The number 800 on Avenida Heitor Penteado, in the west zone of São Paulo, was for decades the address of a Chevrolet dealership that seemed to transport customers back to the 90s. showroom (always 0 km), but because of the architectural concept of what a car shop is.
It was a single, open space, with a tiled tiled floor, exposed fluorescent lights, prices painted with washable paint on the windshields and, at the back, plywood tables where vendors offered rubber mats as an advantage in an attempt to convince a customer. hesitant.
But now everything has changed. The 3,620 square meter building today follows the latest guidelines from Porsche global to your dealership standard.
Inaugurated after a renovation that cost more than R$ 30 million, the Porsche Center São Paulo Oeste brings 911s, Taycans and Cayennes to the floor that once sold Onix, Trackers and Montanas.
It’s not the architecture facade avant-garde or the cozy interior the most impressive factor, but the process that led to the birth of the 13th Porsche dealership in national territory.
The history of Porsche in Brazil reached a turning point in 2015. Encouraged by the results of the Brazilian automotive market in 2012 and 2013 (a record biennium for car production and sales), the German Porsche AG decided to take control of the Brazilian operation, but left it in the hands of a third-party accredited importer: Stuttgart Sportcar. In 1997, the Porsche Brasil subsidiary was born — soon nicknamed PBR.
The relationship remained symbiotic, however, Stuttgart’s “consolation prize” was to maintain a monopoly between the brand’s dealerships throughout the national territory.
Behind the name of each new store inaugurated — such as Porsche Center Recife, Campinas and Florianópolis, in 2016, or Porsche Center Ribeirão Preto, in 2018 — was always the Stuttgart group.
Maybe forhedgear” this position a bit, PBR decided, in 2020, to open a competition process for its 13th Brazilian store, but with two conditions: the location would be the west zone of São Paulo. And the admin group no could be Stuttgart.
A kind of “gold rush” began among all the major groups of Brazilian car dealerships. Names such as the former Caltabiano group (current McLarty Maia), Eurobike and Grand Brasil rushed to compete for the chance to represent a brand that, in practice, is the most profitable automaker on the planet — and a “dream flag” for any dealer .
In addition to the fat margins, Porsche offers another very attractive carrot for its shopkeepers: the brand has been booming in Brazil in recent years.
After taking 14 years since the reopening of imports to finally sell triple digits in the country (mark reached in 2004, with 128 units), Porsche reached the mark of the thousand tupiniquim in 2011, with 1,134 units, helped by the introduction of the large SUV Cayenne.
The creation of PBR gave rise to intensive work fully coordinated with the parent company’s product strategies, with immediate results: 2022 marked the seventh consecutive year of record sales for Porsche in Brazil. A total of 3,202 units were sold, of which 1,095 were of the Macan medium SUV, the current leading model for the brand here.
This year, the pace accelerated even more. In the first half of 2023, Porsche delivered 2,615 cars in the Brazilian market, an increase of 68% compared to the same period of the previous year.
In other words: it is easy to understand why no fewer than 80 entrants signed up for the selection process opened by the PBR.
What was surprising to many was the winner of this dispute: the BEXP group, which is not among the largest in the country and ended up winning some of the “tier 1” conglomerates in the segment in Brazil — companies that surpass the mark of R$ 1 billion per year in net income, like McLarty Maia.
Founded in 2016, the BEXP group operated in São Paulo with just four stores: three Jeep dealerships in the capital, and an Audi in Alphaville.
For obvious reasons, the PBR does not release behind-the-scenes details of the selection process, but a conversation with some players of the market — amid glasses of champagne at the opening event of the Porsche Center Zona Oeste — makes it clear that the relatively small size of the BEXP group was in its favour.
“We understood that it would be a tough competition; in fact, we entered this process to learn and become accredited for other PBR selection processes in the future. In fact, at the beginning, we had no expectations of winning,” says Gustavo Valente, one of the partners of the BEXP group and the main executive responsible for the operation of the new Porsche Center.
“As we evolved, we realized that some of our differentials in the market matched very well with the differentials sought by the PBR. The attention we have in after-sales, in recruiting and training the team that will be in the customer’s day-to-day after he buys the car. Those who buy a Porsche are usually really passionate about the car, with another level of expectation of care for their baby.”
To be ethos of passion for automobiles is reflected in the architecture of the new building, light years away from the old one. The customer car delivery room is more like a lounge in a modern home, with furniture imported from Germany.
The Porsche Collection merchandising store is right at the entrance, inviting fans of the brand — far more numerous than customers who can actually buy a car, after all — to step inside and immerse themselves in the world of Porsche. Coworking spaces and meeting rooms can also be used by clients at no cost.
Inside, a lounge called Porscheplatz invites the customer to spread out on a beanbag while tasting a gourmet coffee and leafing through a coffee table book by the Tachen brand.
“We don’t want customers to come here only when they need to, we want them to come regularly, to have a coffee on the weekends, go for a walk and do what we love to do, which is talking about Porsche,” says Valente.
The sales target for the Porsche Center São Paulo Oeste is 400 units/year, and PBR’s strategy of continuing to diversify its partners to meet the growth in demand in Brazil remains: still in 2023, the brand’s 14th store in Brazil ( and first in Bahia) will open its doors in Salvador.
The operator will be Bamaq, a traditional mining group commanded by Clemente Faria Jr. and who is already in charge of the Porsche Center Belo Horizonte.
Cassius Cortes