Boxster Sales Article

[Sammy]

On a sort of related note, I wonder how many car manufacturers actually make plans for the "end of the model" before they release it? I know they plan for "freshening" every so many years, but do they ever try to anticipate the end? I know this would be somewhat of a shot in the dark, but they have years of experience and a ton of marketing people on staff that might just know a thing or two about trends. On top of that I'm sure they have a gazillion MBA's that focus on strategic planning.

[RandallNeighbour]

Sammy, I definitely think they consider the end of the model and set thresholds on sales numbers to indicate when it's time to stop producing the model or shift the attention to a new model, etc.

We saw that with the introduction of the hard top, 2.7 Boxster called the Cayman .

It provided a new entry level Porsche below the Boxster as it aged.

[Sammy]

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

Sammy, I definitely think they consider the end of the model and set thresholds on sales numbers to indicate when it's time to stop producing the model or shift the attention to a new model, etc.

We saw that with the introduction of the hard top, 2.7 Boxster called the Cayman .

It provided a new entry level Porsche below the Boxster as it aged.

I was thinking more along the lines of say when Porsche introduced the Cayenne, what was the business plan like? Do they have a number of vehicles that they expect to produce during the lifetime before they think they'll have to kill it? Or is it like the old VW Beetle where VW will make them as long as they can sell them?

(The Cayman is a "freshening" in my opinion, kind of like the Zthing that BMW makes.)