I'd love to see a by-model, y-o-y sales breakdown for Porsche. I don't see ANY Cayennes moving off dealer lots right now (and they're discounted tremendously right now). I see a few Boxsters moving and a few Caymans & 911s moving (they're not exactly flying off the shelves either, but at least I see them moving). By contrast, the same 12-or-so Cayennes have been sitting at my local dealership for the last 6 months. I also hardly ever see them on the road anymore. I used to see at least 6-7 on an average trip across town. Now it's only one every 2-3 trips. Scientific? No, I'll admit that, but it's an observation worth noting.

Here you go, the numbers don't lie.

snip:

Porsche’s high-end SUV range continues to perform strongly with total Cayenne sales of 947, nearly on par with last year’s January figure of 1,008 and 10 percent ahead of the previous month when 860 Cayennes were sold in December of 2008.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/02/03/404133.html

I saw an April report somewhere too, I'll try to find that.

Here is April, Cayenne is still the best seller and sells three times that of the Boxster/Cayman.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/05/01/459065.html

There's still lots of money sloshing around. And Porsche has a lot of new markets. Cayennes are very big in Russia, for example. (And drug dealers everywhere like them.)

Used as taxi's:


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241709848.jpg


By the fire department:


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241709873.jpg

Special Transiberia edition:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241709928.jpg

I will echo that Porsche needs to develop a new "entry" car--something that is stylisticly(sp?) different from their current crop of Boxster/Cayman/911(or whatever it is called now) look-a-likes.

None of those current models really appeal to me.

I see Cayennes everywhere. They're by far the most prevalent Porsche in my area.

Are they selling because they're so discounted though? I mean, how much profit are they making on them these days?

I have never seen Porsche discount heavily. Not even now. Not where I live.

And Porsche has always had the highest profit margin (per vehicle) in the industry.

I can't say I recall seeing any local advertisement for Porsche discounts or incentives. Even so, if you have a 20% markup and then discount it 10%, you're still making damn good money. Don't forget that the Cayenne is basically the Toureq (sp) that sells for 1/2 the price. There's a lot of margin there.

Here's a cut and paste quote from a recent news piece:

Quote:

A new study has found that German sports carmaker Porsche earns an incredible average of $28,000 in profit on every vehicle it sells. The figure — printed in Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper, citing a study by B&D Forecast — dwarfs the per-car earnings of virtually any other automaker.
Comparatively, luxury and sports car maker BMW makes about $3,200 per car. Audi nets a less impressive $1,580, and Chrysler and Volkswagen earn just $900 and $400, respectively.

Unquote

NYT has an article on BMW avoiding getting too big - they say it hurt GM, not helped.

+1

Call the dealership in Boston. They recently had a brand new Boxster on the floor - $30K even.

That's a pretty heavy discount.

I had to look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway