Boxter intro (was Re: 1992 Audi S4 electrical power drain)

[steve@ipecac.engr.sgi.com (Steve Valin)]

> An interesting side note... while at this Porsche/VW/Audi dealer at 5pm,
> I noticed they had a mineral water/juice bar set up, and caterers
> walking aroudn with hors d'oeuvres. When I was paying my bill, I asked
> what the reception was for. "Oh", that's for all the new Porsche
> owners", the lady said. I thought the spread a bit extravagant, so I
> asked how many people they were expecting. "One hundred and eighteen",
> she said. 

> It seems Porsche launched the Boxster in the US today, and the
> dealership was throwing a party for all it's customers who'd already
> ordered one. All 118 advance customers. At just one dealership. 


I was at this dealer (Carlsen) the day before test driving an A4Q (very nice!)
and picking up brochures (very swank A8 brochure), and saw a boxter in the
flesh.  Impressive.  Carlsen is scheduled to get 180 of them this year, so
if you plunk down your $1000 to get on the list, you should receive yours
around July/August.  I wonder if Carlsen is gouging people on the boxter.  I 
was surprised to see that they had no added dealer markup on the window stickers
of the A4Q's, which are pretty hot for them right now. Every other dealer I've
been to tries to get an addition $1k-2k above MSRP on the dumbest of cars from 
the stupidest of people...

-steve