First real clues to a modern-day Porsche 928?

Could this be the first official indication that Porsche has a successor to the V8-powered, front-engined 928?

This rendering appears on the home page of the Porsche Consulting website and it reveals a brawny two-door with styling cues reminiscent of the 911 and recently launched Panamera five-door.

The sketch only adds strength to the rumour mill that has long suggested Porsche would use the Panamera's hardware to spin off a grand-touring coupe in the vein of the original 928 -- built from 1978-95 -- even though for now the official line from company execs is that no such variants are in the pipeline.

One could justifiably argue that having a performance/luxo two-door would enable Porsche to compete against the likes of the Aston Martin DB9, Mercedes SL and Maserati GranTurismo as the rear-engined 911 is obviously a harder-edged, less cosseting proposition.

The original 928 was conceived in the 1970s as a replacement for the 911 (sales of which had been declining), but it's one of the great ironies of the automotive industry that the air-cooled sportster refused to die, while the more modern V8 was consigned to the chopping block after an 18-year lifespan.

According to UK's Autocar magazine, Porsche has no doubt been encouraged by the strong sales performance of the Panamera, which is well on track to hit its 20,000 sales per year target.

We can only hope Porsche does go ahead and build a modern-day 928, because later iterations of the previous model were a pretty sharp driving tool.

The 1990s 928 GTS was powered by a beefy 5.4-litre V8 that eked out much more power and torque (257kW and 500Nm) than the 4.5-litre unit found in the original model, enabling it to sprint to 100km/h in 5.7sec and top 275km/h -- not bad at all for its era.

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