Which is Porsche’s best-selling car? The cheapest maybe? An affordable Boxster or Cayman, say? Perhaps the bedrock of its range, the evergreen – and now 29mpg – 911? Nope, it’s the Cayenne, Porsche’s butch, brash SUV that’s done so much harm to the brand, according to the naysayers. Not according to the latest sales stats.
I’d heard that the big 4×4 was Porsche’s best-seller before, but it’s worth investigating the bigger picture. In the 2007-08 financial year, Porsche sold the following worldwide:
• 45,000 Cayennes
• 31,000 of the 911
• 22,000 Caymans and Boxsters
Makes you realise why sports car firms are diversifying. You only have to look at the mad scramble into the luxury limo class – Porsche Panamera, Aston Martin Rapide and now the Lamborghini Estoque – to realise that these guys are desperate to find new revenue streams before sports car sales fall off a cliff.
So what’ll be next? A Ferrari MPV? A Bugatti supermini? Given the current plight of the world economy, you can see why the product planners are removing their blinkers and thinking different. I’d wager that only those companies prepared to rethink their strategy completely, and before their opposition, will survive. We’re witnessing Darwinism in action.
That’s exactly what Porsche has done – and it’s now slowly (painfully, even) gobbling up Europe’s biggest car maker Volkswagen. It must be doing something right…
Click here to see the first official teaser photo of the new Porsche Panamera – and hear the jazz song Porsche has commissioned to mark the occasion!