Bad move IMHO. Watering down the brand too much. There should not be a Porsche for every purse.
I'll use this one post to agree with Erik and TPL.
It's so easy to point to increased short-term profits and say "Aha...see...it was the right move". Making a decision for the long term takes way more stones.
To me, the risk can't even be justified on those shorter-term profits given the relationship with the VW group.
Nice to see you back, TG!
Nice little write up about the meaning of Aspirational Brands from Wikipedia. SOmething I hope the folks at VW/Porsche don't forget (and something Ulrich Bez will likely learn the hard way soon enough.)
In consumer marketing, an aspirational brand (or product) means a large segment of its exposure audience wishes to own it, but for economical reasons cannot. An aspirational product implies certain positive characteristics to the user, but the supply appears limited due to limited production quantities.
An important characteristic of an aspirational product is that the part of its exposure audience that is at present economically unable to purchase it, thinks of itself as having a fair probability of at a certain point in the future being able to do so. This part of the exposure audience is referred to as the aspirational audience, whereas the part of the exposure audience that already can afford the product is called the consumption audience. Consumption audience and aspirational audience together form the aspirational product's target audience, which typically represents 30%-60% of the exposure audience
Weak aspirational brands have target audiences that are almost as large as their exposure audiences (e.g. mp3 player brands), and are therefore slowly becoming commodity brands, e.g. brands with consumption audiences that coincide with the exposure audience (and therefore, brands without an aspiring audience).
As a general rule, an aspirational brand and its products can command a price premium in the marketplace over a commodity brand. This ability can to a large extent be explained by the consumer's need for invidious consumption for which he is willing to pay a premium. The smaller the size of the product's target audience compared to the exposure audience, the more the product satisfies this need, and the higher the premium that such a consumer is prepared to pay.
The larger the ratio of aspirational to consumption consumers in the target audience, the higher the brand's premium, e.g. Maybach cars. To keep the premium level of a brand high, the consumption portion of the audience should not exceed 30% of the aspirational audience.
Don't know that I would have chosen Maybach as my example.... 
Audi, BMW and MB are already "expensive" commodity brands.
Porsche is close to becoming one.
In my books, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Lambo, Aston Martin etc. are true aspirational Brands.
I don't even consider Land Rover or Jaguar to be aspirational Brands.
