Will Porsche be forced to axe the Panamera and Cayenne with VW in charge?That headline sounds a bit like a died-in-the-wool Porsche fanatics dream scenario. Dump the models they don’t consider to be ‘real’ Porsches and concentrate on the 911. Oh, and if they must – just for the poor, you understand – make the Boxster and Cayman so the hoi polloi can get a taste of the 911.
Well, if reports by Car Magazine are to be believed that is exactly what will happen when the Panamera and the yet to be released new Porsche Cayenne II run their course by around 2016. Apparently, VW don’t see the sense in duplicating models already made in the VW group, and want to see Porsche return to its roots. Which could be a fairytale, spite or logic.
But let’s look at it a bit closer. The Cayenne is the most profitable part of Porsche, despite the moans. Would VW be prepared to use Porsche as a halo model and fund its future from other VW products? It seems unlikely. And although there are other models in the VW stable that are based on the same underpinnings as the Cayenne – the Audi Q7 and VW Touareg – they are very different animals. There can’t be a lot of folks who would go off and buy a Touareg if the Cayenne suddenly stopped production.
And the same goes for the Panamera. Yes, you could argue that something like the Phaeton, or perhaps a big Audi Sportback or even the next A8 or any of the Bentleys offer much of what the Panamera offers, but you could say the same across the whole VW Group range (or perhaps we should get used to calling it the Auto Union range?). Should Audi axe the R8 so it doesn’t worry Lamborghini? Should Audi dump the Q5 and Q7 so it doesn’t step on the toes of the Touareg or Tiguan? No, of course not.
But what of the Porsche BlueSport? Surely that would be direct competition for the VW BlueSport and any of the other marques in the VW stable that jump on board the BlueSport project. Well, apparantly not. The BlueSport is considered key to Porsche’s future.
It all sounds a bit far-fetched. But we have to remember that this is in the hands of the warring Piech family, and anything is possible.