Porsche made everybody mad when it introduced the first-generation Cayenne two decades ago, only to rake in profits from it and become bigger and better than ever. But the Cayenne–and the even more successful Macan that followed–are SUVs, and everybody knows SUVs are the silver bullet in today’s car market.
Heck, even Ferrari made the Purosangue, although the Italians hate it when somebody calls it an SUV. But a Porsche minivan? That sounds like a dead-end, right?
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Dreaming of a Porsche minivan
Porsche never made a minivan, except for the Vision Renndienst concept from 2020. But that doesn’t mean one can’t dream, including the company’s own design boss Peter Varga, who said that the idea of a luxury electric people carrier is “very interesting.”
Well, it depends on what market you’re looking at. In the United States and Europe, the minivan is a dying breed (and the sedan isn’t far off either), but that doesn’t mean that this body style isn’t loved somewhere else.
And it’s this reason why Porsche’s exterior design boss Peter Varga went on record saying that a luxury electric minivan made by the German sports car manufacturer is a “very interesting” idea or concept for a new car. Call us intrigued.
Varga spoke with TopGear Netherlands during the all-electric Macan’s launch in Singapore and was asked if a van like the Vision Renndienst concept from 2020 would be possible today. “I think so,” he said. “It’s a nice car, it looks good, and why not? The van as a product, as an idea or concept for a new car, is now very interesting in combination with luxury,” Varga added for TopGear NL.
The man who signed off on the design of the new electric Macan went on to say that opulent minivans like the Toyota Alphard are all the rage in Asia. “Here in [Singapore] for example, you sit in the back of a van with large seats. You can do that in a van. Perhaps for Porsche, it is an interesting new product.” Varga said. But his following words draw the line that could make or break the idea of a Porsche minivan: “That’s my personal opinion.”
The 2020 Vision Renndienst was an all-electric concept of a futuristic six-seater minivan with a central driving position and screens instead of side mirrors. It was very cool but it didn’t take long for the company’s head of global sales to put the idea of a Porsche minivan to rest.
“We are, we were, and we still will be a sports car manufacturer”, Detlev von Platen said in 2021. “Therefore, we do not intend to go into the segment of small city cars, for example, or in segments where we could have more volume. We still are an exclusive sports car [brand], and we will go further in our development in segments where we believe that sports cars can be defined. So, going towards the minivan concept, and so on, is not our plan at all.”
Volvo, which has never made a minivan, went down the MPV route with the EM90, and there are several other Asian automakers that make fancy electric people carriers. So would a Porsche-branded one make sense? We love the idea, but what do you think?
