Hello Readers,
There is a great television show on the Esquire Network called the Car Matchmaker with Spike Feresten. If you are looking for a new car or contemplating a car purchase, then Car Matchmaker may be for you! Click on the image below and find out what Car Matchmaker is about, and how you can be part of it!
As a company known for making only sports cars, Porsche shocked the automotive industry when it introduced its first ever SUV, the Cayenne, in 2003. This move upset Porsche purists who believed that Porsche was selling out, and that it should stick to making sports cars only. However, money speaks for itself. The Porsche Cayenne was an instant success, and it quickly became Porsche’s best selling vehicle (still is). It makes sense. Consumers were ditching minivans and sedans for the SUV, and prioritize a high driving position and the SUV image. When you put the Porsche badge on the type of vehicle in demand, you get an instant success. After the Cayenne, Porsche wanted to expand its company. They came up with the idea of a performance sedan that would take on BMW and Mercedes-Benz. As usual, this incited rage from Porsche purists, and it did not help that an automatic transmission would be the only transmission available in the US. When the Panamera debuted in 2010, it was criticized for its styling. But it had the Porsche badge on a practical sedan. Like the Cayenne, it also became an instant success. I have always wanted to drive a Porsche Panamera ever since it came out just to see if it did drive like a Porsche. Fun fact about this car: this Panamera was the third model sold in America, and it was ordered a year before it was delivered.
Even though Porsche is thriving, and it is currently the most profitable subsidiary of Volkswagen, (Volkswagen owns Porsche), it wasn’t always this way. In the early 1990s, Porsche experienced financial struggles due to the economic recession and lack of exciting and new models. The 911 was notorious as a world famous sports car, but it did not sell enough to offset Porsche’s monetary issues. The solution to this was to build an affordable sports car that could sell more units than the 911 while retaining high profitability. Enter the Boxster. Introduced for the model year 1997, the Boxster renewed Porsche’s importance. Four years after the Boxster’s debut, Porsche’s volume quadrupled. Continue reading
RNR Automotive Blog 