The new four-door Panamera will avoid the hire car industry. Photo Gallery
Porsche is doing everything it can to avoid copying BMW with its upcoming Panamera.
Instead of going all-out for maximum sales, and doing a 7-Series drive into the hire car business, Porsche plans to actively avoid anyone who is not buying a Panamera for personal use.
The decision has nothing to do with the price or style of its new four- door flagship and everything to do with winning genuine buyers in Australia.
Porsche says it is definitely not interested in hire car companies.
"I will do everything I possibly can to ensure a VHA (hire car) plate is never seen on a Panamera," the head of Porsche Cars Australia, Michael Winkler, says bluntly.
He believes BMW has undermined the prestige of its 7 Series flagship with large-scale sales to hire car companies and prefers to sacrifice outright numbers for quality customers.
"When you come up to a 7 Series you have to look to see if it is a genuine owner who is driving, or just a hire car driver," Winkler says.
His comments come as the Panamera is locked for an October arrival in Australia, priced from $270,200 for the S model through to $364,900 for the Turbo.
Winkler says there is strong interest in the car already but avoids the temptation to make a sales forecast.
"We have a lot of interest. But no firm deposits yet. People want to see the car," he says.
The Panamera is vital to a Porsche fightback plan intended to address a 45 per cent slide in sales from the start of 2009.
But the real key is the diesel model of the Cayenne SUV, which lands in April.
It is priced from $101,900 and is likely to become Porsche's best seller in Australia, taking around 80 per cent of the current volume of the Cayenne V6.
