1957 Porsche 356 356a on 2040-cars

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Porsche 912 is no longer the brand's black sheep

If you haven't looked recently, prices for many vintage Porsche 911s are now well out of the realm for mortal men to purchase. However, the growing values have their advantages because they mean that the 912 is being better accepted as a member of the Porsche family. In a new video, Petrolicious talks to one owner about his mildly modified example while the coupe zips through the backroads and city streets of France. Launched around the time of the 911, the 912 shared its body but retained the four-cylinder engine from the 356, rather than the new six. The older mill helped make the 912 cheaper to buy, but it also tarnished the coupe in the eyes of Porsche fans for years. Much like the four-cylinder 914 and 924, the 912 just seemed like a black sheep in the shadow of its more powerful brother. Following two massive changes to his life, Julien Borne bought a 1967 912 as a project to get back on the road. After hours of welding, wrenching and beating out panels by hand in his grandparents' neglected country house, he crafted this gorgeous example. Check out the video to hear his story, as Petrolicious shows why the model's stigma is wearing off.

2016 Porsche Boxster Spyder First Drive [w/video]

The recipe for the 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder cooked up a meal that everyone loved. Yes, even with the three-piece, Erector Set canvas top that took one journalist 30 minutes to lower the first time. Boiled down, the 2011 model was a Boxster S with 10 extra horsepower and 176 fewer pounds, graced with accelerated reflexes. For the second coming of the Boxster Spyder, Porsche fortified the ingredients it used in the first. It starts with the Boxster GTS and adds the 3.8-liter flat-six from the 911 Carrera S, tuned to 375 horsepower and 301 pound-feet of torque. The Spyder subtracts around 72 pounds compared to the Boxster GTS, weighing in at 2,899 pounds. This, then, is both the most powerful and the lightest Boxster you can get. For you fact-checkers out there, the entry-level Boxster is listed at 2,888 pounds on the Porsche USA site, but a spokesman points out that, "the metric for determining weight has changed, which increased the amount of fluids necessary to perform weight testing." In other words, the base Boxster is unchanged, but the real-world curb weight is actually higher. It's ridiculous to quibble over 11 pounds – or whatever the difference is – because the Boxster Spyder has 110 more horsepower and 96 more pound-feet than the base model. With a successful technique already established, we thought the latest Boxster Spyder would even more of a raucous and rowdy good time than its predecessor. But it's not. The standard Boxster Spyder doesn't come with manual A/C or a stereo, but both can be added for no additional cost. The exterior, at least, exhibits the right kind of maturity. Front and rear fascias swiped from the Cayman GT4 add 10 millimeters in length compared to other Boxsters. Those pieces make the car lighter, along with items like the aluminum doors and decklid. The bulges behind the roll hoops, called streamliners, are the can't-miss-it references to Porsche's historic and legendary Spyders. In case admirers still don't get it, Spyder badges sit atop each rear quarter panel. Inside, the leather, body-colored trim, and copious amount of Alcantara is like a track-day package arranged by Prada. The steering wheel is shared with the Cayman GT4. The lightweight sport seats that hug like a carbon fiber cradle in our test car aren't available in our market. Different sport seats are standard in the US, racier buckets are a $4,750 option.

VW adding particulate filters to gas engines

Volkswagen is working hard to overcome the PR disaster that is its diesel emissions scandal, and part of its efforts is focusing, weirdly, on petrol engines. Starting in June 2017, the embattled German automaker will add particulate filters to the gas-powered Volkswagen Tiguan and Audi A5. The change will eventually impact nearly every direct-injected gas engine the VW Group makes. Audi? Particulate filter. Seat? Particulate filter. Even Bentley is going to get the tech, all in a bid to reduce soot emissions by 90 percent. In fact, by 2022 VAG expects 7 million of its vehicles to boast the emissions-cleaning tech, which has long been a fixture on diesel engines. "Following increases in efficiency and lower CO2 output, we are now bringing about a sustained reduction in the emission levels of our modern petrol engines by fitting particulate filters as standard," Volkswagen Group research and design boss Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn said in a statement. "In the future, all models will be equipped with the latest and most efficient SCR catalytic converter technology." VW's initial rollout focuses on the 1.4-liter, turbocharged Tiguan and the 2.0-liter, turbocharged A5. Considering the popularity of the 2.0-liter across the VW range, we'd expect it's only a matter of time before VW expands its particulate filters tech to additional gas-powered vehicles. Related Video: