Would
you buy a Land Rover sports car? What about a Porsche off-roader? Now think
carefully. Sure, the Porsche Cayenne will be the worlds fastest and best
handling 4X4. So what? The Sultans of Stuttgart will have answered a question no
one asked: how do I get a truck to lap the Nurburgring faster than a Nissan
Skyline GT-R? Here in the real world, the biggest question vexing MPV drivers is
this: what time does Jamie's football practice end? Considering the cataclysmic
damage these lumbering behemoths inflict on lesser vehicles at a walking pace,
the average MPV driver needs less speed, not more. Put Mum in a Porsche off-roader
and it's only a matter of time before the entire soccer team is goading her to
blow off the jerk in the Merc.
Safety aside (as always), the Cayenne will sell. Plenty of posh Porsche
posers will love seeing their Cayenne and Carrera snuggling together in a
darkened garage. I find the concept incestuous and redundant. Stick snow tires
on a Carrera 4 and you've got a four-passenger car that makes normal saloons
seem like Ice Capades rejects. The Cayenne adds elevation to the equation, but
it also introduces mass. Drivers will be able to see into next week, but they'll
constantly be out-handled by smaller, lighter machines. Still, as a capitalist
cheerleader who once owned a TVR, I can hardly begrudge buyers a car they need
like they need satellite-controlled headlights that swivel to follow the road.
I'm more concerned about the Cayenne's effect on Porsche.
The Cayenne is a sign that Porsche is making too much money: £5,385 per car.
This phenomenal, seemingly unstoppable success has given Porsche Hitlerian
hubris. OK, we've done Europe. Let's invade Russia! OK, we've done sports cars.
Let's take on GM, Ford, Chrysler, Land Rover, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and
Mitsubishi! The fact that Porsche can't make enough Boxsters and Carreras to
satisfy demand seems to have escaped the notice of their Bored of Directors.
Lest they forget, the upcoming, V10-powered GT will put the company toe-to-toe
with Ferrari's F60. With the Cayenne, Porsche doesn't blink so much as sneeze.
Is this really the same company that agonised for years about making a four-door
928? It's as if they decided to apply their motor sport heritage to designing
brief cases. Oh wait, they have.
The process of applying brand values to increasingly disparate products is
called brand extension. Like hair extensions, you think you're getting something
better. You're not. Mercedes, once proud producer of bank vaults on wheels,
slaps its star on downmarket tat. The next thing you know they're making cars so
nasty they're called Chryslers. And BMW's product range may lead the casual
observer to believe that a carmaker can do it all, but I doubt they've ever
tried to corner a Z3 on a greasy roundabout. Mercedes, BMW and Porsche will all
learn that extending a brand damages your roots. Sooner or later, they'll all
have the economic equivalent of a bad hair day.
A successful carmaker must have Focus. Just ask Ford. All their cars are sold
on value for money. Maintaining this single-mindedness imposes natural limits on
a brand's potential. Ford will never beat Bentley; value for money is not
exactly the luxury car buyer's first concern. Similarly, you'll never see a
fifty-acre field filled with pre-registered Bentleys. So what's the point of the
Cayenne? It may add a zero Porsche's balance in the short term, but it's an
evolutionary dead end. In the 4X4 market, Land Rover owns the high ground, where
people still care whether a car can climb a tree (or at least looks as if it
can). Ford and Chrysler own the low-road, where middle-class Moms have better
things to spend their money on than an off-roader than can hurtle her brood down
a highway at 155 miles per hour. The Cayenne will be smack bang in the middle,
scrabbling for purchase in a tiny niche, forever fighting off Mercedes' ML and
BMW X5.
Meanwhile, carmakers that focus all their efforts on creating machines that
go like Hell will continue to thrive. As long as Peter Wheeler shovels massive
grunt into lightweight bodies, there will be a TVR hovering around at the bottom
of the J D Power survey. As long as Lotus makes cars that corner like roller
coasters, TVR will have suitable company on that list. There will always be a
hard core of wealthy enthusiasts who believe that driving "off-road"
means one thing: they've lost control of their sports car. Every man-hour
Porsche spends on the Cayenne-designing, marketing, servicing, etc.- is one
man-hour less for maintaining and extending their dominance in the sports car
market. In other words, the Cayenne is a waste of time.
At
the end of the fiscal year, the best thing a world-class sports car maker like
Porsche can make is… wait for it… sports cars! Porsche ignores common sense
at its peril. Which reminds me; didn't Lamborghini once build a four-wheel drive
thingy? Oh yes, now I remember: the LM02. It was an awesome beast, powered by a
420bhp V12. That was 1986, just before Lamborghini lost their independence.
Again.
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