In the first nine months of the current fiscal year Porsche sold slighty fewer cars than in the same period of the previous year. But they made more money: They are looking at operating profits of €0.6b on sales of €5.2b. That’s a double digit operating profit, ladies and gentlemen, and none of the put and call hanky-panky is included. Now what do you think is the catalyst for the wunderbar numbers? Are you sitting down?
Yes, it’s the Panamera. Porsche sold 53.605 units total in the first nine months. 13.906 of those go on account of the Panamera. It came just in time, because the 911 suffers from a buyer’s strike: From August to April, only 13.137 units of the slot car changed hands, a decrease of 35 percent. Who’s to blame?
Die verdammten Amerikaner. Porsche suffered from a weak U.S. market, their stellar quality notwithstanding.
Porsche wants to close out the year with more units sales than the 75.238 in the previous year. Porsche bases its optimism on “a new generation of the Cayenne and new engine options for the Panamera,” says Das Autohaus [sub].
I’m not surprised. Porsche has been moving away from its past since the release of the 996 Carrera. Like all car builders, they’re making them bigger, softer and more complicated. I guess they have no choice given the various laws regrding safety, emissions and fuel economy and the American lust for ostentation.
Ahhh, if only they could make a modern 356 for the rest of us…
Didn’t know they could sell fractions of a car ;P 53.605 units?
p.s: Yes, I know that the Germans use a “.” instead of a “,” as a separator, was just making fun.
This is off-topic, but I thought I would mention it anyway. I think Germans also use a space instead of a period when talking thousands. Then again my rudimentary high school German may be failing me.
All those years Porsche enthusiasts in need of a four-door sedan had no Porsche to turn to. Now they do, and they’re relishing it, at least for now.
Many more buyers will come out of the woodwork for a Porsche entry-level roadster (below the Boxster) and crossover (below the Cayenne), and/or two-door Panamera.
Posche makes a four-door sedan? Oh… you mean the Panamera? I always thought it was a chop-top Cayenne.
Actually, it’s a very good looking car from the front… but the rear end is more challenging than a Veyron-Cayman love-in (and I like the Cayman’s butt).
Of course, with the Cayenne, Porsche has proven that it can slap its badge on anything… even a full-sized VW SUV… and sell it by the boatload. That it makes something sexier than the Cayenne and less socially unacceptable and sells lots of them should come as no suprise.
I saw my first live Panamera on the street yesterday. Weirder in person than in photographs; looked like a stretch Cayman.
The Panamera was and is a smart move for Porsche. The market for 911s and Boxsters will always be quite limited and Porsche needs more than its fanatical fans to survive. How long do you think Corvette would survive as a stand-alone company?
I would have thought that the first Porsche I saw with a bricks-of-gold paint job would have a Saudi Arabia or Dubai license plate rather than Russia.
Beverly Hills was swarming with Panameras when I was there a few weeks back… its popularity (based on my anecdotal evidence) was matched only by the Maser Quattroporte. I had no idea that driver-oriented four-doors were so popular in La-La Land.
Driver oriented, yes. Driver utilized? Uh, no. In BH, with speed limits and strict enforcement, those cars are used as fashion statements as much as the watches their owners wear… although the watches retain much more of their value.
More to the point: four seats.
Save the Porsches!
Proves that the buyers are actually rational. Overprice your arrogant crap and you don’t get to sell many. Even if it’s a Porsche.
Overpriced compared to which competitors?
I have always wondered whether Porsche could actually make more money by reducing the price of its cars and getting more volume. Take the Cayman, which starts around $50k with essentially nothing in it. It would be hard to avoid a minimum of $5k in options, less frugal and the sky is pretty much the limit. Is it too much to expect a $50k car to be well equipped? The pricing of Porsches is off-putting for me. I wonder how many other people feel the same way
Is it possible that the evergreen 911 has finally run its course? I see a similarity with the situation Jaguar faced with the previous XJ in that regardless of the high level of technology, the car still looks like its predecessors, a 40 year old shape and consumers have tired of it. Right now, the market for the 911 seems to be restricted to folks who like the Porsche 911. Considering all the high performance cars now available that have somewhere between 9/10ths and 11/10ths of the 911’s performance that’s understandable.
Double Damn! I just KNEW I was the only person that preferred the previous Gen XJ style. I do like the new design, but I prefer the new look on the XF as apposed to the XJ. Don’t flame too bad, I beg you! :-)
Is it possible that the evergreen 911 has finally run its course?
C’mon now. While I appreciate that you are far less acerbic on this topic than I, we both know the 911 ran its course in the mid 70s. At most generous.
Since then, it has been nothing but remora. A tick, sucking blood from its profitable host brethren.
An ass-engined anachronism, that quantitatively speaking, doesn’t deliver the goods.
See, the sad thing is: it delivers the goods. It definitely shouldn’t be any good nowadays as it really is “an ass-engined anachronism”, but boy, does it deliver the goods!
RentalCarGuy,
I suggest that you drive a TT Pana back-to-back against a TT 911.
Especially at 8/10ths plus.
The 911 is a very highly polished turd, but, when you get to the upper reaches of performance (which is a definitive part of the defined Porsche brand), hanging the engine off the ass-end is just bad physics.
The only thing that keeps a modern 911 on the road at 7/10ths is a level of HAL aid that makes an Apollo lunar lander jealous…
The 911 zombie must be decapitated.