The German brand has been showing North American dealers a rendering of a hypothetical new model, bigger (longer and wider) than the Porsche Cayenne.
According to some distributors who saw it, it is a completely different design proposal from the Cayenne, which mixes a crossover and a saloon, with a flat rear and the possibility of having three rows of seats.
The new 'mega' Porsche has yet to pass the paper, but a spokesman for Porsche Cars North America said, speaking to Automotive News, that the brand has become “very open in sharing ideas under the Porsche Unseen initiative, most which do not pass the idea stage”, but which end up inspiring and influencing other projects.
Remember that it was about a year ago that Porsche first showed ten and a half of proposals that, for one reason or another, never ended up evolving into production models. Porsche Unseen was the name given to this initiative.
Follow the link below to see the exciting and intriguing possibilities that Porsche designers have been exploring behind the scenes:
dealing with controversy
Now Porsche "sounds the ground" again to realize the potential of a model positioned above the Cayenne and, for the first time, with three rows of seats — a model that, if launched, will be controversial to say the least.
If we go back almost 20 years, there was also no lack of controversy when Porsche unveiled the Cayenne, its first SUV. The German sports car brand showed a model that was the opposite of what it represented.
But today, the Cayenne is not only Porsche's best-selling model, it also received a smaller “brother”, the Macan, which is the second best seller. Can Porsche extend its range of action to something even bigger and more “familiar” than the Cayenne? We wouldn't bet against.
No wonder Porsche is showing and proposing this hypothetical model to North American distributors. North America's appetite for large SUV/Crossovers with three rows of seats is the largest in the world.
Although it has not yet been confirmed, if Porsche decides to launch this mix of crossover and saloon with three rows of seats, it will only happen after 2025.
The Audi “Landjet” link
This unprecedented 100% electric proposal from Porsche appears to be related to the Audi “Landjet”, the future electric standard-bearer of the brand scheduled for 2024 and the first fruit of the Artemis Project, which wants to create and adopt new technologies for electric cars that will also reinforce the commitment to autonomous driving.
In addition to Audi's “Landjet”, two more models are expected to be born: the aforementioned Porsche model and also a Bentley (both post-2025).
Interestingly, after the possibility of being a saloon has been advanced, the most recent rumors surrounding the “Landjet” refer to the possibility that it could also become a cross between a saloon and an SUV with up to three rows of seats.
Source: Automotive News