Porsche releases an official video teaser dedicated to its new SUV model whose name has just been revealed: it will be called Macan, which means ‘Tiger’ in Indonesian language, an announcement that puts an end to the speculation that the car was going to be called ‘Cajun‘. The car will become the sixth model in Porsche’s line up and will be produced at Porsche’s plant in Lipsia, starting in 2013.

“The Macan combines all the characteristics of a sports car with the benefits of a SUV and is a genuine Porsche - said global sales and marketing chief, Mr. Bernhard Maier - The name of a new Porsche has to fit with the brand, sound good in very many languages and dialects and evoke positive associations.” The Macan will share its platform with the Audi Q5, along with most of its powertrains, and in the plans of the Stuttgart-based carmaker it will hopefully emulate the success of the Cayenne. The pictures below come from the last set of spy shots we received of this model a while ago, when it was still wearing a misleading Q5 bodywork.

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Let’s not get fooled by the Audi-badged bodywork, these spy shots picture a Porsche Cajun mule spotted during the lunch break of its test drivers in Northern Sweden. The new baby SUV from Porsche is being developed on the same platform that generated Audi Q5 (hence its misleading livery), but we cannot say much about its design at this point: the pictured mule uses black fender flares, which would make us believe that its track will be wider, but that’s basically it. We just have to wait for the real body prototype to be caught on camera.

In comparison to the Q5, the new Cajun should boast a fine-tuned chassis, better brakes and different wheels. The engine range for the model will be supplied by Audi - both petrol and diesel - but also in this case Porsche will fine tune them in order to provide the Cajun with better performance and power figures. The Cajun might also get the hybrid-drivetrain known from the Q5, meaning the 2.0 TFSI unit delivering 210 hp together with a 44 hp electric motor. That will help Porsche to come closer to the average CO2 goal of 130 g/km that all automakers need to reach by 2015.

Initially the Porsche Cajun will be available with a four door configuration only, but at a later time a sportier two door version might become available as well.

View Porsche Cajun spy shots

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Autocar claims these renderings of the three-door Porsche Cajun are official and come from the style department of Porsche. This means we’re to take the three-door Cajun as an official future project of Porsche - a model which will share styling cues with the 911 and which will compete with the Range Rover Evoque coupe three-door.

The first picture certainly gives us some doubts, but in any case, if the project is confirmed, this could become Porsche’s entry level model - or at least it’s entry level SUV although we’re expecting a hefty little pricetag. The model will have to be different from the Audi Q3 or Q5, and on the inside we’ll get a Boxster-inspired bespoke interior.

While the 911 CX badge we can see on the renderings apparently doesn’t indicate a Porsche 911 crossover, that is probably how a three-door model will function with a high-ride sports style. A series of Audi engines tuned by Porsche could appear, as could an all-wheel drive platform. We think the Cajun will probably look quite different from these cartoonish, highly stylised renderings, but no debut or production timelime has been suggested.

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The Porsche Cajun is making it to production while that’s no surprise to anyone, it might be more interesting to discover that it won’t be just a smaller version of the Porsche Cayenne. According to AutoBild, the Cajun will take on a SUV-coupe design and will be a three-door model.

The name isn’t official yet, and it looks like we could still see a different design developed for what’s known as the Baby Cayenne model. A la Range Rover Evoque, perhaps..? In any case, the Cajun will be sporty and should more closely embody Porsche tradition on a SUV model. It will have a short wheelbase and the new kit will be such to disguise its close relationship with the Audi Q5.

Cajun production is set to start at the end of this year, but the German magazine suggests we won’t see a Cajun market launch until 2013. They claim that it was set to be a conventional SUV model with a five-door body, but then it was decided to do something different from the Cayenne and the Q5 and give the Cajun a sportier soul. A five-door Cajun at a later date hasn’t been excluded, though.

Continue reading: Porsche Cajun to be three-door SUV-coupe?

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The Porsche Cajun, or baby Cayenne as it has been previously known, will mark a new entry-level model Porsche much like the Boxster in the coupé segment for the brand. Porsche has made a brief announcement that the Cajun will go to production, introducing a smaller model under the world-famous Cayenne, that will target a younger audience as its first introduction to the brand.

While the Porsche Cajun is supposed to include some of the classic features of a Porsche like lightweight, fun handling, we’re more interested in what the design will be like. It sounds like it won’t necessarily be a more compact version of the Cayenne, as it word is that Walter de Silva is already working on the design, and the platform could be loosely based on the Audi Q5.

We’re interested to see if we won’t get a kind of coupé/SUV design, and possible even a three-door model, which could be a competitor to the new Range Rover Evoque. Porsche already has a significant foothold in the SUV segement off which to work, but the new Evoque is definitely a gorgeous model and well known for the strength of the Range Rover brand. Porsche hasn’t revealed when we might see the Cajun but previous reports indicate that it could be no earlier than 2014. The announcement is after the jump.

Continue reading: New entry-level Porsche: Cajun to production

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The Porsche Panamera diesel is on its way, announced by Porsche president Matthias Muller in an interview with German magazine, Westfalen-Blatt. The Panamera diesel should be ready as early as the second half of 2011 and will expand the range, which will also include a future Panamera hybrid expected to appear next year as well.

The Porsche Panamera diesel will build on the success of the Cayenne diesel, although no technical details have been released. The same mechanics of the Cayenne will probably be used in a large part though, likely extending to the 3.0 TDI V6 engine with 240 hp and 550 Nm of torque. The new Porsche diesel will probably use the eight-speed Tiptronic S gearbox and early calculations suggest acceleration time to 100 km/hr could be around seven seconds.

Clearly the Panamera diesel development is part of the Porsche Intelligent Performance program - the fancy name given to the project of reducing fuel consumption across the Porsche range. Porsche has managed to reduce some of its consumption already, with the Cayenne down by 23 percent, the 911 down by 16 and the Boxster and Cayman managing a 15 percent reduction. This has been managed by a combination of direct injection, Start&Stop technology and weight reduction. The expanding Porsche range will also include the famous baby SUV Porsche Cajun, which will share the Audi Q5 platform and will debut in 2014 or 2015.

Source | Westfalen-Blatt via Autoblog.it

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Rumours of a possible baby Cayenne model have been circulating for a long time now, and finally it looks like a compact Porsche SUV might make it to market under the name of the Porsche Cajun. Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn announced the possibility in an interview with Der Spiegel German magazine, saying that Porsche will release: “a new SUV, smaller brother to the Cayenne which might be named Cajun”.

The move is part of expansion plans to the Porsche line-up to increase sales and should offer Porsche fans more than just the classic coupé models. Some problems with competition among the VAG brands might occur as the Porsche Cayenne shares the same platform with the Volkswagen Touareg and the Audi Q7.

However, we expect that the Porsche compact SUV would be aimed at a different market and certainly at a different price point. It may be joined by a small sports car as Porsche seeks to double sales to 150,000 units comprised of both its sports cars and SUV models. According to the reports from Germany, we could see the compact SUV appear sometime in 2014 or 2015.

Source | Automotive News

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