Porsche's Eggs in New Four-Door Basket
October 14, 2009

Seems Porsche Cars North America is always one of the first to get hammered when the recession hits. The company's certainly taken its lumps in the past year, with sales starting a slide almost the same day Lehman Brothers tanked in fall 2008 and potential Porsche buyers headed for their bunkers.

Calendar-year 2009 hasn't been much kinder: through September, sales are off 32 percent, a withering number for a niche maker.

But as the year winds down, Porsche is launching a history-making - and controversial - new model to help accelerate it into what is hoped will be a broad industry and economic recovery next year. Porsche is counting on the all-new, 2010 Panamera 5-door sedan to reignite interest in the brand at one of its darkest hours. Almost all of the company's available marketing funds for the rest of the year are earmarked to launch the Panamera.

One problem: skeptics and Internet critics had their way with the Panamera even before its launch. The negative dialogue settled on two points: first, the Panamera is not a classically beautiful car. Its hatchback sedan configuration and stretched rear (to comfortably accommodate rear-seat passengers and luggage) are not conventional sights, particularly to Americans.

Second, purists insist Porsche has no business making a sedan of any kind. Fueling the fire is the fact Porsche's two newest models both stray distressingly from the Book of Order; the new Panamera and before it, the similarly ridiculed Cayenne crossover, have many too many doors to be proper Porsches.

Looks Ain't Everything

The guy in charge of launching the Panamera in North America is David Pryor, vice president of marketing. He quickly addresses the matter of the Panamera's sheet metal.

In photos, "It's almost impossible to capture the Panamera in a flattering way," he said. It's one of the industry's oldest fallbacks, but he insists it's true: you have to see the Panamera in the metal.

At one of the first U.S. showings of the car, this summer's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, Pryor said about 3,000 attendees saw the car for the first time.

"People were just blown away by the appearance of it," Pryor said. And after seeing the Panamera ourselves, we'll go along with Porsche's contention that the uniqueness of the shape sets the car apart from the utterly conventional 3-box designs of the sedans Porsche sees as the primary competition: the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7-Series.

Porsche's are not mainstream cars, Pryor said, and neither should the Panamera be expected to promote an unadventurous design.

He said the Panamera's beautifully trimmed, techy interior reinforces the notion of Porsche's unconventional approach for the Panamera: the cockpit has been criticized for its multiplicity of buttons aligned on either side of the shifter in the center console. It's a design statement, to be sure, almost a contrarian move.

Pryor said customers soon "got it" with the driver-focused, single-purpose buttons they found preferable to the BMW iDrive-like "multimedia interface" typically expected as the means to adjust the multitude of features and functions in today's luxury cars.

"We put more effort into the interior of this car than any Porsche before," Pryor said.

It's About What's In The Garage

With Porsche pursuing just 20,000 sales worldwide and 20 percent to 30 percent of that figure targeted for the U.S., the company doesn't need every man on the street to think the Panamera is beautiful. First and foremost, Porsche wants the Panamera to inspire the faithful: its existing customers.

Pryor said about 20 percent of the worldwide 70,000 "qualified handraisers" already own a Porsche, more than half that number has a 911. Porsche figures the "other car in the garage" for many current owners is a competing model it hopes the Panamera can conquest: Mercedes, BMW and Audi.

If this sounds similar to what Porsche told us about the Cayenne, it's not a coincidence. The times are changing. Where several years ago an luxury SUV was the "family car" for the well-heeled, sedans and less profligate crossover-type wagons are easing into that role.

Pryor concedes, in fact, that the Panamera is quite likely to steal sales from the fading Cayenne, whose sales are already off 34 percent for the year. As the popularity of SUVs diminishes, Porsche seemingly has a handy Cayenne substitute in the Panamera (both are built in Porsche's plant in Leipzig, Germany).

"I think Cayenne will continue to be a substantial part of our mix," Pryor said, but he conceded potential Cayenne buyers may move to the Panamera. That's okay: Pryor thinks "it's fair to say" the average transaction price of the Panamera - which starts at $89,800 for the Panamera S and moves to $93,800 for the mid-trim Panamera 4S and on to fat-wallet territory with the line-topping, $132,600 Panamera Turbo - will be higher than for the Cayenne.

New Model, New Volume, New Horizons

Pryor said Porsche has nearly 5,000 worldwide pre-orders for the Panamera, which goes on sale Oct. 17 but already is available in Europe and other markets.

In the U.S., Porsche hopes to sell perhaps 1,500 by the end of the year.

"In these economic times, we would be very satisfied with that," he said.

Porsche's marketing will engage in just about every medium, Pryor said, with thoughtful television ads concentrated during the Major League Baseball playoffs and for National Football League games, as well as in other appropriate programming.

Pryor says Porsche's message is focused on the Panamera's authenticity and substance rather than its style.

Critics will say that's a wise choice, but the Panamera's fortunes may well rest on the very brand attributes the company intends to highlight. The Panamera isn't meant to sell in large numbers, but for Porsche, the new sedan could spur the company's recovery.

Pryor says Porsche is focused for the next year on "getting the Panamera seen and exposed.

"And I'm hoping there's a little bit of a tailwind in the economy," he adds, saying if the economy's wet blanket on high-end brands dries out - and Porsche can get buyers to consider the Panamera - the company is confident its divisive new car will succeed. - Bill Visnic, Senior Contributing Editor

Photos courtesy Porsche Cars North America Inc.

1. The Panamera angle that starts the arguments.

2. David Pryor, vice president of marketing, Porsche Cars North America Inc.

3. High-quality interior made unique - deliberately so - by all those buttons.

4. Panamera's shape breaks the lux-sedan mold; less controversial from the front.

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