By Nick Tattersall
FRANKFURT, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Germany's Porsche , famed for its growling sports cars, said on Wednesday it was set to launch a low-powered version of its Cayenne sports utility vehicle -- one of the slowest models it has produced in decades.
The world's most profitable car maker said the new model, equipped with a V6 engine from Volkswagen , would take 9.1 seconds to hit 100 kilometres an hour, almost as long as it takes its fastest sportscar to reach double that speed.
"The first Porsche with a V6 engine will be available in European markets from the end of November, and in the United States in the first half of 2004," the firm said in a statement. The basic model would cost 40,900 euros ($44,580) before tax.
Launched last year, the more powerful V8 versions of the Cayenne were a radical departure for Porsche, which built its reputation on race-winning sports cars, not the two-tonne offroaders that now dominate American highways.
Praised by some as the ultimate symbol of indulgence and loathed by others as an ugly irrelevance, the Cayenne has kept Porsche sales on track as demand for its traditional 911 and Boxster sportscars slows.
Sales of the 911 and Boxster slipped nine percent in the nine months to the end of April, the first three quarters of Porsche's business year, although demand for the Cayenne meant the company sold 13 percent more cars overall.
Some industry watchers say the arrival of a slower Cayenne, which has a top speed of 214 km per hour, suggest sales and pricing of the more powerful versions have nonetheless fallen short of expectations, and worry the car will damage Porsche's reputation as a maker of brawny racers.
"The launch of the V6 could stretch Porsche's brand credibility to the limit in our view," Goldman Sachs said in a research note earlier this year, when rumours of a Cayenne V6 model were first circulating.
"It would be the slowest Porsche since the 924 of the 1970s, Price competition with VW and BMW will be intense and margins minimal," Goldman Sachs added.
The 924, considered by Porsche purists to be one of the brand's least collectible models, used a four-cylinder engine designed by VW's Audi division, which also assembled the car.
The two firms more recently collaborated on the development of the Cayenne and Volkswagen's Tourag off-roader. VW already offers the latter with a six-cylinder engine, while BMW offers its X5 sports utility with six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines.
But other investors are more optimistic about the new model. Analysts at Lehman Brothers said recently they expected Porsche to sell 5,000 Cayenne V6s in 2003/2004, or around 15 percent of total Cayenne sales, rising to over a quarter of sales the following year.
"A limited supply of V6s should enable Porsche to run its Leipzig plant at its full capacity of 40,000 units and improve overall profit contribution," Merrill Lynch said in a recent note.