Porsche expects its fast-paced growth to ease for the next two years as buyers are keen and waiting for the 2009 release of its first four-door sports-luxury sedan, the Panamera.

Porche Panamera

The Porsche Panamera is currently still in concept stages, set to be launched in 2009. It will be front engined and rear wheel drive and powered by a modified version of the 4.5 L V8 found in the Cayenne, equipped with the FSI system invented by Volkswagen (Porsche and Volkswagen collaborated on the Cayenne/Touareg sport utility vehicle). Base spec models will be engineered with a 3.5 litre V6 found in the Cayenne, and there is even a hybrid version in the pipeline. The final assembly of the vehicles will take place in Leipzig. Engines will be assembled in Stuttgart, and the car’s painted body will come from the Volkswagen facility in Hanover.

If the Cayenne SUV’s sales slow, CEO Wendelin Wiedeking says, “It will not be possible to keep profits at this high level. In all likelihood, we will show the same operative result as in the previous year. But a quantum leap of the kind we saw last year will not repeat itself.”

Wiedeking also said that Porsche was in no hurry to increase its stake in VW or acquire the company as a whole and kyboshed rumours about Porsche, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti forming a premium spin-off company outside Volkswagen.