mikeyb
11-10-2005, 09:04 AM
STUTTGART — Porsche is planning to leverage its tighter links with Volkswagen to help it build the new Panamera four-door coupe. Porsche has bought 20 percent of VW's shares and plans to use VW's facilities to make body shells for the Panamera.
Volkswagen already supplies the body shells for the hot-selling Cayenne sport-utility vehicle, which shares much of its metal with VW's own Touareg SUV. According to a German press report, Volkswagen's main Wolfsburg plant would stamp out and weld together steel Panamera body shells, paint them, and ship them to Porsche's assembly plant in the eastern German city of Leipzig when production starts in 2009.
Earlier it had been suggested that VW might build the Panamera alongside the slow-selling VW Phaeton. Instead, VW has used up slack capacity at the Dresden plant that builds the Phaeton by using it to make Bentley Continental Flying Spur models since the Bentley factory in England can't cope with demand.
The cooperation deal will sharply reduce the $1.2 billion development costs for the new luxury Panamera model, which will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
source:http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=107936
Volkswagen already supplies the body shells for the hot-selling Cayenne sport-utility vehicle, which shares much of its metal with VW's own Touareg SUV. According to a German press report, Volkswagen's main Wolfsburg plant would stamp out and weld together steel Panamera body shells, paint them, and ship them to Porsche's assembly plant in the eastern German city of Leipzig when production starts in 2009.
Earlier it had been suggested that VW might build the Panamera alongside the slow-selling VW Phaeton. Instead, VW has used up slack capacity at the Dresden plant that builds the Phaeton by using it to make Bentley Continental Flying Spur models since the Bentley factory in England can't cope with demand.
The cooperation deal will sharply reduce the $1.2 billion development costs for the new luxury Panamera model, which will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
source:http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=107936