Porsche

In times as tumultuous as these, we’d be shocked, to say the very least, if the majority of statisticians didn’t report a noticable uptick in bank heist attempts over the past couple years. And while we obviously don’t endorse criminal activity of any variety, we can’t help wondering if there is such a thing as the perfect getaway car for such a task. Thankfully, it turns out we aren’t the only ones suffering from this perverse curiousity. In fact, the German hoons at GRIP were very, very interested in answering this question.

How do we know this? Well, for starters it appears they commendeered a disused military base complete with town-like sections of buildings and streets to test a vehicle’s agility, plus some long, wide runways for high speed running. Secondly, they’ve assembled a superstar collection of getaway vehicles (tuned models from Audi, Dodge and Porsche), plus one very special police car with which to play the game of cops & robbers about which young gearheads can only dream. So grab some poppin’ corn and make the jump for the video and an explanation of what’s going on, since all the dialogue is auf Deutsch. (Our friends who took Spanish instead in high school are totally jealous right now...maybe.)

Say “station wagon” to the average American and chances are the first picture that pops into his or her noggin is a big, Disco Age American land schooner wearing green paint and mouldings and veneers made from only the finest plastic trees. With so many of today’s car buyers having spent their formative years in these motorized mastadons, is it any surprise contemporary wagons seem to be such a hard sell over here today? (The shortage of manufacturers willing to take the risk of selling them in this hemisphere makes it a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, but bear with us.)

In Europe, however, the honeymoon with the station wagon (or “estate cars” or “kombis,” depending on where you are over there) hasn’t ended. In fact, wagons are so popular in the Old Country that many manufacturers offer high performance versions thereof. But in the mid-‘90s, the species Stationwagonus Wickedfastimus as we know it today didn’t really exist. It took a collaboration between two then-distant (now less so) corporate cousins from the Fatherland to create this category. And the Adam/Eve of the segment they came up with – the Audi RS2 Avant – was a real humdinger.

It may be the year of the Tiger to the Chinese, but to the people of Porsche it's the year of the concept. First they blasted our senses with the near-perfect 918 Spyder, giving us a 911 GT3 RS Hybrid as an encore. Then they released the special-edition 911 Sport Classic, one of the most beautiful Porsches we've seen.

But those were months ago, and what would summer be without a blockbuster? Well we've got one, or at least, a rumor of one. Our friends at Auto Express have reported Porsche has yet another special car for us to dream about. The name alone will have you verbally asking your computer monitor for an explanation. It's the Porsche 911 Speedster.

Switzer Performance has been pushing the limits of what's possible in 996 Porsche Turbos for some time now, so when the 997 rolled out, naturally we expected more of the same. The twin-turbo flat six is an amazing engine, and benefits from mods the way Bruce Banner's body does radiation. But they ran into a problem when they installed their P800 kit on cars equipped with the Tiptronic transmission. While the Porsche Tiptronic internals easily handled the 700 horsepower from Switzer's P700 kit, the P800 proved to be too much, causing slipping and transmission damage.

Shame on Porsche for not giving customers a transmission that can withstand the force of two asteroids colliding. Right. Their fault. Tym Switzer wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop his orphan-saving customers from reaching their horsepower dreams though. So they fixed the problem. Introducing the Switzer 997 Turbo P800 Tiptronic upgrade. The resulting acceleration will tear your ears off.

Readers of the popular automobile review magazine, Sport Auto Magazine, placed TECHART Automobildesign GmbH onto the podium five times in their annual vote for The Most Sportive Cars. TECHART is a German tuning company focused primarily on Porsches. It is hard enough to win the hearts of 10,000 readers once, but five times is truly impressive.

Since 1980, Sport Auto Magazine has asked readers to vote for The Most Sportive Cars every year. This year, readers chose TECHART as one of the top contenders in five categories: Cabriolets over 80,000 Euro, Coupes under 80,000 Euro, Limousines over 80,000 Euro, Coupes over 80,000 Euro, and finally, Super Sportcars.  

Under BMW’s stewardship, the Mini brand has garnered a reputation for being playful and not taking itself too seriously. The nameplate took that reputation to new heights recently when its president of American operations, Jim McDowell, invited his former employer, Porsche, to race a 911 Carrera S against a Mini Cooper S at Road Atlanta this coming Monday.

Audacious? Most definitely. But Mini was dead serious about wanting to face the storied Stuttgart sports car builder at the track near their U.S. headquarters. Dead serious, that is, while still being cute and clever, as the video past the jump illustrates. What’s the hold up? To paraphrase Jim Morrison, click on through to the other side.

Ever have one of those days where nothing is going your way, and you just want God to answer one little request? This video is the antidote to one of those days. Our favorite source of high-end car porn, Top Gear, is still on sabbatical. That usually means creating a shootout by pushing our Micro Machines across the floor, resulting in burned knees and the absence of a girlfriend. But today Motor Trend has brought us all a present comparable with the finest motoring videos online.

Led by the regally-named Arthur St. Antoine, three of MT's finest take on a Nevada highway with three of the best cars available today: The 2011 Porsche 911 Turbo, Audi R8 V10 and Mercedes SLS AMG. The voice-overs are kept to a minimum, leaving your mind free to enjoy the sounds and sights of 1500hp ripping up the highway. To make it just a little better, the Highway Patrol shut down an epic set of curves for them. What followed was a high-speed blast into the mountains. Driving any of these cars would keep me happy for a month, but the MT guys had to pick a favorite. Make the jump to enjoy this triple-showdown, and find out which one they all wanted to drive back to Vegas.

Regardless of where you stand on the mere idea of a hatchback sedan (never mind one with love-it-or-loath-it styling) built by Porsche, there’s no denying that the Panamera is helping the storied Stuttgart marque reach demographics that heretofore would have never bought a Porsche, even if they had the monetary means. The recent introduction of the lower-priced, more fuel efficient V6 version will only further broaden the company’s customer base.

Of course, more Panameras on the road also means it’s harder to make yours stand out from the herd. What’s a nonconformist to do? Well, if you want to go all out as far as personalizing your Panamera (or any car or truck, for that matter), you send it to a tuning house. And if you want to make absolutely sure your ride will stand out, the tuning house you send it to is Mansory.