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2015 Porsche 918 Spyder: Touring the factory

Willy Wonka granted just five lucky Golden Ticket holders access to his incredible chocolate factory, yet we consider ourselves just as fortunate, as Porsche invited us to be among the first of just four American journalists to see behind the closed doors of its 918 Spyder assembly plant in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Of course, there were no Oompa Loompas or flowing chocolate rivers, but the vast white hall tasked with producing only 918 examples of the automaker's limited-production flagship revealed details that make Wonka's Golden Egg sorting room seem rather mundane in comparison. Unlike a traditional automobile manufacturing plant, which often encompass all processes of making a vehicle (e.g., stamping steel panels, welding components and painting), the 918 Spyder is built in an assembly plant. This means that hundreds of already manufactured parts, each crafted by Porsche offsite suppliers, are brought under one roof to be assembled into a perfectly finished product that is much sweeter – and far more expensive – than any candy delicacy. Our tour guide was Michael Drolshagen, Porsche's Director of Production, Logistics and Quality - a walking encyclopedia when it comes to the engineering and assembly of the 918 Spyder. Drolshagen generously offered us unrestricted access to walk among the factory's 110 workers – and a couple-dozen vehicles in process – to photograph everything. This is a story best told with pictures, so we've put together a raft of our best images in a high-resolution gallery and captioned each with a detailed description. If you've still got questions, please voice them in Comments section and we'll do our best to answer.

Porsche says goodbye to Audi's Le Mans team in this classy video

Well, this is cute. You may remember that in 2014 Audi made a video to welcome Porsche, its corporate sibling, back to Le Mans racing. It involved an Audi race car, a farmer on an old Porsche tractor, and the street in front of Porsche HQ. With Audi leaving Le Mans after a successful 18-year run, Porsche is returning the favor with this sort of sappy video. There's not much more to it. The video starts with clips from the original, where the Porsche-diesel-tractor-driving farmer is passed by an Audi R18 that traveled from Ingolstadt to Stuttgart to make some very precise German street graffiti (in English). Then, in the present day, the farmer hears the news of Audi leaving LMP1 and he gets an idea while Joe Cocker's "Up Where We Belong" starts to play. (Yes, seriously.) We won't spoil the ending for you. It still stinks that Audi had to leave Le Mans racing in the wake of the diesel scandal to focus on Formula E racing instead. But it's good to see there are no hard feelings between the two VW Group brands, at least as far as the marketing departments are concerned. We expect the Porsche-Audi sibling rivalry and corporate squabbles to continue behind closed doors, however. Related Video: Audi Porsche Racing Vehicles Videos porsche 919 hybrid

2015 Porsche Panamera S First Drive

Porsche brought the Panamera in for its garage makeover and drove it out looking almost exactly the same. Turns out it was one of those fancy German refreshes where everything happens in places you can't immediately see, as we found recently on the 2015 Volkswagen Jetta TDI. The marquee revision across the lineup is under the hood, where every engine gets, at the very least, more power. Such is the case for the naturally aspirated V6 in the entry models, fitted with an increase of 10 horsepower for a total of 310. The same goes for the naturally-aspirated 4.8-liter V8, which lives only in the Panamera GTS now, and gets 10 more hp for a total of 430. That same V8, twin-turbocharged in the Turbo model, is graced with 20 more ponies for 520 hp. The mightiest marquee revision is saved for the S models, which surrender their use of the 4.8-liter V8 and get a 3.0-liter, all-aluminum, twin-turbocharged V6 in its place. It's a brand-new engine designed in-house and related to the 3.6-liter V6 in the base models, but with new features like a magnesium timing chain cover, variable camshaft timing for the intake and the exhaust valves, and a new fuel- injection system. Putting out 420 hp and 384 pound-feet of torque, it's got 20 more hp and 15 more lb-ft than the V8 it replaces. What's more, torque used to peak from 3,500 to 5,000 rpm, but the new torque curve maintains maximum twist from 1,750 to 5,000 rpm. It is less thirsty as well, posting an estimated fuel economy of 17/27 miles per gallon city/highway, besting the 16/24 city/highway of before. An improved stop-start mechanism contributes to this, as it cuts the engine earlier, and the coasting function benefits from a new disc clutch that can decouple the seven-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission from the driveline. As we wrote in our Panamera S E-Hybrid review, you'd need to be obsessed with the Panamera to notice the sheet metal changes around that engine. It's the perfect car to ask, oh so coyly, "Notice anything different about me?" while you stand there dumbfounded, silently thinking, "No." Here is your cheat sheet: the front and back ends are "tighter," meaning faintly more squared off, the front intakes are larger, the tailgate gets wider rear glass over the same-sized opening, the rear spoiler is wider, and the rear license plate bracket has been mounted lower. But even now that you know what the changes are, odds are still 200-to-1 against you actually noticing.