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Porsche's Mauer recalls the history of the 918 Spyder, hints about next-gen 911

The night before Porsche handed me the keys to its 2015 Macan to drive on both road and track, the company threw together a great dinner for the assembled media in Leipzig. Hosted in Porsche's spaceship-shaped customer delivery center in the eastern German town, I'll admit that I spent the bulk of my night grabbing hors d'oeuvres from passing waiters (they do a nice tuna sashimi), milling around a collection of historic and interesting vehicles on the top floor and gulping down Warsteiner.
In an era of mega car companies, the story of how the 918 came to be was really refreshing.
Before the evening was over, however, Porsche design chief Michael Mauer stopped by my table to exchange pleasantries and thank us all for coming out to drive the Macan. My fellow diners and I passed a pleasant half-hour or more picking the brain of the forthcoming Mauer, and somehow or another, the topic turned to Porsche's newest supercar, the 918 Spyder. In an era of mega car companies (the Volkswagen Group included) and massive development teams, the story of how the 918 came to be is really refreshing.

Playboy reveals its 2013 Cars of the Year

Vaunted men's magazine Playboy knows that its readers are nearly as interested in cars as they are in the female anatomy... sorry, we thought we could write that with a straight face. Anyway, the buff-book does occasionally fill some of its spreads with sexy metal, to accent all the rest of the sexiness.
To wit, the magazine has unveiled its feature on the 2013 Cars of the Year. Without giving us much in the way of criteria for the awards, nor a clear framing of the categories ("Responsible Ride" is a particularly challenging concept, especially when you consider that the Mazdaspeed3 was the winner), Playboy has nevertheless highlighted what we assume to be it's favorite 12 or 13 (depending on how you count) cars from the 2013 model year.
Headlining the class is the Porsche 911, which Playboy writers single out for having "remarkable electronic voodoo." BMW M5 is named "Slickest Sports Sedan" though the Cadillac ATS then follows on because "we couldn't resist giving the new Caddy a shout-out." The rest of the picks are pretty conventional (save, perhaps, the Honda Fit EV as "Ace Electric"), even if the categories and methodology are fairly wonky. Cruise through or gallery for a taste or check out the full list, here. The site is safe for work, and you can legitimately (this time) say that you were reading it for the articles.

Final notes from Porsche Rennsport Reunion V [w/videos]

Having spent three days with an intense Monterey sun above, a fleet of raucous, roaring racecars below, and a genuine library of hundreds of cars parked everywhere, Porsche Rennsport Reunion V can be summed up in one word: amazing. It's one thing to know today that Porsche is special because rich people buy them and collectors obsess over them. It's another thing to see and hear and feel and smell why Porsches are special, to experience what really makes a brand. Whenever auto writers use the word "pedigree" – usually in reference to brands that don't have it – this is what we mean. And we bathed in it for a weekend. Now we need to wash all of our clothes, because pedigree smells like race fuel. Porsche used all of the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca pit garages to set up an excellent display of important Le Mans cars, from the 1958 718 RSK to the current 919 Hybrid. All but one were overall or class winners, and four consecutive pit boxes held cars that were all in the movie Le Mans: a 1969 910, a 1969 917K, a 1970 908 LH "Flunder" Spyder, and a 1971 917 LH. Outside the garage on its own plinth was a 1949 Gmund 356 SL, the first Porsche to win an international motorsports race when it took its 110cc class at Le Mans in 1951. Walking from 1958 to 1998 and having all that history in the metal behind you, you could see why Porsche wanted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to return to Le Mans with the 919 Hybrid to protect its legacy. Even with three full days we didn't get to see everything we wanted to see or talk to everyone we wanted to talk to. We could have spent days interviewing the Who's Who of racing drivers alone. But we did get to answer the questions you left for us in Comments after our 2017 911 Carrera ride-along: RoninEdge: The engineers had left by the time we got your Boxster/Cayman engine question, and the only answer we could get after that was the official Porsche line: "We haven't released any information on any 2017 models other than the four already mentioned," the 911 Carrera and Carrera S in coupe and cabriolet trims. Ferps: Posche North America decided to take the Targa off the website, but you can still buy 2016 models and there are still Targas on dealer lots. The 991.2 Targa hasn't been revealed yet. JohnnyHedwardsJr: We couldn't review the 911 GTS Rennsport Reunion Edition, but there is a gallery of live images below. Porsche is only making 25, and every one of them is spoken for.