The element of surprise was however short-lived. After all, you would expect a sports car manufacturer to tinker around with different concepts. That was when design head Michael Mauer suddenly unveiled an electric car that nobody had anticipated.
This once hidden concept is a weird electric van called “Renndienst” in German, which means racing service. It was made in 2018, but killed off by Porsche before it could ever go into production.
The company has only now released images of the bright red concept, a futuristic, six-seater space shuttle with a modular cabin. Sounds like a great idea but does it fit in with Porsche’s image as a high-performance maker? It would seem not.
The Swabians (Germanic people) are not alone in boldly entering new segments. Only a few days after the minibus – which harks back to the historic people-carrying design of mother company Volkswagen – MINI also unveiled a design which at first glance does not seem to fit the brand at all.
Dubbed the Vision Urbanaut, this is a driverless shared car, a tiny house on wheels complete with a pot plant on a table and a kind of balcony made by moving the windscreen upwards. It also features an LED-lit relaxed corner in the rear for a quiet chill-out zone.
The two studies show that the car industry is desperately looking for alternative sectors to augment the booming crossover and SUV market.
Design professor Lutz Fuegener from the University of Applied Sciences in Pforzheim says car companies need these outlandish concept cars if they are to break the mould of self-imposed image barriers.
Of course, this has all happened before. Nobody would have thought Volkswagen capable of producing a Ferrari-level super sports car until the Lower Saxony maker pulled the wraps on its W12 studies at motor shows in the late 1990s.
Equally unlikely was the Concept D from 1999 which morphed into the ill-fated Phaeton limousine built from 2002. A microcar study from luxury brand Mercedes-Benz anticipated the Smart in 1994.
The Mercedes study Micro Compact Car later became the Smart.
Tricked-out designer cars which sometimes never see the light of day are not a waste of time and money, insists Fuegener. "None of these designs which seem not to fit can be called a mistake – quite the opposite," says the expert. "Is a cyber-truck not a real Tesla because it seems to fly in the face of marketing logic."
"Can we imagine an Audi without its trademark single frame front grille or a BMW without the kidney? Of course we can. New models are bold and they junk the stereotypes," says Fuegener. He thinks it is just fine when carmakers try out something new. "Otherwise, the Citroen DS and the iPhone would never have appeared."
And even if such cars don't go into series production, they have an important influence on current projects, said Porsche man Mauer: "On a large scale, because they help to explore spaces of possibility, to question habitual patterns of thought and conventions, and to reinvent the wheel again and again. And on a small scale, because they always provide inspiration for design details."
There are unmistakable similarities between the racing service concept headlights and those on the electric Taycan.
The Audi Urban Concept of 2011.
MINI design chief Oliver Heimer agrees with his colleague: "The Urbanaut not only heralds a new segment, but will also put MINI customers in the mood for a new design language, both inside and out."
Even though some of the surprising visions such as the odd-looking Renault VelSatis, the VW D1 or the MicroCompactCar from Mercedes made it into series production with extremely varying degrees of success, nobody expects Porsche or Mini to introduce a van today or tomorrow or in the foreseeable future.
But as off-the-wall as these studies may be, they are not only important for the creativity of designers and the mental agility of management, but sometimes for business development too.
The VW W12 Roadster concept.
Eyebrows were raised when an off-road vehicle was first discussed at Porsche more than 20 years ago. Since then there been three generations of the Cayenne, which spawned the smaller Macan. Porsche has now built more SUVs than sports cars.
So perhaps the concepts should not be forgotten or pushed back into the vault forever. Although Porsche has made no statement about the feasibility of its van idea, MINI-boss Koerber did say the Urbanaut more than just pie in the sky: "In a few years, this vision could well become a reality."
Renault's foray into the premium class with the Vel Satis (2002 to 2009) didn't work out so well.
The W12 from VW never went into series production.
