle about 70 miles away.
So, the dealership took another truck to pick up the Porsche. But after two days sitting somewhere in Arizona, it was covered in dust. So, they had to tidy it up and get it ready for delivery. Only, it wasn't delivered by Friday. The customer got it on Sunday, but still managed to reunite his family.
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In production between September 2013 and June 2015 and sold out by December 2014, the Porsche 918 Spyder started at $845,000 in the U.S. new. Equipped with the Weissach package, it can even top the $2 million mark. However, Matthew says it was not a high-end car.
The 918 Spyder is powered by a 4.6-liter naturally aspirated V8 engine and two electric motors, one front and one rear. Together, they produce 875 horsepower (887 metric horsepower). A seven-speed PDK transmission sends the power to an all-wheel-drive configuration.
The 918 Spyder is equipped with a 6.8 kWh lithium-ion battery, which stored energy for a range of up to 12 miles (19 kilometers). That may not sound like much, but that was a decade ago, and the 918 was more about performance than efficiency. Only 918 examples rolled off the production line in Zuffenhausen, Germany.
The Porsche supercar accelerates from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 km/h) in 2.5 seconds, covers the quarter mile in 10 seconds flat and reaches a top speed of 214 mph (345 km/h). The Weissach package shaves 0.1 seconds off the quarter mile.
