Archives for July 2011

Who’s Porsche 911 of Top Gear presenters is better: Richard Hammond or James May?

July 18, 2011 by porsche Leave a Comment

Celebrity car
Porsche video
Top Gear – James May and Richard Hammond

Richard Hammond loves Porsche, that’s no secret. Apparently, James May is a fan as well, and both Top Gear presenters recently arrived to the set in their Porsche 911 coupes. May took the opportunity to explain why his Porsche is superior to the one Hammond owns and someone was kind enough to film it.

James May tell us why his one is, in all respects, better.

The badge, gearbox, satnav, colour scheme, rear lights – the lot. According to James, at least…

Who’s Porsche 911 of Top Gear presenters is better. Watch this Porsche video:

[source: http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com]

Porsche 929 – A new two-door, front-engined Porsche coupé

July 14, 2011 by porsche Leave a Comment

Porsche News
New Porsche Coupe – Porsche 929

New Porsche 928 Coupe computer rendering Lehmann Photo-Syndication — New Porsche 928 Coupe computer rendering / Lehmann Photo-Syndication

A two-door, front-engined Porsche coupé is being planned as part of the second-generation Porsche Panamera family, highly placed sources have told Autocar.

The model is pencilled in for launch after the replacement for the Porsche Panamera four-door, scheduled for 2014/15.

See renderings of the Porsche 929 design study

German sports carc maker is planning the new Porsche Coupe two-door GT on a short-chassis version of the next Panamera’s underpinnings. It will attempt to capture the magic of the Porsche 928 coupé from the late 1970s.

A new Porsche 928 — possibly badged 929 — would give Porsche entry to a sector that has grown to over 10,000 sales a year, thanks to models like the Aston Martin DB9, Bentley Continental and Ferrari California.

Porsche is understood to be planning two variants of the Porsche 929: a coupé and a soft-top convertible.

The 929’s styling is a closely guarded secret, although these images from Julliana Cho, a Porsche-sponsored student who has just graduated from the vehicle design course at the Royal College of Art, might give some clues to the themes being developed inside Porsche under design boss Michael Mauer. They show a more geometric design language with a much stronger-looking front end.

However, any widening of the Porsche Panamera line-up depends on Porsche significantly expanding build capacity, said our source.

“At the moment, derivatives of the Panamera are not planned for the first generation,” said the insider. “We hope to add them to the second generation, provided we can find necessary capacity.”

Porsche has announced a major investment programme at its Leipzig plant in Germany, where the Porsche Cayenne is produced, which will increase capacity.

Principally, there’s a new body assembly line to build the new Porsche Cajun compact SUV but it could also allow Porsche to switch production of the Porsche Panamera body from Volkswagen’s Hannover facility to Leipzig for the second-generation model.

In turn, that gives Porsche the flexibility to spin body derivatives off the Porsche Panamera. As a result, a third derivative — a sporty estate in the mould of the Mercedes CLS wagon due in 2012/13 — is possible.

“We have ideas to extend the Porsche Panamera line-up, including other body derivatives — a shooting brake, for example,” said our source.

There must also be a strong chance that work on the new Porsche Panamera platform will be shared with VW stablemate Bentley for its third-generation Continental and Flying Spur.

Former Porsche boss Wolfgang Durheimer is now boss of Bentley and is weighing up a third model in Bentley’s line-up. A sporty CLS-type saloon would be one option.

New Porsche boss Matthias Muller last year told Autocar that Porsche and Bentley should share platforms to reduce costs.

[source: autocar.co.uk]

Porsche financial: Porsche the global market leader for hybrid off-road vehicles

July 14, 2011 by porsche Leave a Comment

Porsche Financial
Porsche the global market leader for hybrid off-road vehicles

Recently from a report, Porsche delivered significantly more cars to customers worldwide in June 2011. Deliveries increased by 29.5% compared with the same month the year before to reach 10,677 vehicles. The sports car manufacturer delivered a total of 60,659 new vehicles in the first half of the year, 36.8% more than from January to June the year before. Bernhard Maier, Porsche AG Board of Management Member for Sales and Marketing, signalled his satisfaction with developments: “We managed to increase our deliveries significantly again in June. This is accompanied by better-than-expected sales figures. The significant increase in new vehicle orders, especially for our front-engined sports cars, Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Panamera, also gives grounds for anticipating good sales figures in the coming months.

In June 2011 Porsche managed to grow in almost every region worldwide. The response from Chinese customers was again especially strong: Deliveries more than quadrupled to 2,423 compared with the same month the year before. The most successful model apart from the Porsche Cayenne off-road vehicle was the Porsche Panamera. With 2,546 vehicles Porsche announced growth of 18.9% for the USA in June 2011. In the home market, the sports car manufacturer delivered 1,344 vehicles in June, broadly in line with the same month the year before. The diesel version of the Porsche Cayenne was especially popular. On the other hand weaker sales in a number of European markets such as Great Britain, the Netherlands or Austria translated into a 6.5% Europe-wide decline in customer deliveries in June. On the other hand, the Russian market showed a significant increase last month with 63.6% to reach 216 vehicles.

Strong demand remained on Porsche Cayenne (Porsche AG will boost production of the Porsche Cayenne). In June alone the Porsche Cayenne sold 4,994 of the sporty off-road vehicles, 69.2% more than in the same month the year before. First half-year deliveries almost doubled to 30,055 compared with the same period the previous year. This included more than 2,000 Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid, making Porsche the global market leader for hybrid off-road vehicles. In June the Zuffenhausen company sold 2,318 Panameras, 14.1% more of the sporty saloons than in the same month the year before. The sports car model lines also slightly exceeded their previous year’s level in the reporting month. 2,015 vehicles of the Porsche 911 model line were delivered – up by 1%. With 1,350 vehicles delivered, the Porsche Boxster model line, which also includes the Porsche Cayman, posted growth of 6.5% compared with the same month the year before.

[source: fastmotoring.com]

Porsche Financial: Porsche AG will boost production of the Porsche Cayenne

July 13, 2011 by porsche Leave a Comment

Porsche Financial
Porsche AG will boost production of the Porsche Cayenne

Porsche AG will boost production of the Porsche Cayenne sport-utility vehicle next year after surging deliveries of the sports-car maker’s best-selling model spurred a 37 percent sales gain in the first half.

Cayenne output will increase by 10 percent to 20 percent starting in 2012, Bernhard Maier, Porsche’s sales chief, said in an interview. Demand for the vehicle, which starts at $48,200, caused delivery times to peak to as high as 12 months in markets such as China. Porsche wants waiting time to be no longer than six months.

“We’re now looking into ways we can expand production capacity to be able to serve our customers more quickly,” Maier said at the Stuttgart, Germany-based automaker’s headquarters. “First-half data show that we’re growing almost consistently in all world markets and across all model lines.”

Porsche SE, which jointly owns the sports-car maker with Volkswagen AG (VOW), plans to merge with the Wolfsburg, Germany-based manufacturer. Backed by VW’s resources, the maker of the Porsche 911 aims to double sales to about 200,000 vehicles by 2018 by adding a compact SUV (Porsche Cajun) and increasing sales in emerging markets. Porsche should boost deliveries to more than 100,000 this year from 97,000 in 2010, Maier said.

Porsche, which also makes the $75,200 Porsche Panamera four-door coupe, increased sales 29 percent to 10,670 models last month, leading to sales of 60,650 units through June, Maier said. Six- month orders rose 26 percent to 65,660. There was a 12 percent decline in June orders to 10,450, because year-earlier bookings were inflated by a revamped version of the Cayenne.

Second-Half Slowdown

The carmaker plans to release complete first-half sales data on July 12, according to company spokesman Dirk Erat.

Panamera sales may rise to more than 28,000 units this year, compared with more than 20,000 in the first year after the model came to market in September 2009, Maier said.

Overall sales growth will slow in the coming months after record deliveries in the second half of 2010. The forthcoming overhaul of the 911 may also hamper sales, he said.

Prospects in the U.S., the company’s biggest market, are “very positive,” said Maier, a former executive at Bayerische Motoren Werke AG who took charge of Porsche’s sales operations in April 2010. Its U.S. sales rose 42 percent, to 15,542 vehicles through the first six months of 2011, after a 19 percent June gain.

“The U.S. market is still characterized by a degree of volatility that shouldn’t be underestimated,” Maier said in the July 6 interview. “In the coming years, growth is conceivable in the U.S. to help return to levels seen before the crisis.”

[source: bloomberg.com]

RC Porsche toy – Lego Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet

July 13, 2011 by porsche Leave a Comment

Porsche Lifestyle
Porsche video
RC Porsche toy – Lego Porsche 911

We’ve grown a little callous when it comes to Lego creations. We blame the internet. After all, with the world ‘s Lego builders itching to show off their latest Technic and basic block constructions, the bar is set continuously higher.

These days, our eyebrows don’t arch at anything less than Lego perfection, which is why we’re head over heels for the Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet PDK in the video after the jump. It’s pure mechanical obsession in the best way possible. Everything works, from the retractable hard top to hood release. The car even boasts the same steering rack ratio as the real deal.

All told, there are over 3,500 parts wrapped up in this RC Porsche toy – Lego Porsche 911, including eight electric motors, three remote controls and around 21 feet of wire. Even more impressive is the fact that this is no static model. The transmission actually functions and puts power through an all-wheel drive system. Consider our minds effectively blown. This guy actually built a fully-functioning RC car from scratch out of Lego components. Hit the jump to see it for yourself.

Watch this Porsche video: RC Porsche toy – Lego Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet

[source: autoblog.com]