Tuner Merdad Reveals Plans For Three-Door Cayenne
Curious Cayenne coupe set for Geneva 2011 unveil
The image of the much-modified Porsche SUV has been doing the internet rounds over the past few days, so we thought we would give the eponymous Merdad Hoodeh - the man behind the project - a bell to see if we could get a little concrete info on the new car.
For the past few years Merdad has imported Gemballa-tuned Porsches into the UK, working closely with the German tuning firm. But since founder Uwe Gemballa's disappearance in February and the company's subsequent collapse, Merdad has been focused on his own project.
The three-door Cayenne has in fact been in the works for the past seven months - well before Gemballa's disappearance - and Merdad hopes to give the final production car its public debut at the Geneva motor show in 2011, with a 'concept' version earmarked for the British MPH show this autumn.
Inside will be expensively trimmed, with an extensively modified front cabin intended to give a sporty ambience, and a luxurious rear in the 'style of the Bentley Flying Spur'. But the weirdest fact we gleaned is that the car won't have been shortened - so why the rear doors have been dropped we're not quite sure.
If the new Cayenne isn't for you, however, Merdad also revealed that it has been working on a modified version of the just-defunct Cayenne, with Panamera headlights. Curiouser and curiouser...
Don't see the point in removing the rear door, except when:
A) changing the overall shape to a more sporting look (ex Astra, Cee'd)
B) the car is shortened (Defender, Patrol,...)
Well, a three-door Focus isn't a shortened five-door one. Same can be sad about the three-door version of MK1 Freelander. I guess there's always a point for those kind of three-door cars, which is keeping the same amount of rear leg/storage room with a sportier exterior design. In fact, majority of three-doors are not shortened version of five/four-doors.
t. Funny how the original 3 door rangie looks so right but this looks so wrong?
all IMHO of course!
It's not funny at all thinking the original 3-door Rangie looks 'so right'. Because it was a shortened regular 5-door. However, this thing will have the same wheel base as the 5-door. Let's see, how a long wheel base 3-door Range Rover look like? I guess that'll be really funny.
Did PH report on Gemballa going missing anyone got a like to the story?
The story however gets more questionable as the days go on, allegations of tax evasion and financial mismanagement at Gemballa Automobiltechnik GmbH & Co led German authorities to raid Gemballa headquarters and seize all the vehicles in stock.
Then it was reported that Uwe Gemballa had opened a second company GEMBALLA Sports Cars GmbH & Co, with his 79-year-old mother as the sole stockholder on the day that he left for his trip to Dubai and South Africa. At the same time he also granted his wife power of attorney to register the existing company, Gemballa Automobiletechnik, for insolvency.
South African authorities are working with German police to investigate the likelihood of a kidnapping – especially since Gemballa is reported to have phoned his wife and asked her to wire 1 million Euros to a bank in South Africa.
Gemballa was apparently in South Africa to consider opening a dealership in Johannesburg, but questions over his company’s financial health have now increased speculation that Uwe’s ‘disappearance” might not have been quite so accidental.
German authorities have confirmed that two police officers have been dispatched to South Africa to assist local authorities with their investigations, but thus far there is no trace of Uwe Gemballa.
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