Geoffrey Pellows: Volkswagen&#39;s Sole Ownership of Porsche Could Spawn the Baby Boxster

Friday, July 27, 2012

Volkswagen&#39;s Sole Ownership of Porsche Could Spawn the Baby Boxster

Last week, we gave you a nice little rundown on what Porsche has in store for us in the coming years. One of those cars included Project 551, which we have all nicknamed the ?Baby Boxster.? This compact, entry-level roadster looked to be a certainty in Porsche’s lineup, when suddenly the plan was axed, as Porsche’s CEO basically said it doesn’t fit the Porsche mold and they want to retain their customer exclusivity.

Well, now that the recent automotive giant, Volkswagen AG, has bought out the remaining shares of Porsche, err, ?restructured? their corporate design, we may see this all change. You see, VW could give two cents about customer exclusivity. It wants to sell units and that’s that. VW will likely keep the 200,000-unit goal that Porsche had set before the ?restructuring? and the way that VW may do this is to release a lower-priced roadster.

Think about it, fresh college graduates can’t typically afford a $50,000 base-level Boxster, but a $23,000 Miata is not an issue. Well, if Porsche slides a smaller, less feature-packed version of the Boxster right between the two, say at about $32,000, it could suck these young professionals into the Porsche brand early. With these premium brands, once they get in, they are typically customers for life.

In addition, the excuse that Porsche CEO, Matthias Mueller, made regarding a Baby Boxster not fitting the Porsche mold is complete hogwash. Porsche released an SUV and a sedan in the last decade, plus it is about to release a smaller version of its SUV, so how in the world could a smaller, more wallet-friendly roadster not fit in with a sports car company? Yeah, we don’t get it either.

Keep an eye out for some changes in the Porsche lineup over the next few months, there’s bound to be some and we bet one will be the announcement of an upcoming production model of the Project 551.

Volkswagen's Sole Ownership of Porsche Could Spawn the Baby Boxster originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 27 July 2012 13:00 EST.