Strongly feel that Porsche should stick to sports cars? Personally, I’m willing to cut Zuffenhausen a little slack. Sports car sales, with their boom-and-bust cycles, don’t provide a sound foundation for corporate financial health. A more reasonable test: does Porsche’s entry look and drive unlike any other, in a manner consistent with the marque? Though not pretty, the Panamera passed this test. And the Cayenne SUV?

(Read More…)

Audi will be developing all future larger SUVs offered by the many Volkswagen brands: The Porsche Cayenne, the Volkswagen Touareg, the Audi Q7 and whatever other larger 4x4s the other brands might offer (fat chance.) Audi was just handed the “Entwicklungshoheit” (design supremacy) for the brutes. Heretofore, they were designed by Porsche.  Don’t cry Porsche, they received another job as a trade. (Read More…)

VW CEO  Martin Winterkorn is a superstitious man. He doesn’t want to add a 13^th brand to his (or rather Piech’s) large collection. (Coincidentally, 12 is the number of Piech’s children. More or less. Nobody is quite sure,) “There are some who knock on our door. Some really want to come under our roof as they see we’re on a good path strategically. But we are satisfied with the current line-up,” Winterkorn said to Wirtschaftswoche.  Specifically questioned about Volvo or (gasp) Daimler, Winterkorn answered: „There are many who would like to snuggle in VW’s cozy bed. Thank you, not interested.”  Instead, he’s re-thinking the line-up of his new acquisitions:  “I could imagine a smaller Cayenne derivative. Or a Porsche below the Boxster. This is under discussion.”
(Read More…)

Yes, the world is officially crazy enough for Siemens and Ruf to consider building an electric Cayenne. Er, excuse me, eRuf Stormster. Range is about 110 miles, but the top speed is only 92 mph, presumably to prevent unseemly snickering at the prospect of running out of power after an hour of spirited driving. Let’s be fair about this: if the Stormster ever made it to production it should be good for about 90 minutes of “enthusiast” range to go with its nine second zero-to-60 time. Jerks.

The next-gen Cayenne gets caught without camo by Autoexpress. So, on a scale of zero to 16 million, just how spicy is the new peppery Porsche? Our equipment is rating it somewhere between “Pimento” and “Poblano.”

According to Jalopnik, this license plate belongs to Morgan Stanley Vice-Chairman Rob Kindler, who apparently thought this kind of joke is funny. Too bad he missed bonus points by failing to put the plate on an Escalade.