A milestone in its over 75-year history in Zuffenhausen: Porsche to produce all two-door sports cars at its headquarters.
Porsche will soon be producing all two-door sports cars at its headquarters with the successful production launch of the third generation of the 718 Cayman mid-engine sport coupé that will be produced at this Stuttgart plant that is steeped in tradition. Until mid-August, the company will continue to use its production capacities at the Volkswagen plant in Osnabrück, where the mid-engine sport coupé’s previous generation has been manufactured so far.
“The production launch of the Cayman successor models was executed to our full satisfaction,” says Albrecht Reimold, Executive Board Member for Production and Logistics at Porsche AG. “After the successful launches of the new 911 at the end of last year and of the new 718 Boxster in spring 2016, the team in Zuffenhausen also handled this production launch impeccably. This is further proof that our employees work with perfection and passion on a daily basis to enable a very special Porsche experience for our customers.”
The current generation of the mid-engine sports cars
Manufacturing of all two-door sports cars at the Porsche headquarters will ramp up production there to around 240 vehicles per day by August. Currently, more than 220 units come off the assembly line each day in Zuffenhausen. In business year 2015, Porsche delivered 22,663 vehicles of the Boxster and Cayman models (2014: 23,597 units).
Reimold: “After production had naturally declined based on the product life cycle, we now have a great deal of confidence in the new generation of our mid-engine sports cars.”
The current generation of the mid-engine sports cars is characterised by more power output combined with better fuel economy thanks to the newly developed four-cylinder flat engines with turbocharging. For the first time, the Coupé and Roadster will have the same engine power levels. The entry-level version starts at 220 kW (300 hp) from two litres of engine displacement. The sportier S-models develop 257 kW (350 hp) from 2.5 litres of displacement. That is 18 kW (25 hp) more power than in the previous models, and their NEDC fuel consumption figures range from 8.1 to 6.9 litres per 100 kilometres.
The new 718 Boxster has been at Porsche dealerships since the end of April 2016. The 718 Cayman and 718 Cayman S can be ordered now; their market launch begins at the end of September 2016 in Europe.