Porsche Has a Super Limited Paint Option and It's Almost a $100 Grand!

1. Porsche offers a panoply of paints without the pain-inducing price

Try to wrap your brain around this one: if you use Porsche’s configurator for the car at issue – the 911 Turbo S – you are given [as of this writing] 11 color options gratis, including seven metallics, four “Special Color” choices for $3,150 and “Saffron Yellow Metallic” which as a “Multi-Layer Paint Finish” is “worth” $11,580. I added the quotes on that last one, but it earned it: you can – for $6,980 – have Porsche paint-to-sample your 911 any color you want. As in an honest-to-Ferry, one-of-one color, including metallics. In Journalism School, they taught us that was the definition of “exclusive”. Instead, Porsche has decided that means five, and five means five each of four hues, as Chromaflair blue, violet and gold are on the menu, too. Still with me? It gets better/worse, depending on your side of this…

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

2. Chromaflair isn’t as “Exclusive” as it might seem

If you want to be specific, the “color” in question is, when it stands up tall like a big boy, “Python Green Chromaflair”. So, sure, it has a similar shade to the Green Tree Python – or Morelia Viridis for those of us with Wikipedia skills – but those same skills can be used to discover that it’s actually “ChromaFlair” or – and I swear this is true – ChromaLusion, ChromaPremier, Harlequin Color, IllusionColor, Maziora, MultiTones, MystiChrome, Interference Fireglow and Paradis Spectrashin [sic] (all of which are better, especially the last two), and Exclusive Line, Extreme Colors and ColourShift, which are… meh, name-wise. And that’s just from Wikipedia, and THAT’S just from “a wide range of names” by which it is known! And while “Python Green” and its siblings are limited to Porsche, the paint itself can be had in just about any color you want, and on anything you can think of, most of the time from their respective factories.

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

3. It’s like a game of financial chicken

When I said this paint job was 50 percent of the Porsche’s base price I wasn’t kidding. And to give the knife a twist I’ll add that they’ve done this at least once before, only the odds weren’t stacked so high in the Zuffen-house’s favor. Back in olden times when you could order a Porsche 918, they offered two “Liquid Metal” paint options – silver or blue – for $64,000 either way. Now, seeing as that was on a nearly $900,000 car, that was just a seven percent proposition. But here it’s a 51 percent issue, which makes it kind of ridiculous. A “standard” ChromaFlair finish on the Land Rover Range Rover, for instance – and remember, that’s got a LOT more surface area to cover – is “just” $14,500. It almost seems like Porsche is running an experiment to see just how much it can charge for paint before their customers “blink” and turn away. But even if they’re not… 

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

4. To most people it looks like a “wrap”

Amongst the many things you can find on YouTube are videos of people that have applied a sticky film to the outside of their car to make it shiny (or matte, another color, whatever). Generalizations are especially dangerous in this day and age, so I’ll simply refer to them as the “tasteless and over-monied” as a group. All due respect to Jaime Foxx and the like-minded, the “chrome-y” finish just looks (ironically) cheap and makes its choosers seem gauche and like they’re trying too hard. So, the fact that Porsche PAINTED your car that color will matter to roughly you, a few “fanboys” and… the fool you sell it to for some (even more) exorbitant price. In fact, I’m pretty sure even “Porsche people” think it’s dumb if the comments section here is anything to go by…

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

5. Porsche knows this, and counters with…

Nothing. Boom! Mic drop. As I said in Slide 3, ten grand less, twenty grand more, they know SOMEBODY will buy it. Four somebodies, at least, if they alone buy one of every color under the Skittles rainbow, currently said to include a “blue, violet and gold” (though hopefully with far more awesome names than that). And at least one person WILL run the table – or “catch ‘em all” depending on your generation’s reference points – because life is unfair and something-something income inequality. But as anyone with even the briefest familiarity with Porsche’s Sonderwunsch Program knows, you can customize ANYTHING on a Porsche  (for a hefty fee, naturally). That privilege includes my favorite from way back, adding leather to the little popup door lock thingie you never touch because it’s inconsequential to the working of the door. Was there a burning need for that “feature”? Or, to put it another way…

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

6. Did anyone actually ask for this?

Yes. Well… maybe. According to the ever-trusty Internet, this whole kerfuffle is the result of a vehicle Porsche showed at the “Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur booth at the Nürburgring for the AvD-Oldtimer-Grand Prix” [I love me some sweet, sweet German!], as in A car at A race booth. Further, it was also fitted “with several custom colors on the interior trim and a Burmester surround sound system, plus a whole bunch of other options that bring the total customization cost to around $133,600.” Yes, “customization” as in “extra.” As in they still had to pay $191k for the car, too, so before – as we “’Murricans” say, “tax, title, dealer prep and delivery” – you’re looking at a freaking $325,000-plus tin-top 911, fancy though it may be.

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

7. It’s probably best that you don’t…

Do any of it. Save your money. OK, “save” your money and buy only the appearance- and performance-enhancing hardware you want and leave the shiny look to others. Instead, save a Kofferraum of coin by settling for, say, an upgraded 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive and the measly $260k asking price. Or, going off the math from 2017 where a Turbo S Cabriolet is roughly $12,300 more than a tin-top, splurge on an open S for “just” $272k. Or you could just option the crap out of a Turbo S with actual equipment instead. It won’t get your Porsche placement on any plinth at a race or auto show, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be too into enjoying your car to care…

>>Join the conversation about Chromaflair paint right here in Rennlist.com.

For help with your maintenance or repair projects, please visit our how-to section in the forum.