One American Veiwpoint

[Claire]

I found this on CNET - It struck me as a humerous look at an American view of the Cayenne.

. . . It suddenly hit me as I drove past the local Porsche dealer the other night: Cayennes are ridiculous. They are antithetical to everything that is Porsche. I understand it's the vehicle that saved the company when the Boxster and the 911 were both getting pretty stale, but there sure are a lot of Cayennes just sitting on the lot at my dealer--for weeks. SUV sales are nosing down, and you have to imagine a Porsche SUV might be right at the front of that unpleasant curve. There will come a day when you'll be thumbing through a circa-2004 car magazine with your grandson, and he'll look at you with incredulity and say, "Porsche used to make a truck?" You'll tell him what a bizarre time you lived in.

 

[Guest]

Unless you are sitting in the back of a carbon fibre electric/fuel-cell Porsche truck reading the magazine, having just completed a track day and thrashed all the other electric trucks.

 

[Claire]

Could happen with the americans now waking up to the gas guzzling culture as a bad thing

 

[oliver]

ORIGINAL: Claire

I found this on CNET - It struck me as a humerous look at an American view of the Cayenne.

. . . It suddenly hit me as I drove past the local Porsche dealer the other night: Cayennes are ridiculous. They are antithetical to everything that is Porsche........ There will come a day when you'll be thumbing through a circa-2004 car magazine with your grandson, and he'll look at you with incredulity and say, "Porsche used to make a truck?" You'll tell him what a bizarre time you lived in.

What worries me is, 25 years hence, my grandson saying,

"What! Porsche used to make and race lightweight sports cars?"

I'll tell him about a wonderful time when Porsche was a small volume sports car manufacturer that whipped everything on road and track. He'll probably laugh and think I've got alzheimers[&:]

 

[Guest]

In their defence, they are lighter than the opposition.
The 996 chassis, although made from steel, is lighter than the F430's which is made from aluminium.

Also the biggest prize must go to Mercedes. How SL (SuperLight) has been perverted. The SL's now are mostly superheavy.

In 25 years, I believe they will still be racing. Quite possibly they will have GT ans prototypes. Whether they will be running on biodiesel, ethanol or hydrogen, I'm not sure.
Weight will be competitive, and I suspect more advanced materials will be used. Perhaps more composites.

As for small volume manufacturer, the crystal ball is malfunctioning.
I can see various routes and I don't know which is more likely. I would like to think they would find more innovative ways to grow the profits rather than just sell more and more cars, or even be radical and stop growing. But investors don't like that.

 

[tiskev]

You probably have Altz if you think they ever whipped everything wherever.[][][]

 

[lazza]

I think there's a long way to go before the Americans fall out of love with big trucks and SUV's.

I was there last week and the price of fuel is still only around $2.30 per (US) gallon - about 40% of what it costs you in UK.[]

I saw an article saying average wages were now around $60k per year about 50% more than UK![&o]

They have it easy and will keep the trucks a while longer yet.

Lazza