Now that Porsche owns Volkswagen and Audi, perhaps they will finally kill off that anti-Porsche, the Cayenne? The Volkswagen Group already produces two vast 4x4s – Touareg and Q7 – and Dr Wolfgang Porsche, company chairman, recently told me that he saw no sense in producing head-to-head rivals within the Volkswagen Group. He was specifically referring to the Audi R8 v 911 (don’t expect the R8 to be directly replaced, nor to last very long). But the same argument is surely true of Cayenne, Q7 and Touareg?
My plea may be more a cri de couer than a sensible commercial decision, I accept, for Porsche has made a great deal of money from the Cayenne; the Cayenne partly funded Porsche’s takeover of Volkswagen. Yet the market has changed since the Cayenne became Porsche’s cash cow. The 911 now outsells it. Cayenne sales are not only dropping fast in developed markets; so are residual values (substantially lower than a 911’s).
Plus, every Cayenne that leaves the Leipzig factory buggers the Porsche brand, diluting the magic built up and nurtured by various generations of 911 and fabulous racers such as the 917 and 956. While the 911, the Cayman and the Boxster turn heads and provoke envy, the Cayenne turns stomachs and provokes anger. It is a vast, vulgar, ugly: public enemy number one with environmentalists and aesthetes, Frankenstein meets Sellafield. It is also horrifically expensive to own, as one of my best friends (and a long-term 911 lover) found to his cost.
So please Porsche stick to your special sports cars (and the upcoming Panamera four-door looks good too). Boost the brand and keep enchanting. And kill off the Ugly Sister before she kills off the Porsche magic.