[Perfectlap]

Eroding the brand?

It's been erroded. Past tense. More than half of all the Porsches sold are not sports cars. They are in fact luxury sedans and luxury SUVs. They are using the sports car heritage to sell luxury cars.
Today the average Porsche driver is like the average mountain bike owner. They never go near the trails with their bike. It mainly sits nicely pampered in a garage, just like the Porsche.

Not that there's anything wrong with making money on back of racing success. It's what car companies do. But there's no point in saying that yet another non-sports car is going to change what's already been altered signficantly. Now as a luxury brand however, Porsche adding more cars will indeed dilute the perception of exclusivity. Look at Mercedes. They have more cars than Starbucks has warm beverage varities. Today owning a Merc is not nearly as special as it once was.

As for this little SUV. I don't get this concept of making workboots equal parts fancy and fast. People seem just to default to an SUV because that's the trendy thing to do. But now they want their trendy car to be different than all the other mass produced SUVs. Seems like silly herd-following mentality to me. I've lost count of the number of people I know who want an SUV because they claim they need the space even though the back seat is empty 99% of the time. Meanwhile they are less safe in these SUVs than a more nimble, lighter, better braking sedan and these SUVs are a royal pain in the arse to see over or past. Especially at intersections when the SUV behind you decides to pull up next to you and blocks your view of oncoming traffic...because he can't wait. And as an every day cylclist virtually every close call with someone running me off the road or even making contact with me has been a moron texting, shaving, primping in a big SUV that they can't see around.