The Official 356Talk Forum

Cup Holders

I just returned from a friendly visit to Strong Porsche, Salt Lake City, and my first look at the
fabulous 918 Hybrid. No doubt you already know about this technical marvel but what
surprised me the most (shock!) was seeing a cup holder. It must be interesting driving down
the Mulsanne strait at 200plus mph sipping a drink.

Seeing the cup holder immediately reminded me of the days when Porsches were to be driven
and drinks were a distraction. That’s the German way. Americans had a different opinion.

A Porsche rep wandered by and we had a short discussion about this historic predicament. The rep
mentioned that for a while Porsche shipped to the dealers a temporary kind of fix (cup) that
apparently was a disaster for the dealers. Can any of you expand on this experiment?

He also explained the initial Porsche cave-in to the cup holder crowd which was, figuratively, a
device designed to hold a cup; a coffee/tea cup. Unfortunately, for us Americans, it would not hold
our average pop can. Not good. Porsche followed this gaff, the rep explained, by designing a cup
holder that would accept pop cans, just in time for the growth in the super-size drinks!

Well, it doesn’t look like the 918 cup holder will hold super-size drinks so I guess Porsche still has
a way to go.

Gordon added:

"The cup holder saga is an interesting tale. I know Germans thought of us Americans as heathens for years because we ate and drank in ours cars. (I can't argue the point, it is pretty disgusting.) They had to cave in, of course, because market forces made them. I've had a few newer Porsches where the cup holders were indeed an afterthought and true to German attitude, were over-engineered, complicated and thus, prone to breaking. You have to laugh!"

What details can you add to the Porsche Cup Holder memory bank?

+1 "...true to German attitude, were over-engineered, complicated and thus, prone to breaking."

Somewhere I have a receipt for $1100+ to repair the front cupholders on my 7series BMW. Disassemble the console, replace springs, levers, rails, trays, supports, reuse my trim. It only takes small styrofoam cups or a skinny Starbucks thermos type.

I remember when the Jetta III came out. There was a press conference about it, the factory assembled all the engineers to answer questions for the press. A reporter asked about the lack of cup holders. They asked the engineer in charge of the cabin, he got very angry spouting something like,
"You Americans, you eat in your car, you sleep in your car, you drink in your car. In Europe, if we want coffee we stop and have a cup of coffee!"

And work 4 1/2 days a week with two vacations per year.