I still can't believe it. A Porsche named after a pepper. What's next a Grande Nacho?

What's next a Grande Nacho?

Okay, sir, be honest with me here... What's it going to take to get you into this Burrito today???

Only a bean burrito. No gas stations required.

No gas stations required

somehow every discussion I'm involved with ends up like this...

Yeah, I agree. The Porsche SUV is just a big fast grocery getter.

I told myself I was going to stay out of this... but I never listen. So here goes.

Let me preface this by saying I have been a Porsche owner for the past 38 years, owning various models including 912's, 911's, a 911-S, and currently a 930 Turbo Carrera.

People, Porsches are just CARS. Admittedly, some of the best performing cars in the world, but nonetheless, just cars.

What difference does it make that they have expanded their lineup, and not too coincidentally made it possible for them to survive as an independent automaker? Do you think that the performance of the sports car line has diminished because Porsche has a new factory building other types of cars?

Have you looked at the performance specifications of the Cayenne? I daresay that few of us on this bbs currently own cars that could keep up with one, and I include acceleration, braking, and cornering. So tell me: Porsche is building a vehicle that out-performs our cars (and that certainly outperforms any other SUV on the market), and this is a bad thing because it isn't a rear-engined two-seat car?

You guys are the same kind of people who complained bitterly in 1963 when Porsche brought out the 901 (subsequently renamed 911 after a threatened lawsuit from Peugeot who had trademarked the #0# model nomenclature) because they got rid of the link-pin/swing-arm suspensions of the 356 series and went to a six cylinder engine, completely abandoning the heritage of Dr. Porsche's original creation.

Do you complain about the Corvette because Chevrolet also manufactures Suburbans?

Would I buy one? No. Not because a SUV is a slur on the sacred name of Porsche; but because I don't have any need for a large, 4WD vehicle. (The fact that the damn thing costs more than my house is also a factor.)

Porsche will not only survive this, but will prosper.

tanstaafl.

I'd have to agree. If they felt the need to enter the SUV market to keep their business running, more power to them. I'd personally like to see them stick around.

The performance specifications are definitely impressive, but what else would you expect from Porsche?

The performance specifications are definitely impressive, but what else would you expect from Porsche?

A Boxster?

What difference does it make that they have expanded their lineup, and not too coincidentally made it possible for them to survive as an independent automaker? Do you think that the performance of the sports car line has diminished because Porsche has a new factory building other types of cars?

While I'm sure that the Cayenne is or will be a big cash cow for Porsche, it certainly does mark a notable change in their car making ideals. In addition, it certainly reduces their cachet, moreso than the underperforming Boxster did (at least the Boxster still fell under the same general rubric as the 911, etc.).

While I couldn't personally care less, many, if not most, of their buyers do -- the mid-life crisis set, where most of their money probably came from before, who care about Porsche's performance only in name, and that it was what provided Porsche its cachet to begin with. When the Boxster came out, it wasn't too bad, but it was to some extent as that cachet was diminished, since now ``ordinary'' people could own one and drive it around every day.

Now that soccer moms are going to be drving them around, that cachet will be diminshed even more -- more than with the Boxster. The outcomes of this are that mid-lifers are going to start buying the more affordable Boxster, the (nominally) more practical Cayenne, or find a different manufacturer whose cachet hasn't been reduced. (Maybe TVR will have started selling in the US by then.) This will reduce the money Porsche gets from the 911 even more than just diluting its own brand. The Porsche management will see this and start to question the relevance of their sports car line. Combine that with their demonstrated lack or at least diminution of loyalty to that line, and I can easily see it going away or at least no longer being engineered to be the amazing cars they are today.

Ok, true, the Boxster isn't all that great for the price. I'd much rather get a WRX.

Hey Bitt,
Did you notice:

If you replace the following words from your post with new words as follows:

Porsche with SonicBlue
Cayenne with RioCar
and
SUV with "in car MP3 player"

Does that post now read in a way that is sort of familiar to anyone?

...who care about Porsche's performance only in name, and that it was what provided Porsche its cachet to begin with.

Bitt, you never fail to impress me. That is an excellent and concise argument.

However, I think that the Corvette vs Suburban argument might hold even in the face of your logic. People don't stop buying Corvettes because they're made by the same company that builds trucks; nor do people buy (or not buy) Suburbans because they're made by the same company that builds sports cars.

I believe that Porsche's cachet is large enough to encompass both sports cars and trucks without dilution. Porsche sports cars will still be world class machines, and the fact that their truck is (as of now, anyway) uncontestably the best damn truck in the world can't hurt.

tanstaafl.

However, I think that the Corvette vs Suburban argument might hold even in the face of your logic.

Except when you consider that Chevy's *never* really had a cohesive image amongst its products. I think that's why GM has a lot of other specialty brands (Buick, Saturn, Pontiac) which each tend to have their own particular branding and image. I'm no Porsche historian, but it seems to me they've always done one thing and done it well. Now, even though the car lines won't suffer, the image is indeed dilluted. On the other hand, Corvette always existed amongst other Chevy models, so there was no real image to dillute.

If you replace the following words from your post with new words as follows:

Porsche with SonicBlue
Cayenne with RioCar
and
SUV with "in car MP3 player"

Does that post now read in a way that is sort of familiar to anyone?

Not really. empeg made SonicBlue a lot better in pretty much every aspect.

However, I think that the Corvette vs Suburban argument might hold even in the face of your logic.

It might, and I hope that it does. My fear, again, is that the Porsche management will fail to see the SUV market as a simple cash cow and start to ignore the sports car market. I'm sure that their SUV profits will far outstrip their sports car profits, and that is hard to ignore. I would like to have thought that they are performance enthusiasts, but the Boxster pretty much removed that idea from my head, but at least it was still fun to drive, which is certainly the true objective of a sports car in many people's minds.

I almost wish that the Cayenne weren't as good a performer as it is (and I'm taking your word on that), as then it might have been someone else's SUV design onto which a Porsche badge had been slapped, and they hadn't had their engineers working on it at the expense of the 911. But that might make my prior prediction even more true.

I don't know if Porsche was in dire financial straits, but I just don't think that building an SUV was a good long-term choice even if it was a good short-term one.

(BTW, how many 911 GT2s do you suppose they sell? It can't be many.)

In reply to:

---

Not really. empeg made SonicBlue a lot better in pretty much every aspect

---

Well, I'd say the empeg people made SB much much better.
Can't say that the products Empeg had taught the SB marketing division anything.

But I'm drawing a comparison here - SB jumped on the "in car mp3" bandwagon in the early 00's when it bought Empeg.

Then the product wasn't marketed properly and it fell out of favour and then SB kind of fell apart a bit with lots of products going in different directions and now we have a much weaker SB trying to do things right now that they let the Empeg guys make some product descisions and let some real programmers do the software for the products not the "portable CD Player firmware hackers" they used for the Riot.

So, perhaps SB can server as a warning to what may happen with Porsche if the SUV doesn't sell well enough.

And of course, if it sells, then you can kiss goodbye to the Porsche sports car market as the marketing suits will want only SUVs to "Cash in" on the SUV craze.

And maybe - just maybe - if the SUV is any good - it *might* become the product that the Porsche name is remembered for [I hope not], but there you go - stranger things have happened before.

Personally I don't give a f*ck about Porsche and their products - I don't own any Porsche products, and have no intention of ever owning any of their products so whether they sink or swim is irrelevant to me.

And most SUV buyers - whether its a Porsche SUV or not are not the kinds of customers that Porsche really want - or have had to deal with until now.

Admittedly these CDF's make car makers like Porsche more money than most customers when they buy expensive SUVs. But I don't think thats a sustainable business model.

I the next time I'm stuck behind a Porsche SUV - I'll get just as pissed off at its road hogging ability and the drivers general lack of common courtesy as I do with any other SUV and driver around. I won't have feel any concern/or warm fuzzies just because "its a Porsche (SUV)".

So, perhaps SB can server as a warning

Ah, the clasic typo that gives away one's job as a sysadmin.

Can you name the truck thats four-wheel drive, smells like a steak and seats thirty-five?

Well it goes real slow with the hammer down, the Kentucky-Fried truck endorsed by a clown.

It blinds everybody with it's super high beams, it's a squirrel squashing, deer smacking, driving machine.

[Wife just bought a Touareg].

Greg

I'm a fan of the Phaeton and the RS6 myself. Sweet cars, but jeez, it's a slap in the face to everyone interested in reducing dependence on foreign oil.

6, 8 or Diesel?

-Zeke

They weren't selling the diesel yet. Unfortunately I couldn't justify a V8 with my wife, so she went for the more economical V6. so much for towing a house around downtown Dallas.

so much for towing a house around downtown Dallas.

That's OK, plenty of other people are driving houses around downtown Dallas...

For some reason I thought you were in the UK (hence the diesel question)! I can't bring myself to buy one as much as I want one as I don't think the 6 would be enough power as I normally drive at about 85mph through the hills of NH, and the 8 would cost me too much in gas to run (I drive 600-700 miles per week). What do you think about the 6 at fast highway speeds?

Did you get the GPS option?

-Zeke

You got that right.

An acquintance has been uh ... littering cars around town with custom bumperstickers ....

"I'm helping increase US dependence on foreign oil! Ask me how! (*My SUV is economically and environmentally irresponsible*)"

Plenty of vehicles around here are deserving of the sticker.

g

This is what the UK Sony Xplod distributors are tooling around in:





Take away all that plastic crap and it would look a whole look nicer.

By the way, that is a good example of the parking spaces I have to crap a Caprice into every day!

Gareth

Don't get the NAV option ... big waste of money. get a palm pilot and mapopolis instead. Bluetooth is a big cool factor.

The V6 is pretty nice at highway speeds, but stomping on the gas isn't as responsive as the V8. Passing on a two-lane blacktop can be interesting if you don't have a lot of visibility. There's just not enough go power on demand.

Off-roading is still fun though, it does great at the ranch (unlike the Audi A4... don't ask).

g

I severely hate the Chevy Avalanche. I want to wretch on sight.

g

Preach it. I first saw Avalanche in trade previews at GM three years ago. Plasticky, overpriced effing 2500. Ditto the H2.

Thanks for the info on the 6. My Soob is no speedster either, so that's one of my wishlist items for my next car. I think I'd seriously consider the hybrid Escape when it's released (pending performance of course). I really like the look of the Volvo XC90 but I've read it's a bit noisy. For that kind of moolah, I want quiet.

-Zeke

crap a Caprice

OUCH!

- trs

I'm going to have to explain to my coworkers why I'm laughing so hard now...

Bwahaaa!!! Ooops. Hey, it's late here and I've had a sherbert or two.
Mmnn.... not sure how I did that - I don't type "crap" a great deal. Perhaps it was my subconscious telling me to buy a rustang.

Gareth