Le Mans and not just Les Moms for Porsche

The Porsche that whipped around the Le Mans race track last weekend for the first time in 16 years was unlike most of the brand's vehicles these days: the low-slung model was a sports car rather than an SUV.

As global demand for vehicles like the 911 stagnate, Porsche returned to the French sports car race - the world's oldest - yet failed to finish owing to technical issues.

Still, the goal was less to win than to remind affluent buyers that the German brand remains focused on performance, even if the majority of the vehicles it sells are suited to shuttling children and carrying groceries.

"It was a mistake to stop competing at the top rung," said chief executive officer Matthias Mueller in an interview last week. "We are a sports car-maker and racing belongs to our brand."

The fact that Porsche needed to reinforce its sporty reputation reflects its increasing reliance on SUVs, which threatens to dilute that cachet. The high-riding Cayenne, which was introduced in 2002, accounted for 52% of all Porsches sold last year and the shift away from pure-bred sports cars has become more pronounced with this year's introduction of the Macan.

"Porsche has to sustain its sports car DNA," said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Centre of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

To maintain the allure that underlies its industry-leading profit margins, Porsche re-entered Le Mans, where it has the most wins since the race's founding in 1923. It left in the 1990s. This year's return involved developing the 919, a hybrid prototype built for the event.

The $845000 (about R9-million) plug-in hybrid accelerates to 95km/h in 2.5 seconds and has a maximum speed of 344km/h. Production will be limited to 918 vehicles to underscore the exclusivity of the car as well as the brand, making it a counterweight to the $49900 Macan. Two-thirds of the supercars have already been ordered.

"I expect it will already be sold out by the end of the year," said Mueller. "We won't sell a single additional model. That would be unfair."

Even with the 918 demand robust, Porsche's bread and butter is now opulent, performance-oriented sport-utility vehicles rather than sports cars like the 911, Cayman and Boxster.