Annual Porsche 928 revival story: 2011 edition

Porsche 928 - about to be revived. Again

Porsche are about to make a new Porsche 928 from a cut down Panamera. To be called Porsche 929 and spawn convertible and Shooting brake. Possibly.

Another year, another story about the imminent revival of a Panamera-based Porsche 928. This time it’s going to be called the Porsche 929 and arrive ‘some time after 2014’.

In 2009 we reported Porsche’s head of sales and marketing, Klaus Berning, saying that Porsche was working on a successor to the 911, which may be a stand-alone model. Which, as we said at the time, was exactly Porsche’s stance when the 928 was first being planned.

And there was logic to the story too because we now have the Porsche Panamera, a front-engined V8 Porsche which looks for all the world like an overblown, 21st century 928 with an extra set of doors. Just not as good looking. So it doesn’t take a big leap of imagination to imagine a cut-down Panamera with two doors being a modern 928.

Fast forward a year and we get another 928 story, this time as a result of a sketch on the Porsche Consulting website that looked like it could be a modern 928. But it wasn’t. But it still made sense.

And now to the 2011 Porsche 928 revival story, courtesy of Autocar, who have re-hashed all the old ‘Panamera based 928 on the way’ justifications for a new Grand Tourer from Porsche we’ve seen ever since the Panamera was launched.

This time Porsche is planning a “… new two-door GT on a short-chassis version of the next Panamera’s underpinnings.” and it’s going to be called the 929. And it may spawn a convertible version. And a Shooting Brake too. And it will all arrive sometime after the next generation Panamera launches in 2014/15.

All this said, we do believe Porsche are going the 928 route. They now have a VW Group partner in Bentley who could share platform development for a new Bentley with a new Porsche 928, and with China taking anything Porsche makes with a passion, a new 928 is a no-brainer.

And one of these years it’ll actually happen.