2011 Porsche Panamera 4s V8 Awd on 2040-cars

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Petrolicious profiles a Porsche 911 hot rod called The Growler

Petrolicious always does a superb job of showcasing fantastic vehicles and their owners. While some of its videos might go a little too far into the personal stories rather than putting the cars on the road for some people's tastes, this latest one is an absolute feast for the senses. The vehicle featured is called "The Growler," and this Porsche 911 hot rod assaults its driver with a wall of sound. The coupe maintains only the tiniest amount of on-road civility to still be regularly usable. Boasting a roll cage and a set of racing buckets inside, The Growler certainly looks all business. An engine tune, suspension upgrade, and 400 pounds of removed weight are enough to turn this 964-chassis 911 into something really sublime behind the wheel, too. As the first air-cooled car for owner Alex Bermudez, he's definitely starting near the top. Filmed on some misty canyon roads, the white coupe roars around sounding more like a racecar than anything road legal, and Petrolicious perfectly captures the this Porsche as it's flung around the narrow path. You can see the rear end just begin to step out before Bermudez catches it. Inside, each shift looks like the movement of a rifle bolt to shoot the car forward. Listening to the engine build revs might be the best thing you hear today, so stop what you're doing and take a listen. Related Video:

Porsche slathers Martini livery on 911, Panamera, Macan and Cayenne

This is how we imagine the conversation went in Porsche's Stuttgart headquarters: "Martini livery. Martini livery all the things." Okay, so maybe not, but that hasn't stopped Porsche from showing off images of its entire lineup bearing the iconic racing livery.
While we aren't sure about the questionably yellow 911 and lime green Macan, the navy blue Cayenne and the white Panamera both look pretty spectacular as they lap about the streets of Sochi, Russia.
As for why the liveried sports cars and crossovers were at the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, we aren't totally sure. Porsche's Facebook page, where the images first popped up, was really light on details. Whatever the reason, we fully support Porsche doing more with Martini livery. Take a look at the full gallery to see what we mean.

Ferrari IPO may turn out to be good news for enthusiasts

Sergio Marchionne's strategy to spin off Ferrari from FCA and make the Italian automaker a publicly traded company has been met with ire from a vocal contingent of enthusiasts ever since rumors about the plan began to surface a few years ago. Some of these particularly pessimistic automotive pundits have voiced fears that with stockholders in the mix, it would not only spell the demise of the exclusive Italian supercar maker as we know it, but would in fact "ruin" the company. Call me dense, but I fail to see what the issue is. That isn't to say that I don't understand what's causing the fear. When profitability becomes a higher priority for a brand that's historically relied on exclusivity to keep its products in the highest echelons of desirability, there's a high potential for internal philosophical conflict. And then there are concerns about the sorts of products that Ferrari might develop that aren't the high-performance sports cars that the brand is known for. But individuals with those apprehensions seem to forget that Ferrari has already lent its name to a multitude of things that are not LaFerraris, 488 GTBs, or F12 Berlinettas, including clothing, headphones, and even laptops. But let's assume for a moment that the core anxiety is about future vehicles – including the unspeakable notion that Ferrari might develop an SUV. Why wouldn't Ferrari build an SUV, especially after seeing how incredibly successful that endeavor has been for Porsche? I think it's likely that Ferrari will put engineers to task creating some sort of crossover or high-rolling cruiser with room for the whole family at some point in the near future. And why wouldn't it, after seeing how incredibly successful that endeavor has been for Porsche? After all, the Cayenne accounted for more US sales in 2013 than the Boxster, Cayman, 911, and 918 combined, and it only gave up about a thousand units of sales last year to make room for the Macan crossover, the latter of which Porsche sold nearly as many of as it did Boxsters and Caymans. People want these vehicles, and they're willing to pay quite a bit of money for them. If we use Porsche's recent trajectory as a foreshadowing metric for what's in store for Ferrari, the future actually looks pretty good. After all, those SUV sales keep plenty of cash in Porsche's coffers for the low-volume projects that we enthusiasts love, like the 918 Spyder and the 911 GT3 RS.