1979 Porsche 928 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Nick Murray's problematic Porsche 911 shows the power of a viral video

When Nick Murray took delivery of his 2013 Porsche 911 Carrera S in June 2013, he had saved for it for the past five years. He didn't just pluck a random 911 off a dealer lot. He specially ordered his car with thousands of dollars in extras tailored just to him, and he captured all of the options on his YouTube channel. The love affair didn't last long. Eventually the channel became a place for Nick to air his growing list of grievances about his deteriorating 911. Eventually, his mix of righteous indignation and sarcasm went viral.
By late December, he had already had four warranty repairs done on the car. Things got much worse in March. The computers began resetting whenever Nick drove over large bumps. There was also an acrid, electrical smell that occasionally permeated the cabin. Murray filed for Lemon Law protection. Porsche Cars North America contacted him for the first time to fix the problem, but it didn't help.
Things culminated in April when Murray put up a new video that showed more troubles. He began arbitration with Porsche and asked for either his full purchase price back or an exact replacement. The company countered with a portion of what the car was worth, based on its mileage. Murray refused and turned to his YouTube watchers for help. He asked them to spread the word, and the video went viral with over 800,000 views as of this writing. Supporters posted it multiple times on Porsche's Facebook and Twitter sites.

2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS First Drive [w/video]

Imagine a regular Porsche 911 GT3 in your garage, parked next to a brand-new, no-options Boxster. Now imagine your garage with just a 911 GT3 RS inside. From a cost standpoint, you could have either for roughly the same amount of money. Trying to figure out if the RS goodies are worth the $50,000 over a standard 911 GT3 – roughly the price of that no-frills Boxster – might drive you mad. We're trying to suss this out at 120 miles per hour on the long downhill back straight at Road Atlanta. It's pouring. Rivulets of water are streaming across the track. Ahead, in a 911 Turbo leading the pack, is Le Mans- and Daytona-winning driver David Donohue. He's helpfully warned us to avoid nipping the curbing, since that's where water pools. Hydroplaning could end someone's day. Through the blinding spray, Donohue mercifully has reduced the pace. There's enough speed to evaluate what the GT3 RS does well, which is essentially everything. There's also enough time to figure out what sort of sports car this is. Horsepower swells to an even 500 and torque to 338 pound-feet – bumps of 25 hp and 14 lb-ft over the GT3. As is fitting and proper for the traditional sports car par excellence, at the top of the large and expensive 911 heap is the GT3. While the base is shaken by the encroachment of turbocharging on basic 911 models, the summit is, like mountain air, all-natural. The GT3 was subject to a beyond-galling recall due to faulty con-rods with a penchant for ventilating crankcases and starting catastrophic fires, but storms crash upon every peak. Progress is inevitable for German engineers. The GT3 RS is the 911 reforged in those embarrassing fires. The GT3 itself was a false summit, but the RS is the real deal. Underneath the very purple bodywork, this is a lither and more athletic thing than the already superb GT3. Lightweighting is accomplished with a healthy dose of carbon fiber on the engine cover and the frunk. The roof, with a slick-looking depressed slash running longitudinally, is made of magnesium. That serves to lower the center of gravity, Porsche assures us. Even the rear silencer is made of titanium. In total, the RS is 22 pounds lighter than the GT3 it's based on – seemingly small gains considering all the exotic materials, but less so considering what's been added back. The RS is also more powerful, thanks to a 200cc displacement increase.

Porsche considering X6-style Cayenne coupe

It was practically unthinkable when Porsche introduced the Cayenne in 2002. An SUV... from Porsche? Purists balked, but customers flocked, and the Cayenne propelled the its holding company into such profitability that it practically took over the entire Volkswagen Group. It's now been twelve years since the original Cayenne arrived as the first production Porsche with more than two doors, and Zuffenhausen has since followed up with the Panamera, the Macan and the second-generation Cayenne. But it isn't about to stop there.
The latest intel coming in from overseas suggests that Porsche is in the advanced stages of designing a slant-back, five-door Cayenne coupe to take on the likes of the BMW X6 and upcoming Mercedes-Benz MLC. Though the business case (however solid BMW may have already demonstrated it to be) is still being considered, if approved it would join the upcoming third-generation Cayenne on the production line in Leipzig as early as 2018 - a year after the new Cayenne itself is expected to arrive.
The Cayenne coupe would share much with the more conventional MkIII Cayenne (and for that matter the next Audi Q7 and VW Touareg as well as the Lamborghini Urus and Bentley Falcon) but differentiate itself with a more stylish (if less practical) roofline and an altogether sportier attitude. Autocar reports that the design calls for tauter sheetmetal and sportier cabin inspired by the 918 Spyder. Pricing would be positioned a good 15-20 percent higher than the regular Cayenne, and the "coupe" version would likely be offered with most, if not all of the engines available in the conventional version - including gasoline, diesel, turbo and possibly even hybrid options ranging all the way up to the 550-horsepower Turbo S.