The Porsche 917

Lots of automakers like to brag about how their “racing heritage” informs their production vehicles, but none of them can claim nearly the star power of Porsche. They’re the Tom Cruise of automotive racing.

Let’s warm up with some initial stats:

• 16-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (more than any other manufacturer)
• More than 50 class wins at Le Mans
• An estimated 28,000 total championships won globally as of 2007
• 275 dedicated race cars produced in 2007 alone (more than any other manufacturer)

Porsche’s philosophy of small cars with high-displacement engines led to their initial nickname in the racing circuit: “giant-killer.” While other automakers tried out V8s, V10s and even V12s, Porsche stuck with their four or six cylinder flat engines and lightweight bodies for a long time.

The first official Porsche racing entrant was the 356 SL in 1951, a custom version of Porsche’s first production car, the 356. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Porsche won the under 1100cc category in its first try thanks to its aluminum body.

The Porsche 356 SL

This led to the 550 Spyders in 1953, which will look familiar to anyone has seen a Boxster Spyder in recent years. In 1956, the 550A Spyder won the Targa Florio against competitors from Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar, which would inspire Porsche to use the Targa name years later. Similarly, a win in the 1953 Carrera Panamerica would encourage Porsche to appropriate those names, too.

Rally racing also proved to be an effective arena for Porsche due to a lesser known vehicle: the 911. The automaker racked up three wins in a row at the Monte Carlo Rally toward the end of the 1960s. Porsche won the International Championship for Manufacturers in 1970, and a range of private drivers using the 911 have had success at rally races over the years.

The Porsche 550A Spyder

In terms of Formula One, we’ve had a more complex relationship. Sometimes Porsche built their own car, like 804 F1 in 1962 at the French Grand Prix. That eight-cylinder single-seat rocket was enough to silence critics who said Porsche could not design a larger engine car. Thereafter, in the 1970s Porsche was content to build custom engines for F1 teams at McLaren and TAG, thus sharing the glory. Still, there are indications that current CEO Matthias Mueller could bring Porsche back into Formula One racing after a decades-long sabbatical.

Finally, it’s impossible to reference Porsche’s wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans without bringing up the 917. Regarded as one of the most iconic racing cars ever, its shape informs the 918 and 919 today, as well as multitudinous imitators. Its 5.0-liter V12 was a masterwork in air-cooled engine design. Its tempestuous power proved difficult for many drivers to control, but once tamed, allowed Porsche to rack up an uninterrupted string of victories. Rule changes in 1971 made the 917 illegal, but it lives on in subsequent derived designs.

For even more of Porsche’s 28,000 championship wins, we would direct you to our Porsche Motorsports page.

The Porsche 804 F1

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You know that scene in the The Fast & The Furious where that one character drives really fast & furious? That’s what driving the 2015 Porsche Carrera S is like. Not to say that this Porsche is anything like a B-list action movie full of B-list actors. We mean instead that if you could put Red Bull, pure adrenaline, nitrous, and pixie stix powder into a cup, then gave that cup to a squirrel, and sent that squirrel into a laser tag facility (lots of black lights), you’d have a sense of what it’s like to drive this car.

At its base level, a Carerra S is already dangerous. It’s normal driving mode—without the “sport” or “sport plus” modes activated—is lively enough that it reminds us of an Audi S3 with all of its sport upgrades maxed out and running at full tilt. The S3 has a much smaller engine, however—a turbocharged four—while the Carerra S has that increasingly rare attribute: a naturally-aspirated six.

A naturally-aspirated six means that it has six cylinders—a larger engine—and creates its power without recycling its exhaust fumes (that creates a power boost but necessitates a slight delay in delivery). With natural aspiration, power is always available, from the moment you turn the key.

That naturally-aspirated six will zap you to 60 mph from a standstill in just 4.3 seconds. Its 400 hundred German horses will rip the cover off the U.S. air, stuff it into the combustion chambers, and vaporize it into a screaming triple-digit speed in less time than it took you to read this sentence. That doesn’t even get into the “sport” and “sport plus” modes.

Pressing “sport” is like giving your dog a 50 foot leash. “Sport plus” is taking him to the dog park. With no leash at all, the Carrera S is almost too much car, at least for the posted speed limits of a town like Cary. The engine is furious at the slightest provocation. The gentlest of prodding during parking lot maneuvers unleashes a barely contained quaking that is a bit much for picking up some stamps at the Post Office.

The on-ramp to U.S. Highway 1-South from Walnut St. is long and windy. We made sure to give the cars in front of us plenty of time to go first—not because we it was our boy scout deed of the morning, but because we didn’t want them in our way. The engine is already warring at 7,000 RPMs for no reason at all despite our pleadings to come down and join the rest of us like a normal person. As the light turns green, we let gravity do what it was meant to and send our foot to the earth like a piano onto Wile E. Coyote.

It was loud, it sure as science sounded like Judgment Day, and we very quickly discovered that having the engine in the back is something that needs to be managed and respected. Fortunately, we’d read up on first-time 911 drivers trying to merge onto highways while pedal-mashing and finding themselves several lanes further over than they’d intended. We got the top speed we wanted, felt a brief moment of numbness as the rear end twitched, then braked fast and early, bringing us back to the realm of mortal.

Flicking around the roads of Cary with sport plus activated is an exercise in watching for police cars. The engine is crying out for freedom with all the subtlety of a cat that is on fire. You’re really better off at the track with this mode. To test out the nav system, we keyed in La Farm Bakery and were soon attracting Mercedes’ and BMWs who looked over hopefully at stop lights before the light turned green.

On a normal day, and in a more controlled setting, we might have indulged them. Today, however, was macaroon day, which meant that La Farm was offering french treats at a discount. There’s no way we were going to let torching an AMG like a cedar stick get in the way of that.

Something else we should mention is that our Carrera S came equipped with PDK. This is Porsche’s take on an automatic transmission, something that even the most basic of 90s era Ford Taurus’s operate, except that the two are as alike as a paper airplane and an F-22 Raptor. No other transmission snaps off gear changes so ruthlessly, with endless capacity to supply peak after peak of power. It’s as if you’re a mountain climber with bionic legs; you bound up and up and up until the atmosphere itself begins to thin out and you realize that you’re nearing outer space.

There’s a reason why the 911 GT3 RS, the highest of Porsche’s 21 levels of 911 (the Carrera S is level 2, by the way) only comes with PDK. There comes when a point when you’re dealing with so much speed and power that the manual transmission simply isn’t adequate for driving. The Carrera S does allow for a manual, if you want it, but honestly, after trying PDK and reading so many auto journalists’ laudatory remarks, we understand why people prefer it. In fact, we might prefer it, too.

Besides that, the Carrera S comes with the standard Porsche engineering features that would make the fellows who built the Golden Gate bridge about want to stand up from the grave and applaud (assuming you’re into the zombie fad):

• Porsche Active Suspension Management – A system that manages each wheel’s interaction with the road. If you begin to drive aggressively, the suspension firms up to give you more control. If the road conditions worsen, the suspension takes that and your driving style into account.
• Porsche Torque Vectoring – A system the brakes the inner wheel of the car when cornering, helping the car to execute the turn faster and return to straight line position.
• Cross-Drilled Brake Discs – Improved ventilation and larger caliper sizes provide the balance needed to stop the 400-horsepower engine.

Out of politeness to you, we’ll stop here, but the list of standard engineering—things well beyond power windows and air conditioning—goes well beyond this. This particular Carrera S has about $30,000 worth of options added to it, things like Dynamic Chassis Control, Dynamic Lighting System, and SportDesign, which changes the front lip and rear spoiler to reduce air drag up front and increase it in the rear.

All in all, we totally get the allure of a 911. In an area like the Triangle, you’ll have no trouble running out for sprints to Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh. Even if you mainly tool around Cary like a boss, we guarantee that you’ll have a grin whenever you feel like it. Sport plus is only a touch away.

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Photo: CAR Magazine

A second source is confirming our report from two weeks ago that Porsche is developing a “717” battery electric vehicle similar to Tesla’s Model S. CAR Magazine is strapping on its “me-too” pants and boldly saying that, yes, Tesla might be onto something and Porsche is exploring the space.

While many articles online will document the technical details that are under consideration, we want to focus on an aspect that no one else is talking about: form.

The original design of the 911, one of the most iconic in automotive history, was based on the rear placement of the engine. All vehicles are structured around the placement of the engine. So when you add in topographic battery pouches and electric motors, can you still be a Porsche?

Obviously, any new designs have to connect with existing design language. No one is going to buy a Porsche that looks like a Prius. However, Porsche engineering excels when form follows function. Letting the engineers push the constraints of the body to the limit is how we got class-leading vehicles like the Macan and Cayman GT4.

The Porsche 717 will be grounded upon Volkswagen Group’s MSB architecture, the spiritual successor to the popular MQB platform that delivers outstanding results in the Audi A3 and Volkswagen Golf GTI, among others. The MSB frame will also support the Panamera Mk2 and new Bentley Continental.

Those are hefty cars, however, and the 717 is supposed to be smaller than the Panamera. The Panamera is already, at its heaviest, 200 lbs. lighter than the Model S. Porsche will also be able to draw resources from QuantumScape, a California battery-innovator that is partially owned by Volkswagen. QuantumScape is working on solid state batteries that provide three times the range of the lithium-ion batteries that Tesla uses.

While this battery technology is not ready yet, the 2018 or 2019 launch date of the Porsche 717 leaves some time. All this geek trivia will feed into Porsche’s designers, along with a constant stream of Red Bull, or whatever German engineerss drink. Will they have the license to create something truly iconic, nearly 60 years after the 911 originally appeared?

We hope so. The engine changes provide an opportunity to do so. We wonder, however, if pressure from its Volkswagen owners to continue being a profit center will outweigh the chance to be risky and historic. Ironically, the smash financial success of the Macan might prevent Porsche from being hungry enough to go for greatness.

Seize this opportunity to snap up a used Porsche in North Carolina by visiting our showroom. Enjoy life!

The post Will the Porsche 717 Electric Sedan Change Porsche’s Design Language? appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Photo: Alex Tillman / Jalopnik

Last year saw the return of the 911 Targa, the perfect way to tell people that while you could have a convertible 911, you prefer a hardtop made out of glass. And while the retracting platform space opera of the Targa’s roof opening and closing is pretty cool, more than one person looked at all that gizmo and thought, “What a bunch of extra weight!”

Well, worry no longer. Following the Stuttgartian playbook, Porsche has revealed the 911 Targa 4 GTS this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Is it crazy? Yes. Is it necessary? Debatable. Is it more powerful? You bet.

What we do know is that flying though the Italian countryside, Algerian countryside, or any countryside, really, with a bottle of wine in the passenger seat and a glass roof in the back will be incomparably more joyous in the hardcore GTS variant. That’s just how life works, it’s science.

Head over to Jalopnik to bathe your GTS-deprived eyes in images of the new Targa GTS, then break out your checkbook. Summer will be here before you know it.

Photo: Alex Tillman / Jalopnik

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We have no doubt that you are beyond saturated with gift recommendations by now. When we walked into a store this year before Halloween and noticed red-and-green holiday items on the shelf, we knew it had already begun.

However, there are plenty of us who like to take our time when choosing our gifts. In fact, we like it so much that we sometimes forget until the very last minute that, oh yeah, that’s something we really need to take care of.

Never fear. Leith Porsche wants to help, and we certainly won’t send you to the mall to do so. Can you imagine the gridlock at the mall right now? Pure anarchy. Avoid all of that mess by getting your special someone one of our recommended apps, or swing by our gift shop to pick up something quick. We guarantee you can park easily and knock out at least one gift. Easy!

Here then are three apps and three things from our Porsche gift shop. Good luck.

6. Trackr App

This is an app to help you find your keys, wallet, purse, phone or anything else you routinely lose. Small, coin-sized “TrackR” devices can be stored on your keychain, wallet, or whatever. These devices have Bluetooth wireless capability. With the company’s app, the device will ring, or you can search for it based on location.

5. Porsche Martini Belt

4. XLR8 App

This app makes up for the lack of ferocity in today’s fuel-efficient cars by giving you the engine growl you wish you had. Thanks to clever location-monitoring, the app changes gears and accelerates as you accelerate. Take your foot off the gas, and the app will decelerate your virtual V8. You can even choose which muscle car you feel like today. Sit at idle and your virtual carburetors will rattle and pop just like Steve McQueen’s. Reclaim your car’s soul.

3. Porsche Ballcap

2. Waze App

Bought by Google last year, Waze is arguably the most popular driving app today, aside from Google Maps. Waze’s strength is its crowd-source information about traffic delays that creates faster, more efficient routes than Google Maps. How can this be if Google owns Waze? For whatever reason, Google Maps doesn’t integrate all of Waze’s data.

Google Maps certainly looks nicer; its polish is world-class. But for the fastest routes in real-time, as well as real-time info about police speed traps, Waze is still king.

1. Porsche iPad Air Case

The post Top 6 Driving Apps and Porsche Gifts For 2014 Winter Holidays appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Much has been made about the Macan. From our launch party this past May, to the scads of reviews that auto journalists have published since then, this small SUV has undergone a lot of scrutiny: Is it fast enough? Is it light enough? Is it Porsche enough? The consensus among reviewers has been as united as they get: the Macan is a Porsche through and through.

In fact, the Macan has done so well that they’ve been sold out continuously here at Leith Porsche. Macans have been claimed before they even show up at our doorstep, so when a white, nicely-optioned Porsche Macan Turbo in Raleigh happened to arrive without a buyer, we seized the day like it was made out of chocolate, grabbed the key, and headed out for a brief spin in the hottest Porsche of 2014.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Porsche

This being December, red ribbon and green garlands are everywhere you look. Many people have their decorations up, the air is colder, and the scarves and wreaths about town make it feel like the holidays. We want to test the Macan’s performance, but we also want to test it in everyday driving. As we admire the deeply cut LED taillights and open the door with keyless entry, we have an epiphany about where to take it.

Every year one of the songs on the radio lists a bunch of things: three French hens, two turtle doves, a partridge in a pear tree—you might know it. It’s an old song, and no one buys those sorts of things anymore, at least not for their special someone. It is, however, a large amount of stuff to haul, and the Macan is designed to haul a lot of stuff. You can probably see where this is going.

We’re dreaming of a white Macan, plus some hot cocoa

Salem Street in downtown Apex is quaint, charming, and has a number of shops. In those shops, we want to see if we can find all items from our song, which are:

1 Partridge in a Pear Tree

2 Turtle Doves

3 French Hens

4 Calling Birds

5 Gold Rings

6 Geese-a-Laying

7 Swans-a-Swimming

8 Maids-a-Milking

9 Ladies Dancing

10 Lords-a-Leaping

11 Pipers Piping

12 Drummers Drumming

Piece of cake, right? Well, let’s look at what we have to haul it in. Our Macan Turbo has an air suspension for an incredibly comfortable ride; it has an off-road button to raise it up; it has a lowering button for fast highway driving; it has a twin-turbo V6 engine; dynamic lighting, carbon fiber inlays, 3-zone climate control, BOSE sound, privacy glass, and rows upon rows of other options that you don’t have time to read. Yes, we’re pretty well equipped.

Our list of holiday items, however, is going to require some modern interpretation. Even if we drive out to a farm, we’re probably not going to find a milk maid, let alone eight of them. Lords went out of style, oh, around the time America was invented, and pipers might be legal in Colorado and Washington, but this is North Carolina. We regretfully leave our heated steering wheel and seats parked off Saunders Street to see what we can find.

Shopping isn’t a chore if you have the right sleigh

With the rear seats folded, we have 53 cubic feet of cargo space. Maximum cargo weight is about 1,400 pounds. Six of the twelve items are birds: hens, swans, partridge, etc. Thankfully, there are a number of gift shops on Salem Street with a number of decorative birds. They might be bookmarks, paper weights and tree ornaments, but we’re going to say that they still count. Plus, we don’t want to chance swan feathers or other leavings on the interior of our Macan. Let’s say that all of these will take up about 20 cu. ft. and 300 lbs.

The five gold rings are probably our easiest purchase. Sophie and Mollie’s Boutique, Virtuoso Jewels, or any of the other shops would do nicely. Seven maids-a-milking is a harder find, but between the Ice Cream Shop and Buttercream’s Bakery, we think we have dairy covered.

Nine ladies dancing sounds difficult, but a short drive away is the Infinity Ballet Conservatory and Theatre: dancing ladies found. Ten lords-a-leaping is a stretch but what is a dancing lord besides a happily-monied man? Edward Jones Financial Advisors and Woomer Financial Services are probably full of people going about their financial business.

With 10 out of 12 items found on or nearby Salem Street, we were surprised at how easy the Macan made finding them. With a massive panoramic roof and easy navigation system, zipping around town would be a snap. At the same time, the super-wide rear tires and massive air intakes up front were put there by Porsche for a reason: when it’s time to move, the Macan Turbo can go from 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds.

Water-cooled Porsches don’t jingle sleigh bells so much as crush them

Pipers piping were found at Peak City Bar & Grill via a poster advertising jazz flutists on Tuesday nights. Drummers drumming were on the other side of the street at the Rock Harbor Grill. To make sure we weren’t leaving anything out, we kept walking north until only houses lined the sidewalks. Wreaths, twinkling lights, and signs for a holiday walking tour dotted the picket fences on either side.

We circled back and came to our Macan on the side of the road, brushed with the last of the fall leaves, silver letters catching the light in a faint echo of sleigh bells. Could it fit everything from our list? Maybe. What really matters is your list, and what you plan to put it in. In that case, we bet that this 2015 Porsche Macan at Christmas won’t go unsold for long.

The post We Fit Everything From the 12 Days of Christmas Into the Macan appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Another fund drive done! Leith Porsche teamed up with Audi Cary in October to raise money for breast cancer awareness. To give extra pay-off for trying one of our excellent vehicles, both dealerships donated $10 for every service visit and $25 for every test drive during the month. These sums ended up totaling more than $18,000, which it was our pleasure to award this week.

Leith Porsche and Audi Cary worked with the Susan G. Komen foundation to make this happen, specifically the local North Carolina Triangle to the Coast branch. The NCTC has been serving 29 of North Carolina’s counties since it hosted its first race in 1997. With more than $15 million raised since then, we couldn’t think of a better partner for this issue.

NCTC’s executive director, Pam Kohl, was on hand to accept the oversized check on her organization’s behalf.

“We are thrilled that Audi Cary and Leith Porsche have chosen to partner with Komen NCTC,” Pam said. “The funds will help provide breast cancer services to underinsured and underserved women and families in our 29-county service area. We are grateful for Audi Cary and Leith Porsche’s support.”

We’re already looking ahead to the first race of 2015, the Race for the Cure in Wilmington on March 7. We highly recommend getting a team together and beginning training now; we all need things to occupy these winter days, and this is an excellent way to do so.

Visit the NCTC’s website for more information about ways to raise awareness about breast cancer, including a race that will happen right here in Raleigh (that’s next June). We’d love to see you out there, and your support will accomplish a world of good.

And if you helped make this week’s donation possible: thank you! We appreciate it more than we can say.

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Photos: Motor Trend

A few weeks ago, we had heard about a special car that Porsche built for Motor Trend magazine. As part of an advance piece for the publication, Porsche had built two specially-equipped 2015 Cayman GTS’s, one for driving, and the other as a backup in case a bit of mud smudged the first one’s tailpipe, or something equally blasphemous.

As it turned out, the driving model was successfully delivered to Motor Trend who then had an obscenely fun time doing what every Porsche driver would love to do: taking it to a closed race track. Like any selfless, noble, casually disinterested third party, we happened to ask, just in passing, “Is anyone doing anything with the backup model?”

This Cayman is positively wicked. Since being introduced by Porsche in 2006, the Cayman—a two-seat, exceptionally well-balanced sports car—has received a variety of special versions: the Cayman S, the Cayman R, the Cayman S Sport and even a rumored—though never confirmed—Cayman RS. Never before, however, has Porsche thrown everything it has into its mid-engined sibling to the 911. This is the Cayman GTS.

Looking over its option sheet, it’s almost impossible not to sigh and offer thanks to what Porsche has been able to create in 2014: sport suspension, carbon fiber door guards, torque vectoring, ceramic composite brakes, 3.4-liter flat-six engine—the Cayman GTS weighs less than a standard Cayman, has more power, and rides substantially lower. A Cayman GTS gets Porsche’s Active Suspension Management System, which lowers it by 10 millimeters. Because ours has the sport suspension with analogue dampers, it gets lowered by an additional 10 mm beyond that, 20 overall.

As Autocar’s Steve Sutcliffe recently said, “If you are really into your subject matter, this is the Cayman GTS you would have.”

Going Nuclear

Later estimates would declare November 18, 2014 as the coldest morning in the United States since 1976. At the time, as we snagged the key and headed out to jump in our Carmine Red GTS, all we could tell was that it was properly cold. We barely had time to notice the exterior details that practically leapt into the arms of passers-by and curious fellow-drivers at stoplights.

This GTS has specially painted black accents all over to complement the GTS lettering on the sides and rear: the air intakes in the front, the headlight cleaners, the rear fascia, the wheels—all a deliciously liquid black to make the Carmine Red exterior truly pop.

“Let the brakes warm up,” one expert told us, referencing the carbon ceramics that are so indestructible that only the pads will ever need to be replaced, never the rotors. “They’ll break your collarbone.”

For a car like this, we knew that a jaunt around Cary would never do. This car needs somewhere special to go, some worthy backdrop that sets the right tone for a model so out of the ordinary, it is literally two of a kind. As we pulled up the navigation to look for an appropriate venue, our eye was drawn to a location that stood out from the Starbucks’ and shopping malls that cropped hopefully up to entice the masses for early holiday shopping and parking lot gridlock: just south of Apex in a maze of winding back roads lies the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant.

We punched in the address, and let the car do the routing. This, we could tell, was going to be good.

The Bloodsport-Obsessed Kitten You Always Wanted

Turning the key in a Cayman GTS is enough to obliterate any sense you had of the day being cold. The GTS’s engine absolutely thunders to life in a way that makes us wonder if we haven’t climbed into a Cayenne by mistake. The sound is an all-encompassing extra passenger in the cockpit with you. If you come to the Cayman looking to find your quiet place, or a serene mountain lake in your mind’s eye, you should scuttle those notions right away. It howls. It screams. It wails and rails. It does not go quietly into that good night.

The second thing we noticed—after the sport seats, contrast red stitching, leather accents and the entirely suede Alcantara roof (who does that?)—was that this is the best steering wheel we have touched this year, hands down, maybe of all time. Have you ever been around a kitten and stroked its rib cage through its impossibly soft, downy fur? This is what our GTS’s steering wheel feels like. Also in suede Alcantara, it is the softest, downiest, most absolutely pleasant-to-touch steering wheel we have ever encountered.

Entirely devoid of controls for the audio and infotainment system, this wheel is for the purist, the one who is so devoted to the road that the only thing his or her fingers want to touch is the paddle shifters just behind. In fact, the only adornment to the wheel besides its textural nirvana of suede and aluminum are two pieces of dark glass that don’t catch the eye at all. It’s only when activating Sport mode, Sport Plus, or Launch Control that a subtle white text appears beneath the smoked glass, a silent reminder of what mode you’re in.

It’s an intoxicatingly restrained feature, one that reinforces the theme that for all the technology at work, Porsche went to great lengths to scale back on whelming the driver. It’s this kind of thoughtful reduction that makes this car incredibly focused on what it does best: driving.

Somewhere Out There, a Stretch of Asphalt Is Still Cooling Down

Going to the Harris Nuclear Plant is a good idea because A) it lets us blow by some bewildered economy cars on Highway 1, and B) its tree-lined back road circuit offers the perfect amount of fall leaves to streak by the windows like an autumnal golden smolder of a meteor in the air.

Many of the Cayman’s competitors have powerful engines. They warble and explode and generally have power instantly available the moment you ask for it. But you have to ask for it. What the Cayman GTS does so inextricably well—particularly in Sport Plus—is provide such a sense of being alive. It’s not just that the engine makes fantastic sounds—though it does—nor that the engine provides such a gravity-defying adrenaline rush of blitzkrieg—though it will.

The Cayman GTS has a quaking, shivering need to be pushed further and farther and faster and harder in a way that few cars are able to communicate. It is present in every tremor of its air, and in the very crackle of its aura. It is the storm about to break that makes the air seem heavy and thick. It is the pit in the bottom of your stomach before every significant moment in your life. It is the blood that pounds in your ears when you sprint flat-out, running for all that you are worth.

Alive is really the best word for it. The sounds, the smells, the tuning, the suspension—all of it conspires to make the GTS an enabler of the first degree—it is not the friend who will rein you in and keep you in check. This is the one who will push open the gate to an abandoned airplane runway and ask, “Why not?” This car feels lively to a degree that must make Porsche’s engineers, if they are reading this, sit back and clink glasses of some traditional German drink in vindication.

Conclusion

In the end, we didn’t visit the nuclear station itself. We could see its towering, steaming hulk beyond the security gates with the signs about protocol and surveillance, and we decided that they weren’t exactly open to casual visits. We did go by the Energy & Environmental Center, however, a geometrically interesting structure that resembled a cluster of crystals reaching out from the earth.

With a looping, semi-circular front drive that reaches its zenith at the main entrance of the Center, we paused for a second at the crest to look inside through our windows, not quite wanting to step out into the blistering cold.

At that moment, a man—younger guy—was hurrying out of one building toward another. Head down, neck up, no jacket, arms tucked under each other in futile protest, he saw us, and a funny thing happened.

He completely stopped. His back straightened and he stood normally for a second, exposing his neck and arms and ears to the freezing air. We gave a friendly wave, put it in Sport Plus, and as we took off down the long straight road to the highway, we could see him, still standing there in our rearview, immobile, watching our rear tires as we sped away.

The post Full Review: The 2015 Porsche Cayman GTS Takes North Carolina appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Photo: Yahoo Autos

In the deep corners of our mind, we wonder: Where is the 918 Spyder constructed? How is it conceived? Can you eat a candy apple while you watch it being built?

Until recently, the only way you could see the special room where Porsche builds these gifts to humanity was to buy one. Plunk down the nearly $1 million needed for purchase and you were golden. Other than that, to see the 918 room meant that you had to leave more signals than an investment banker on a sales call, or own a very successful chain of dentist offices.

Thankfully, this has changed. Not for us gentle-folk, of course, but for the press. Now that all the 918 models have been sold—and Porsche literally made 918 of them—Porsche is allowing the rest of the world to see these last few babes in their natural habitat.

Car and Driver has an excellent collection of photos and interesting facts about the 918 from their experience there. Porsche is determined to let us see what happens after you give them a million dollars and ask for a racecar in return. That sounds like a lot of money, but really, it’s the result of nearly four years of planning.

After showing a little ankle in 2010, Porsche approved the development of the 918 and three years later the first production model was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. As Porsche’s flagship supercar for at least the next decade, small islands could probably have been bought and sold for what the company spent developing it.

At the end of last year it was reported that the steering wheel alone cost about $25 million to develop. Given that we’ve had steering wheels for about, oh, 100 years, we can’t imagine the total developmental costs for the entire car.

In any case, we heartily recommend taking this guided tour into the heart of Porsche, if only to see what is more than just a car: it’s an apex.

Leith Porsche remains your premiere Porsche dealer for Raleigh, Cary and surrounding areas.

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Holy moly, y’all. A police precinct just got a custom Porsche 911 Carrera for its department, and we can’t imagine anything more fun than chasing down speeders in one of these. The car is actually still owned by Porsche and will be used more for parades and special events, the Iron Man suit of Australian Police, we suppose.

But holy mackerel if it doesn’t look fine; the officers of New South Wales must be better people than we…or at least more tortured. Can you imagine the temptation of living next to all that desert and not being able to let it loose? Sure, the Chief will take his wife out to dinner in it, but what about the regular guys, the shift guys, the guys working on a Saturday with nothing happening and those keys just hanging on a hook, jangling whenever someone slams a door.

The car, sophisticated as it looks, was actually designed by children, high school children actually, submitting designs in a competition run by Porsche. Too bad only Australian high schoolers get to ogle it in person now. Is it a deterrent against bad driving or does it inspire a want to be chased?

From what we’ve seen of high-speed pursuits, this is not a car that you would want to take. It would go plenty fast, but the need to box the pursued in with your own vehicle would undoubtedly be too much for many officers to bear. Which is more worth protecting: the law or the Porsche? Men weren’t built to shoulder these responsibilities.

We are simply glad that it exists and look forward to seeing it at the Stuttgart museum one day. In the meantime, stop by Leith Porsche to test drive a 911 Carrera of your own. You can play the outlaw or the police.

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