The phone calls are starting in earnest now. ‘Do you have a Porsche Panamera for sale?’ they ask. And the answer is usually ‘Sorry, no cars until September’. But there will be cars then, and they look extraordinarily good.

The thing with Porsches is you usually love them or hate them. Those that fall in to the ‘Hate’ camp cannot usually be persuaded that the drawbacks of the Porsche are minuscule in comparison to the benefits. We know of no other car with this sort of performance you can use as an everyday car, perhaps with the exception of the Audi R8. But they can be a bit Soul-less, so if you want passion and an ‘Event’ car then opt for the Ferrari or Lamborghini. But if you want extreme performance coupled with ultra reliability then opt for the Porsche.

Porsche has got a head start with the Panamera over what will probably be its biggest rival – the Aston Martin Rapide. But the beauty of the Panamera is that its entry-level model – currently the Porsche Panamera S – is its price. It comes in at a bit over £70k. Admittedly you will have to throw another £15k at bit to get some toys, but that is still a great deal cheaper than the Rapide is likely to be.

Even at the top of the Porsche Panamera tree with the 4wd Porsche Panamnera Turbo you come in well under £100k. Add in another £15k for some extras and you will still probably be a big-ish 5 figure sum in pocket from where you would be if you’d bought the Rapide. And the Porsche won’t break down.

If you choose to wait until next year there is every chance you will be able to add two more model options to the Panamera choice. There will undoubtedly be a diesel, but perhaps the most interesting will be the Panamera Hybrid. This, assuming it is based on the Cayenne Hybrid’s drivetrain, will probably give you a 0-60 time under 6 seconds, but cost you around the same as a V6 to run.

We are in no doubt the Porsche Panamera will be a big seller. If the number of calls we’ve had is anything to go by, the Panamera will be as big a success for Porsche as the Cayenne has been.

Porsche 911 GT1 For Sale. Now there’s a statement you will hardly ever see.

As you will know if you read here regularly, I am an unreconstructed petrol-head, but I have to confess that when we were offered a Porsche 911 GT1 it was a car I knew virtually nothing about. It rang a vague bell as being along the lines of the CLK GTR, but that was it. And then, in the space of 24hrs, we got offered another. Just like a bus – you wait for ever for one to come along and then two turn up at once.

The Porsche GT1 was designed and built in 1995 to compete in the GT1 Class at Le Mans. The homologation rules required that there were 25 road legal cars built, which is why the 911 GT1 Straßenversion (Street Version) came in to being.

Although the 911 GT1 bears a resemblance to the 993, it was actually based on the 956/962 Group C floorpan, with a watercooled, twin-turbo flat six. For road use it had to be slightly de-tuned, but it still managed around 600bhp, with a 0-60 of just over 3 seconds. So, despite the arguments about the fastest 911 being a GT2, this takes the biscuit by quite some way (assuming you could call it a real 911).

The world is full of rare and exotic cars, but these Homologation Specials from the ’90s are extremely rare; after all, they were only required to make 25, and in truth it looks like there were only 19 of these ever to hit the roads. To get one is pretty unusual (we also have a CLK GTR For sale), but to end up with two, one of the first and one of the last, is rare indeed. Oh, and the other one is white.

Go on. Spoil yourself. Have the pair!

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It’s always difficult when you write about cars to come. The world is full of speculation and conjecture (and in this case, Lamborghini releasing a series of teaser pictures), and the general consensus was that the new 4-door Lamborghini would be called Urus. It sort of made sense, even though Urus is a cow and not a bull (which is what the other Lamborghini names are), but we were wrong. So let’s get it right – Lamborghini Estoque for sale (or not, as the case may be!).

After what seems like endless teaser shots (they actually turn off the interest for me) Lamborghini has shown the new 4-door concept at Paris. Concept, you say? I thought it was a new model? Well, you’re probably right. Just like all the car makers these days, they’re scared to just announce a car. They have to float it as a concept first. I think they’ve learnt that from the major political parties on both sides of the pond, who seem equally afraid to announce policy without first ‘floating’ the idea to the media and public. But you can be pretty sure that the Estoque (which is pronounced es-toh-kay, with the emphasis on the ‘toh’) will be a production car. Why? Because, as I said last week, the 4-door coupe is the ‘in-vogue’ car, and everyone from Aston to Porsche and Mercedes to VW is in on the game. So it only makes sense that Lamborghini should join the party. And it puts one over Ferrari, which is always a plus for the boys from Sant’Agata.

So, apart from the pretty body, what has the Estoque got to offer? Well, it seems that Lamborghini aren’t too sure. The early money was on a turbo V8, but there is also talk of a V10 or even a hybrid. Again, a chunk of this has to do with how the options are received. But my money’s on a blown V8 plus some sort of hybrid. But, rather than me try and pull the salient bits from the hype bits of the press release, read it for yourself:

continue reading "Lamborghini – The Cow becomes a Sword!"

We’ve been asked for more than eighteen months “Is the Porsche Panamera for sale yet?”, and the answer has always been “No, but it shouldn’t be long”. Well it has been ‘long’ and it still isn’t here, but at least there’s some positive news on the horizon.

Autobild in Germany have told us that the prices for the Panamera are now known, which pretty much supports the idea that the car will become real in early 2009. About time too. Starting at around £70,000 and rising to over £100,000, the car ain’t gonna be cheap! But then, we all knew it wouldn’t be.

There will, apparently, be just 2 versions available at launch; the 4.8 litre V8 and the Turbo V8. Both engines will be pretty much the same as those in the latest Cayenne, and they’ll get the 7-speed version of Porsche’s brilliant PDK gearbox, which is not a bad starting point.

But the range isn’t going to stop there. Already planned, for 2010 is a 3.6 V6 (again, as with the Cayenne) and they’ve got a Hybrid planned for 2011 which will mate a 300bhp petrol engine with a 100bhp electric motor. I’m not a huge fan of hybrids, but if Porsche get this right it could well be a winner.

But what about show-stopping versions? Well, it would appear that Porsche are open to a version with the Carrera GT engine, which would easily take away the fastest saloon mantle from the Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed. Plus, it seems almost certain that at some point Porsche will bite the diesel bullet by fitting the V12 from Audi (although they are already committed to using at least one of the Audi diesels in the Cayenne soon).

Don’t things change? A diesel Porsche. A diesel Porsche saloon, no less! But Porsche have to respond to the mood, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m all for innovation and getting more for less (power for fuel use), and if Porsche get this right, which I’m sure they will, it should give a very good lead for other supercar manufacturers. Where will Ferrari and Aston Martin go with this route. It’s going to be very interesting to see.

Just one fly in the ointment for the Panamera. The Aston Martin Rapide, due to go on sale around the same time. Now that will be a beatiful car!

Earlier this year, very much tongue in cheek, I wrote about Porsche’s impending takeover of VW. I mused on what that might mean for the Porsche line-up and, although I was quite serious about some of the possibilities, the one I mentioned that seemed least likely was a Golf-sized Porsche. How wrong can you be!

Autobild reported recently on exactly the same story, and Paultan.org covered the story, together with a very interesting image (see left). Now I have to confess that that is a fair bit more sophisticated than the ‘Golf with a Porsche Badge’ I threw up, but it seems the plans are for real. Why, I hear you ask? Simple – economics.

In the US, there is something called CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy). Basically CAFE requires manufacturers to achieve certain economies across their entire range. Now the formulae that is used to calculate the economy is based on a combination of wheelbase and engine size. So a company like Porsche, which manufactures a lot of cars with small wheelbases and big engines, is hit hard. So what better way to solve that than introduce a small premium car with a much smaller CAFE figure? And if that car can be built in relatively large numbers it will keep the rest of the range viable. So even though Porsche enthusiasts will throw up their arms in horror, this proposed ‘Mini Porsche’ could be the companies lifeline, in much the same way as the profits on the Cayenne have allowed Porsche to forge on.

So what’s the car likely to be? Well, it’s inevitably going to be based on the Golf platform with either a derivative of the R32 engine or the V6 from the Cayenne (which, incidentally, is rumoured to be getting a diesel version!). Its competition? Aimed fairly and squarely at the BMW 135i and, ‘in-house’, the Audi S3 and Golf R32, I’m sure it will be a huge success.

Don’t times change?!

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Back in the summer, when we went mob-handed to annex Javea, I was supposed to get my hands on a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet to play with on the mountain roads. But it didn’t happen. Why? Who knows. Perhaps the fact that they were very, very thin on the ground had something to do with it. Well, they still are pretty thin on the ground, but now I have one to play with, and we have 4, yes 4, Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet for sale. Oh, and we even have a couple of Porsche 911 Turbo for sale as well, just for good measure.

It’s really hard not to love the 911. It is such a special car. I admit, I have never fallen in love with a Porsche yet (although I’ve done the 911 thing and I run a Cayenne), but they are wonderful machines, and in many ways I admire them more than any other car on the road. And the Turbo is in a league of its own. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can keep up with the Porsche 911 Turbo in the real world. It is so manouverable, so potent, so reliable, it astonishes every time you use it. If you want real-world, useable supercar performance you can forget the Veyron; forget the Reventon; in fact, forget anything else. The 911 Turbo will get you there more quickly, more safely and more economically than any of them.

With performance of around 3.8 to 60 and a top speed around 195 you can see on paper why the 911 Turbo is quick. But it is awesomely quick in reality, and the 911 Turbo Cabriolet loses so little to its hard-top sibling it is almost irrelevant. With summer coming, this is a great time to get hold of one of these. I’m sorely tempted, but I think Carla would have a contract out on me if I bought toys before I finished the house! But if your house is finished, you’ve no excuse not to have one of these! We’ve got 2 black and 2 silver. Good specs. Don’t hang around long.

Will Porsche take over VW? It’s been an industry rumour for some time. Porsche actually owns 31% of VW, but only has 20% of the voting rights. Odd? Well, yes it is, but it’s down to a ‘Golden Share’ scenario in German law, similar to situations we had in the UK with privatised companies. It was designed to stop overseas investors taking over companies that could be considered ‘National Treasures’.

After a ruling by the European Courts of Justice this week, the ‘Volkswagon Rule’ looks to be lost, paving the way for a full takeover of VW by Porsche.

What does that mean for the petrol-head? Does it mean a Porsche badged Golf or Beetle? Highly unlikely! But it could throw up some strange bedfellows. A Porsche badged Bentley perhaps? The Audi R8 reined in as it offers too much competition to Porsche? Both are possible, but probably unlikely. However, one thing that is going to be a potential problem is Lamborghini. It has long been rumoured that Porsche are uncomfortable with the Lamborghini marque being in the VW stable. It could mean a sell-off for Lamborghini at some point. Which would be a shame. Much as I loved the mad as a hatter Lamborghinis of old, they weren’t great cars. VW have changed that (with its ownership of Lamborghini through Audi) and the Lamborghinis of today are a serious competitor to Ferrari. It would be a shame to see them change hands and revert to the Lamborghini of old. But it might be interesting!

The takeover of Europe’s largest car manufacturer by the world’s most profitable car company certainly raises some interesting possibilities. Watch this space!

Yes, it’s another 911, this time the remarkable Porsche 911 GT2.

Following close on the heels of Ferrari with the F430 Scuderia comes Porsche with the 911 GT2, a car very much in the same vein – a road-legal track version of an already unbelievable piece of machinery.

I have always struggled with the Ferrari/Porsche dilemma. On one hand you have a piece of art in the Ferrari which, however much things have moved on, is not really an everyday car. On the other you have Porsche, which makes cars that are quite simply staggering in their engineering and usability. It’s like deciding whether you are turned on by Van Gogh (or ‘Van Go’ for our American friends – I’m sorry, but every time a hear that it sounds like an instruction to a delivery driver with poor English!) or Brunel. To be honest, they both rock my boat, as do Porsche and Ferrari.

There seems to be very little doubt that the new GT2 is the ultimate version of the 911 – ever. I am expecting to get my hands on one very soon (lucky boy!) so we’ll be doing a proper road test as soon as possible. But the drool-inducing information we’ve got already leaves me in no doubt that this is one awesome machine.

The GT2 is a Turbo plus. Stripped of the 4wd (it is a real rear-wheel drive car) and putting out 530bhp, the GT2 does the 0-62mph sprint in 3.7 seconds (right up there with the Scuderia). Top speed breaks the magic 200mph barrier, making this the fastest 911 ever. And, due to a number of very clever tweaks, this car is even more planted at the limits than the Turbo. Just like previous versions, the GT2 has a fair bit of weight stripping going on, and base weight drops by around 300lbs over the base Turbo. But the completely stripped-out version isn’t the only option – you can now have the leather seats and other bits to make life that bit more comfortable. About time, say I. This complete ‘naked’ fetish Porsche and Ferrari seem to have with these cars is all about headlines. The difference it makes is so tiny you can’t really notice. The F40 was probably the worst for this (it didn’t even have proper windows for goodness sake) and much as I love driving ultimate performance vehicles, I do like a few home comforts. And let’s be honest, all that weight stripping goes out of the window as soon as you have a passenger. And if you’re a fat-boy like me (16st – but I am 6′ 3″, so not a complete bloater!) you end up with a car weighing more than the standard, especially in comparison to having Frankie Dettori at the wheel! So yes, the weight drops make good headlines, but a few comforts are better!

With a new nose, rear wing and huge 325 section tyres, there is no missing this car. It looks so damned aggressive and purposeful it makes your mouth water! So here’s looking forward to the road test – watch this space!

Is there room for another Cayenne model? We have the underpowered entry-level V6, the mad as a hatter Turbo and, the pick of the bunch, Cayenne S. So why have Porsche launched the GTS? Simple; it fills a real gap.

I have to hold my hands up and confess I use a Cayenne S every day, and a very good car it is. Not the prettiest car ever made (but nowhere near as bad as Clarkson pretends) but as an all-rounder there is nothing that comes close. But as a keen driver I do find it can be irritating at times. The modern desire for ‘clever’ auto boxes and trick electronics does mean that carbon emissions can be kept in check and fuel economy figures can shine, but the truth is they do dull the driving experience. In my Cayenne I tend to use the tiptronic quite a lot, because if I don’t the car just doesn’t respond after a period of ambling. There’s nothing worse than cruising to a junction, looking to make a quick exit and finding the car doesn’t respond! But using the Tiptronic solves that. And if I really want to play I turn off the PSM and then the car comes alive – and it’s much more fun!

The new Cayenne GTS comes with a very useful extra 20bhp and a standard manual box. That could well make it a lot of fun! Whether it becomes tiresome on a day to day level I’ll leave until we’ve done a road test, but on the face of it this is a good move. Add to that the big 21in wheels, PASM (although I’d probably go for the PSM and full air suspension instead), a shorter final drive giving a 0-60 of around 6 seconds and you have a very interesting addition to the Cayenne range!

A very good question!

The plan was looking good. Off to sunny Spain (Y’viva Espana – you might need to be a certain age to understand that!) for a week with the extended family (Mum & Dad’s milestone birthdays this year, so the first whole family holiday for 30 years) and the joys of a hire car for the week (even if it is a people carrier). But then came the prospect of having a new Porsche 911 Turbo convertible for a couple of days to road test while we’re there. The plan was coming together! Fly out on Saturday, pick up the Chrysler Grand Voyager from Hertz and blat down the road from Valencia to the villa in Javea. Bit of afternoon sunshine to top up the tan and then a nice dinner in the evening. Lazy breakfast on Sunday morning, toast gently in the sun until well done, and a burnt BBQ (because I usually do the BBQ!) by the pool in the evening. And then, just when I was getting bored with the sun, the Porsche would turn up on Monday morning. Perfect!

Javea lies on the eastern coast of Spain, at the foot of the Montgo mountains, so lots of opportunity for nice twisty mountain roads, a couple of runs down the motorway to Alicante, stopping at Calpe on the way down to let my brother-in-law pick up a Harley to play with, and the holiday was starting to look perfect. Lots of family ‘brownie points’ and car-time too. But it’s all gone wrong!

Apparently, there isn’t a turbo convertible available for me to test! There was, and now there isn’t. Why? Who knows. So it’s going to be a week of eating, drinking and sunbathing. Not the end of the world I know. And I’m sure it will be loads of fun, even if we do have to move round the Costa Blanca like a modern-day version of the Beverly Hillbillies, crammed in to the Chrysler Grand Voyager!

The Porsche would have been nice though!