Mini Cayenne in the Works
 

FYI

Excerpt: "After the Panamera four-door hits the market, insiders are speculating that Porsche's next project will be to produce a baby brother for the Cayenne sport-ute. "

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/03/29/reports-porsche-planning-mini-cayenne/

that's interesting. The poster in the blog says that Porsche is not losing its core mission in building sports cars because the Cayenne Turbo-S is soooo good.
Well I read a pretty scathing review of the CT-S, where they said the $120K Porsche SUV was getting outdragged by an American made $40K Grand Cherokee SRT-8.
Looks like even the American SUVs are spanking the Porsche SUV's just like the Corvettes are outperforming the Carreras for a fraction of the costs!

A mini Cayenne will sell allot but its a bad move in the long run.
Porsche will make money no matter what they do. The X3 is good for BMW because they are massive compared to Porsche, they need the numbers to maintain their earnings (do they even have any? certainly nothing like Porsche). Porsche are in the lucky position of letting their Brand image and history do 90% of the sales for them. So they can make allot of money and not have the urgency of staying in the black by coming up with new cars that continue driving up unit sales. Cayennes and X5s are so over the top for an SUV that it helps the brand image of exclusivity and caters to people who think throwing money away like a $50K swarovksi encrusted snowmobile is the thing to do. There is nothing over the top or exclusive about an X3 or a min-Cayenne.

Spanking in the quarter mile is one thing. A superior car for a fraction of the cost? I think not.

I tried the C6 out for a full day recently. I was really looking forward to it being my next car. Not even close...

-David

oh nooo don't start the Corvette debate again...

p.s.
give me a choice between a Corvette and Porsche(any) for the track and I'll won't hesitate to jump in the Chevy. Now for the ride home, no contest I want the overweight, luxury sports car.

A mini-SUV sounds like a great idea. The poor man's Cayenne would look nice in the garage next to the poor man's 911.

"Porsche will make money no matter what they do" is an historically inaccurate statement. I think one would have to own shares in Porsche to have the proper perspective on the "is a Porsche mini-ute a good idea" question.

Porsche's grand strategy is to have a brand in each of the low, medium, and premium car markets.
VW will occupy the low end, Audi will be the mid-price marque, and Porsche will be the flagship, premium market nameplate.
That way they do not have to worry (as much) about one model encroaching on another model's market if there is a little overlap.
Think there's going to be a "low cost" Porsche below the Box? Ain't going to happen. It will be an Audi, or a VW.
Which is all good as far as Porsche owners are concerned, as that brand will be the top of the food chain.

Ronzi

Then why would Audi just release the R8?

Because the Porsche folks haven't really gotten their fingers around the throat of the Audi folks as yet.
Wiedeking has said that VW empire (including Audi) is through screwing around with "toys" like Lamborghini and Bugatti. More evidence that Porsche is going to be the premium brand.
Audi, in the long run, will not be allowed to preempt the Porsche brand.