Porsche sprints to Aussie sales record

PORSCHE Cars Australia is headed for record sales this year, but the company’s local boss says the record won’t last long, with 2015 set to be a bumper year for the iconic brand.

With just two selling months remaining, the German sportscar-maker expects to sell 2700 units by year’s end, easily exceeding last year’s haul of 1905 cars and SUVs.

Overall sales to the end of October this year are sitting at 2224 units, a massive 43.9 per cent boost over the first 10 months of 2013 when it had shifted 1545 vehicles.

A big source of sales growth for Porsche has, unsurprisingly, been from its SUV line-up that now includes the mid-size Macan, which went on sale here in May this year.

It has already notched up 488 sales and is expected to finish the year on 700, with a weighty order bank of 1300 pushing deliveries out to 10 months.

A facelifted version of the Cayenne is on sale this month, but Porsche has already confirmed it will be the best year ever for the hulking performance crossover, with 1200 expected to find homes by the end of December.

However, it is not just the profit-making family friendly SUVs helping lift Porsche’s Aussie sales, with its core sportscar models also pulling their weight.

The car-maker’s most iconic model, the 911, is up by 44.6 per cent this year to 308 sales, with the company expecting to end 2014 with about 350 sales. Porsche says this year will be the best sales result for the 911 since the global financial crisis.

Porsche says the Cayman and its Boxster drop-top twin combined will clock up 450 to 500 sales this year, which is the second best year ever for the popular performance cars.

Breaking their sales down, the Boxster is actually down by 13.2 per cent year to date with 184, but the hardtop Cayman is up a whopping 59.2 per cent in the same period for sales of 199 units. This result is perhaps unsurprising, given 2014 is the first full year of current-gen Cayman sales, while the Boxster arrived in mid-2012.

Porsche Cars Australia managing director Sam Curtis told GoAuto the company is pleased with the sales result of its sportscars and added that next year should see further growth.

“Certainly our growth, while attributable to SUVs, is not just SUVs,” he said.

“Our sportscar range is growing at a level we are happy with.

“There isn’t much coming online next year, other than we will have a full year’s supply of Cayenne and Macan. So 2015 will be a record year for us based on our volume planning for that reason.”

While Mr Curtis said the sales growth is positive news for the brand, he acknowledged that it would have to level out eventually.

“At some point it will then be organic growth. It will be just engine variants within the existing model line. You can’t keep growing at 20 per cent or 45 per cent as we have this year.

“From an Australian perspective, we are planning to grow another 20 per cent next year.”