1986 Porsche 911 on 2040-cars

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Vintage-ish Porsche 911 buying guide

Harry Metcalfe is always great at showing viewers the intricate details of the vehicles in his collection as part of the Harry's Garage series. This time he's helping out future buyers by explaining what to look for when purchasing a classic and slightly more modern Porsche 911. His examples for this lesson are two absolute beauties that are about to cross the block from Silverstone Auctions in the UK: a 1972 2.4 S and a 1991 964-chassis RS Clubsport. The '72 in creamy white here epitomizes the look of early 911s. The coupe is handsome, purposeful, and fairly compact by modern standards. According to Metcalfe, when looking at one, don't worry about a wobbly gearshift. Apparently, they're all like that, even ones as well cared for as this example. As with any used car purchase, he recommends trying to get as many service records as you can. It's just good to know as much about the vehicle's life as possible before throwing down any cash. Where the '72 911 shows the more gentlemanly side of the brand, the '91 RS Clubsport is Porsche proving the company's performance credentials. Metcalfe slightly dings the switch to an aftermarket air filter here, but overall it's hard to find a major fault. These cars were essentially road-going racers in this trim. The engineers in Zuffenhausen chopped out as much weight as possible and then fitted Recaro racing buckets and a roll cage. This thing was meant clock as many laps around the 'Ring as the driver could stand.

Porsche Cayenne shows a bit more face, plug-in spotted

Porsche was first rumored to be working on a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version of the Cayenne over a year ago. However, we had never seen it, until now. The new model was caught almost completely undisguised while testing. In another stroke of luck, we got a glimpse of the upcoming facelift for Porsche's SUV (pictured above) as well.
According to the spy shooter, it was windy during the cars' cold weather testing. The cover blew off of the facelifted Cayenne, and there was enough time to snap these pictures before it could be hidden again. The changes are all quite minor but jive with what we saw the last time it was spied. The rear still wears some cladding but is expected to be hiding lights similar to the Macan.
The second gallery shows off the upcoming Cayenne PHEV. It looks nearly identical to the standard model, except for the extra panel on the driver's side of the car that hides the electric port. One image even shows the car plugged in. The new version is expected to use the same supercharged 3.0-liter V6 and 9.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack with a combined 416 horsepower and 435 pound-feet of torque from the Panamera S E-Hybrid. We enjoyed the system when we tested it last year. It's rumored to debut on the SUV sometime this year.

Porsche Cayenne diesel V8 may not be long for this world

Goodbye, Porsche Cayenne V8 Diesel. We hardly knew ye. Nor did the Europeans, apparently. Porsche's V8 oil burner is still on the European model list for the Cayenne SUV, but the mill won't go through the likely pricey process of being updated to adhere to new and stricter European emissions standards, Just-Auto says. A Porsche spokesman confirmed to the publication that it's a fairly complicated process to update the diesel V8 to be so-called "Euro-6 compliant." With Cayenne diesels selling in relatively low volumes anyways, the German automaker might just dump the V8 diesel altogether, as it'd be quite cost-ineffective to make the necessary upgrades. The V8 diesel was a 4.1-liter engine that delivered 385 horsepower in addition to what sounds like a little too much exhaust for European clean-air regulators. While that's a pretty powerful profile, the most recent gas-powered V8 for the Cayenne delivers about 570 horsepower, so the diesel engine won't likely be missed by European auto enthusiasts. Besides, there's still the V6 diesel that's also sold in the US. That's a 4,800-pound beast that moves from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about seven seconds and gets a relatively (for diesels) modest 20 miles per gallon city. For those who are curious, Autoblog's First Drive review of that model can be found here.