1983 Porsche 911 Targa on 2040-cars

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2017 Porsche 911 Carrera experienced from the passenger seat

Autoblog joins Porsche for Rennsport Reunion V at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the fifth international gathering of all things Porsche. If you've ever had a picture of a Porsche on your wall or dreamed of owning a certain model, either that very car or one just like it is here. Watching three 917 racers blaze over the rise at the front straight and down into turn one can make a viewer think, "So this is how Steve McQueen felt..." It was a modern Porsche that delivered one of the highlights of the first day, though: we rode shotgun for three hot laps of the track in the new turbocharged 991.2-series 911 Carrera S, with Thomas Krickelberg, director of powertrain for the 911 model line, our pilot. We cornered him and August Achleitner, vice president of the 911 product line, for a few questions about the changes. What do you call the standard 911 now that it has turbocharged engines? Carrera. If you're wondering what to call the standard 911 now that they have turbocharged engines, the answer is: Carrera. Krickelberg said, "In-house we call them 'little turbo' and 'big turbo,'" but the Carrera is a model line within the 911 model line, the big boy 911 Turbo is a second model line within the 911 family. One will continue to be called Carrera, the other simply Turbo. The move to turbocharging came to serve the twin kings of performance and fuel economy, but engineers played around with numerous configurations. A non-turbo engine displacing about 4.0 liters – that's as big as the 9A1 engine block can go – was considered, but that setup couldn't deliver the desired fuel efficiency. Krickelberg said engineers considered a small-displacement block of around 2.0 liters, but that was abandoned because "takeoff behavior was worse" because the turbo was called upon to do too much of the heavy performance living. Krickelberg added, "Not only that, but there was a too big a gap between real-world fuel economy and homologation fuel economy." Base Carrera and the Carrera S models haven't used the same engine displacement since the 996 series departed at the end of 2004. Achleitner said, "We found 3.0 liters is the best solution to get the best mix of fuel and air in combustion chamber - it offered the best geometry, bore and stroke, and the size of the walls.

Fast Porsches and gold BMWs | Autoblog Podcast #548

On this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Associate Editor Reese Counts and Contributing Editor James Riswick. The trio discuss driving the BMW X2, the Porsche 911 GT3, the Volkswagen GTI and Autoblog's new long-term Kia Stinger GT as well as a new engine for the Ford F-150. They also reflect on FCA and Ferrari head Sergio Marchionne and what his passing means for the future of those two companies. Autoblog Podcast #548 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Cars we've been driving: 2018 Porsche 911 GT3, Volkswagen GTI, BMW X2 and Kia Stinger GT Sergio Marchionne Ford F-150 Mercedes-Benz A-Class Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Earnings/Financials Podcasts BMW Ferrari Fiat Kia Porsche Volkswagen Coupe Crossover Luxury Performance porsche 911 gt3 bmw x2

Porsche trio seals endurance drivers' title

Fifth place. That's all it took for the Porsche team to seal the drivers' title in the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship. And that's just what they did this weekend in the 6 Hours of Bahrain. The leading lineup of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, and Mark Webber drove the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid to the drivers' title to cap a dominant season for the Weissach team. Porsche already won the pinnacle race at Le Mans this past summer, and drove home the manufacturers' title at the penultimate round in Shanghai. The championship-winning trio of Bernhard, Hartley, and Webber won four out of the total eight rounds this season – including the races at the Nurburgring, Circuit of the Americas, Fuji, and Shanghai. That gave them 166 points in the final standings, besting the 161 achieved by the Audi team of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler, and Benoit Treluyer, who won at Silverstone and Spa. In beating Audi to the top honors in the championship and at Le Mans, Porsche has completely locked its corporate cousins (and chief rivals) out of the winner's circle for the first time in years. Last season saw Toyota win both titles in the WEC, but Audi still won at Le Mans. Audi won both titles in the first two seasons of the championship, and the French endurance race all but three times in the past 16 years. The last time Audi was completely shut out was in 2009, when Peugeot won at Le Mans and Aston Martin took both titles in the associated Le Mans Series with its Lola-based LMP1 prototype. This latest achievement only adds to Porsche's unsurpassed sports car racing trophy cabinet. The German outfit won 12 manufacturers' and teams' titles (and another six drivers' titles) in the 1970s and 80s under the previous World Sportscar Championship. It has won at Le Mans a record 17 times, and another 18 each at Sebring and Daytona. Porsche also took the checkered flag at the Targa Florio 11 times, won the Monte Carlo rally four times, the Dakar twice, and with TAG and McLaren, won three drivers' titles, two constructors' titles, and 25 grands prix in Formula One. Related Video: Porsche works drivers win the FIA World Endurance Championship drivers' title The new champions: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber Stuttgart.