Sonderwunsch Is Porsche-Speak for "Where Dreams Come True"
We visit the "Special Request" facility at Zuffenhausen, where engineers and designers will help you make your fantasy Porsche a reality.
I have my own Porsche employee pass. And yes, it really does unlock doors deep inside Porsche’s Zuffenhausen headquarters. I used it earlier this year to work on a Porsche Sonderwunsch car. Sonderwunsch? It’s a German word that means "special request," but for well-heeled Porsche enthusiasts it also means "dream factory." Whether it’s based on a brand-new car or a classic, the team at Porsche Sonderwunsch can literally build you the Porsche of your dreams, no matter how wild. All it takes is time … and (lots of) money.
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Porsche Sonderwunsch is linked to both Porsche Classic’s restoration and refurbishment operation and Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, which handles new car personalization. The difference between Manufaktur and Sonderwunsch is simple, says Alexander Fabig, vice president of individualization and classic at Porsche: “Manufaktur is catalogue. Sonderwunsch is haute couture.”
For example, Porsche North America offers the choice of 14 "standard" colors or 122 "paint-to-sample" colors on a base 911, but through Sonderwunsch, you can have yours painted a unique color all your own. It will take six to nine months to ensure the paint meets all Porsche’s production and durability standards. The color, which you name, will be unique to your car for a year, and then offered on the Manufaktur paint-to-sample palette.
Many Sonderwunsch projects are much more complex. Take the 993-series 911 Speedster built by Porsche Sonderwunsch for Italian industrial designer and architect Luca Trazzi. You’re right: Officially, there was no such thing as a 993-series Speedster (although Porsche built one for Ferry Porsche as a 60th birthday present, and one for Porsche mega-enthusiast Jerry Seinfeld). But Trazzi, a Speedster enthusiast, wanted one, too. So, Porsche Sonderwunsch built him one, to precisely his specifications, right down to the bespoke color.
Some Sonderwunsch customers want their new Porsches to look like the race cars their heroes drove in the old days, like the 911 GT3 RS painted in the same livery as the 917 raced by legendary Swiss driver Jo Siffert in 1969. There were at least half a dozen brand-new GT3 RS and GT2 RS models ready for delivery at the Sonderwunsch shop finished in various vintage racing liveries, right down beautifully painted versions of vintage sponsor decals, when I walked through earlier this year.
Others want what Porsche once considered the pinnacle of the brand made better. For example, no fewer than 26 customers are waiting to have their V-10-powered Porsche Carrera GTs given the Sonderwunsch treatment, and you’ll find 918 Spyders being worked on there, too. Then there are those who want to take their idea of a perfect Porsche to places Porsche has never been: the Sonderwunsch team is actively working on a request from a customer to build a Panamera convertible.
Many customers have had 10- or 20-years’ prior experience with Porsche’s Manufaktur personalization service before stepping up to a Sonderwunsch car, says Alexander Fabig. Sonderwunsch vehicles are, he readily admits, products beyond rational decision making. “We are not working in the automotive business,” Fabig says. “We’re in the love business.”
I wasn’t in love with the Panamera Turbo E-Hybrid for which the Sonderwunsch team had invited a small group journalists to create a bespoke interior. Though there was no doubting the quality of the workmanship, the car’s $240,000 paint scheme—an oddly split two-tone based around a bespoke color called Leblon Violet Metallic overlaid with a clearcoat containing flakes coated in real gold—simply wasn’t to my taste. But the opportunity to see how Sonderwunsch could help create a cabin to complement the car’s flamboyant exterior was intriguing.
A Sonderwunsch factory one-off project like Luca Trazzi’s 993 Speedster or ‘my’ Porsche Panamera, usually starts with a conversation. You get your Porsche employee pass only after you’ve signed a contract and handed over the equivalent of $105,000 to $370,000 to get the Sonderwunsch team to work on the concept phase of the project. This phase, which usually takes a year, defines the precise specification of the car, whether it can be built exactly as the customer wants, and whether it can be made street legal. Then comes the what the Sonderwunsch team calls the realization phase—the actual build of the car—which typically takes one to two years. This is when you start signing some serious checks: “It’s a seven-digit journey,” says Fabig.
Along the way, every customer has a dedicated point of contact with a Sonderwunsch consultant in Zuffenhausen. They also have the chance to talk to everybody involved from the project team, including experts from Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur or Porsche Classic, as well as the Style Porsche design department and Porsche’s engineering team. During consultations and progress meetings, whether physically or digitally, everyone involved is there to answer questions from styling all the way to the technical issues. For example, if a customer wants a new roof or headlight system, the Sonderwunsch team will arrange for the relevant engineers at Porsche’s Weissach R&D center to consult with them. There are some caveats: Customers are gently guided away from ideas that won’t meet Porsche’s safety and durability standards. And Porsche design chief Michael Mauer must personally approve every bespoke body design.
My media colleagues and I experienced what would be a lengthy Sonderwunsch consultation and configuration process in just one day. But what stood out during the process was the Sonderwunsch team’s ability to push and probe to help us unlock the art of the possible, using a combination of real materials and real-time digital renders to stimulate our imaginations. Our first endeavors were quite conservative. But by the end of the day, we had configured an interior that had seats with leather inserts that matched the black-to-violet fade on the Panamera’s lower body, with piping and accents in a rose gold color called Avium, a champagne cooler between the rear seats, a cedar-inlaid cigar humidor, and a wood-and-leather-lined trunk, among other things. Again, not my personal taste. But hey, I’m not paying the bill …
The work done on the champagne cooler in the five months since we proposed the idea shows the astounding depth of resource the Sonderwunsch team can bring to bear to help you create your dream Porsche. Not only has a cooler unit capable of chilling a bottle of your favorite vintage fizz been specifically designed and engineered to fit in the confined space between the rear seats, but designers working for Porsche’s director of interior design, Markus Auerbach, have even created a pair of bespoke Porsche champagne flutes to fit inside it.
If I had the money for a Sonderwunsch Porsche, what would I do? I told Alexander Fabig that as a wagon enthusiast I’m quite intrigued with the idea of a recreation, with some modern touches, of the one-off, long roof Porsche 928-4 built for Ferry Porsche’s 75th birthday. “I’m waiting to do that!” grinned Fabig, who, as it turned out, owns a 928 S4 manual. Any takers? I’m happy to help. I already have my own Porsche employee pass, after all.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by cars. My father was a mechanic, and some of my earliest memories are of handing him wrenches as he worked to turn a succession of down-at-heel secondhand cars into reliable family transportation. Later, when I was about 12, I’d be allowed to back the Valiant station wagon out onto the street and drive it around to the front of the house to wash it. We had the cleanest Valiant in the world.
I got my driver’s license exactly three months after my 16th birthday in a Series II Land Rover, ex-Australian Army with no synchro on first or second and about a million miles on the clock. “Pass your test in that,” said Dad, “and you’ll be able to drive anything.” He was right. Nearly four decades later I’ve driven everything from a Bugatti Veyron to a Volvo 18-wheeler, on roads and tracks all over the world. Very few people get the opportunity to parlay their passion into a career. I’m one of those fortunate few.
I started editing my local car club magazine, partly because no-one else would do it, and partly because I’d sold my rally car to get the deposit for my first house, and wanted to stay involved in the sport. Then one day someone handed me a free local sports paper and said they might want car stuff in it. I rang the editor and to my surprise she said yes. There was no pay, but I did get press passes, which meant I got into the races for free. And meet real automotive journalists in the pressroom. And watch and learn.
It’s been a helluva ride ever since. I’ve written about everything from Formula 1 to Sprint Car racing; from new cars and trucks to wild street machines and multi-million dollar classics; from global industry trends to secondhand car dealers. I’ve done automotive TV shows and radio shows, and helped create automotive websites, iMags and mobile apps. I’ve been the editor-in-chief of leading automotive media brands in Australia, Great Britain, and the United States. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. The longer I’m in this business the more astonished I am these fiendishly complicated devices we call automobiles get made at all, and how accomplished they have become at doing what they’re designed to do. I believe all new cars should be great, and I’m disappointed when they’re not. Over the years I’ve come to realize cars are the result of a complex interaction of people, politics and process, which is why they’re all different. And why they continue to fascinate me.Read More
