2014 Porsche 911 Turbo S on 2040-cars

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Salvage team boards burnt ship Felicity Ace off Azores, towing begins

LISBON — More than a week after a ship packed with around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis and Bentleys, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a salvage team managed to board the vessel on Friday and started to tow it to a safe location off the Portuguese Azores archipelago. In a statement, ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd (MOL) said the Felicity Ace remained stable, and the smoke that for days billowed from the vessel, adrift around 170 km southwest of the Azores, had stopped. The 22 crew members of the Panama-flagged Felicity Ace, which was carrying around 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys from Germany to the United States, were evacuated last Wednesday, the day the fire broke out. Some of the vehicles are electric and their lithium-ion batteries have made the fire very difficult to extinguish, port officials have said. Previous attempts to board the ship to assess its condition and start preparing it for towing had failed due to the fire and rough seas. On Friday, the team was able to board by helicopter and the salvage boat Bear started towing the vessel to a "safe area off Azores," the ship manager said. It was not clear where exactly the vessel was being towed to. It was being escorted by two tug boats and another salvage craft equipped with firefighting gear, MOL said. Related video: Image Credit: Portuguese Navy (Marinha Portuguesa) via Reuters Green Weird Car News Audi Bentley Lamborghini Porsche Electric fire car fire shipping cargo ship

Porsche 911 Turbo and Nissan GT-R Nismo star in World's Greatest Drag Race 4

We love Motor Trend's annual World's Greatest Drag Race video. Now back for its fourth appearance, the idea of lining some of the world's fastest cars up for a ten-wide, straight-line, full-throttle run is, well... it's pretty freaking badass.
The lineup this year boasts some impressively fast cars to be sure. The group of ten includes the following darlings: Alfa Romeo 4C, BMW i8, BMW M4, Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, Ford Fiesta ST, Jaguar F-Type R Coupe, Nissan GT-R Nismo, Porsche 911 Turbo S, Subaru WRX STI and, last but not least, the Volkswagen GTI. Give us any one of those for the weekend, and we're happy to take the keys.
It must be said though, that for a publication that draws as much water as Motor Trend does, there are some big cars that we might expect to be here instead. The Lamborghini Huracán or Ferrari 458 Speciale would have added some exotic flare to the list, and the omissions of the Chevy Corvette Stingray (for the second year in a row) and the Dodge Challenger Hellcat are real head-scratchers.

Magnus Walker crashes vintage Porsche with reporter inside

One of the minor storms on the Internet earlier this week concerned Porsche 911 collector and Outlaw tuner Magnus Walker getting in an accident in Minnesota. Walker had shipped his #277 1971 Porsche 911T to the twin city for the opening of a $10-million Porsche dealership there, and the day began with lots of Facebook and Instagram photos of the car posing all over the showroom grounds. This is the same car that we've seen in Jay Leno's Garage, in Midnight Rambler, and in a Need for Speed trailer. Then came a photo of the 911 next to a semi trailer with its driver's side crumpled in and punctured. No one was clear on how it happened, but it seemed to involve swerving out of the way of a Mercedes-Benz on a frontage road by the dealership. Thanks to video from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, now we know what happened. Newspaper reporter Vineeta Sawkar had been doing a story with Walker and wanted to get some video for the piece. During one pass down the frontage road Walker decided to go into a right-hander a little faster than prudent, the car understeered toward the center yellow, and then Walker did the most verboten thing one can do when cornering in a vintage 911: he lifted off the gas. Hello instant rear-engined oversteer. Cue the fishtailing, a millimeter-fine brush with a Pagoda SL, and a crunch into that truck trailer. Sawkar said she was a little battered and bruised but ok, as is Walker – who went on to test drive a GT3 RS later in the day. Head over to the Star Tribune to see the video.