ISUK:

The VW'isation of Porsche just rolls on and steam rollers over the exclusivity of the brand. I think I've said it before but it is like watching a re-run of what happened to BMW following the launch of the hugely succesful E36 3 series. Sales leapt up and the whole CI culture totally changed that brand. Then followed the spiral of chasing every niche to drive continued sales growth. The march of the German brands in this regard has been astonishing over the past 30 years.

Cars like this Cayenne coupe and the upcoming Taycan will simply continue to push Porsche farther and farther away from the brand many on this board grew up with as a specialist small volume sports car maker. The huge showrooms required to showcase all of these models are soulless places where the pressure is on sales staff to merely shift units as opposed to getting to know their customers and making them feel valued. It is all about chasing the money at the top end on the special edition models to give the brand an air of being for the wealthy and aspirational whilst the real business is about churning out the sales of the humdrum Macan and Cayenne models on finance deals. The problem with this business model is that the vehicle "park" grows exponentially year on year in the larger markets making Porsches a far more common sight and less special as a result. That aspect helps to kill off the aspirational nature of the brand and leads to deep discounting. That has already happened to Audi, BMW Mercedes in the UK market where these brands have virtually achieved mainstream volume sales levels.

Indeed, and as a Porsche Motorsport fan, I see it in their racing program. A company that turns its back on the very series that made it a legend to concentrate on a Paris Accord driven Spec racing series that few are interested in , but is somehow justified because it will save the world and drive EV technology..or something, is a company that is playing politics. It is no longer satisfying its clients. It is now in the business of dictating what its clients should buy. I'm all for new technology (albeit that I'm still far from being convinced that pure EV is the way to go), but when politics is placed firmly ahead of engineering and heritage , then it's not for me. I don't have issues with offering EV products. I do have issues with it being mandated.