Automotive Forums

For those who are interested:

FRANKFURT, May 22 (Reuters) - German luxury carmaker Porsche (PSHG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) will launch a base version of its Cayman sports coupe priced at 40,900 euros and $49,400, excluding tax, in Europe and the United States starting July 29, the company said on Monday.

Just like the more powerful Cayman S, it is derived from Porsche's Boxster but the new model will this time share the soft-top roadster's same mid-mounted 2.7-litre, six-cylinder engine instead of having its own.

When the Cayman S was first announced there was media speculation that the "S" designating the sportier derivative of a model line implied a base version would eventually emerge -- adding some incremental volume growth to the group's annual unit sales.

Yet while the Cayman S was positioned to fit perfectly into the rather large performance gap between the Boxster S and Porsche's base 911 Carrera, the new Cayman will only be minimally more powerful than the plain Boxster launched in November 2004 while costing significantly more.

Since Porsche only offers three different model lines, analysts pay close attention to the exact mix of vehicle sales when forecasting earnings.

Credit Suisse estimates that the absolute contribution from one 911 Turbo is equivalent to selling 4 base 911s, 7 Cayenne S offroaders or 10 base Boxsters, for example.


CANNIBALISATION

The base version Cayman will be able to tickle out a few extra horsepower, 245 versus 240 for its lower-priced Boxster cousin, allowing it to reach a top speed of 258 km an hour and finish the 0-100 km/h sprint in 6.1 seconds.

By comparison the base version of the Boxster can muster a top speed of 256 km/h and requires 6.2 seconds to hit 100 km/h from a standstill.

"It looks as if the new Boxster is not as stable (in sales) as its predecessor," said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, industry analyst at the Centre for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen, adding that Porsche seemed to move quickly with the launch of the new Cayman in the hopes that its fresh design would gain more appeal.

He forecasts sales of the Boxster dropping to just 16,000 in calendar year 2006 versus a peak for the current generation of 20,000 last year and 24,000 for the predecessor model in 2000.

The Cayman will be sold in Germany for 47,647 euros

($60,730) including VAT, compared with a 43,333 euro price tag for the Boxster. This translates to a price differential of nearly 10 percent for a model with just 2 percent more horsepower.

Porsche shares eased 0.8 percent to 720 euros by 1105 GMT while the DJ Stoxx European car sector index <.SXAP> fell 1.3 percent.  

This or the E46 M3? Hmm... this.  

good call, i agree.  but i would still rather have an elise