Is Porsche plotting a Cayenne coupe?

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September 19, 2017 01:00 AM

Jay Ramey

AUTOWEEK

A Cayenne coupe design study has already been built by Porsche for internal consideration, as seen in this Autoweek rendering, but has not been shown publicly.

Jay Ramey is an associate editor with Autoweek, an affiliate of Automotive News.

An old automotive industry maxim holds that if one German automaker fields something, it won't be long before all others follow suit. And that brings us to the following piece of news.

Britain's Autocar reports Porsche is mulling a more rakish, coupelike Cayenne to challenge the BMW X6, the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe and the upcoming Audi Q8, citing comments by Porsche boss Oliver Blume, who indicated the company is considering such a vehicle and has not made up its mind yet about whether to proceed.

Porsche has already taken steps in this direction; Autocar learned the company has already built such a Cayenne as an internal design project, one that hasn't been shown to the public.

"We analyze different segments, and this can be an option in the future," Blume told Autocar. "Today, no decision has been taken. We have to make a calculation and talk to our customers."

In automotive executive parlance, Blume's comments may be interpreted as: We'll see if our dealers can sell it and whether they want to sell it. This means there is still time for Porsche to come to its senses and slap itself out of this lemming-like path, and not only because there is already a smaller Cayenne on the market with a more rakish roof called the Macan.

Blume indicated to Autocar that Porsche is under no pressure to boost production and sales numbers at this stage -- a remarkably refreshing comment from a CEO these days -- and that the needs of customers are more important than the number of vehicles the automaker is producing.

Still, it wouldn't be too difficult for Porsche to offer such a model -- a Cayenne Sport, we'll graciously call it -- as the automaker has a long history of producing derivative models.

"As a design department, we’re always asked to come up with proposals,” Porsche design boss Michael Mauer told Autocar. "This is the most attractive part of the job: when the brand asks me to provide design ideas to visualize the product portfolio with no limitations of budgets. For each and every model, we have a lot of ideas. But there has to be a business plan. Yes, we’ve developed a lot of ideas."

One encouraging sign is that Porsche has made the decision to let sedans be sedans and wagons be wagons, splitting the Panamera into two more distinct models after the first-generation effort tried to be too many things at once.

Still, with the debut of the all-new 2019 Cayenne, the automaker is in the perfect position to try some new things with the Cayenne lineup.