Amelia Island Concours is the latest event to announce it will ‘honour’ the Porsche 911 in 2013, on the model’s 50th birthday.
The 2013 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, scheduled for March 9-10 in Amelia Island, Florida will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 911. These announcements always smack of “let’s haul in the Porsche dollars” but I guess there’s some sense in it, and for sure the show has its fans.
Amelia was at the centre of heavy Porsche action earlier this year with the Drendel Collection sale, and Florida is home to some hardcore Porsche enthusiasts, so there’s a strong local market. I live tweeted the Drendel sale on my Classic Porsche Blog if you don’t know what happened there.
“The profile of Porsche’s 911 is instantly recognizable,” said Bill Warner, Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. “The 911’s shape has remained fresh, contemporary and essentially unchanged since the day the first 911 was built a half century ago. That must be the best and purist (sic) definition of a truly great design.”
The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance Foundation has donated nearly $1.8 million to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Inc. and other charities on Florida’s First Coast since its inception in 1996. Concours/show & shines are really not my thing, but kudos for the charity work. As a small percentage of takings, it shows just what these big events can earn over time.
About the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance
The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is held each year during the second weekend in March in Amelia Island, Florida. A New York Times article about celebrity car ownership listed the event alongside America’s other top concours d’elegance: Pebble Beach in California, Meadow Brook in Michigan and the Louis Vuitton Classic in Manhattan.
In a Concours d’Elegance (competition of elegance) each entry is rated for authenticity, function, history, style and quality of restoration by a team of judges including specialists for each car type. A perfect score is 100, but any imperfection requires a fractional point deduction. Classes are arranged by type, marque, coachbuilder, country of origin, or time period. Judges select prizewinners for each class, and also award “Best of Show” to one car from the group of first-place winners.
I spent today in a Porsche service workshop, where the technicians had returned from a recent handling course at KW Suspension and were repairing an electrical fault on a Porsche 997 Carrera. There’s no keeping me away from watching Porsche repairs going on so I was happy to get the full story.
The car had a sidelight problem – there were no sidelights working on the 997. They stripped the front compartment and broke out the PIWIS tester, as used at official Porsche centres. This is one of few UK independent Porsche specialists licensed for the latest in-house Porsche technology.
PIWIS has a programme of system diagnostic tests in conjunction with a test probe, so the sidelight problem was soon traced to a bad wire (the grey one). When linking the connectors with a new wire solved the problem, all that remained was for Steve to splice in a new wire and run it back to the switch.
“Sometimes when a new wire is made, copper strands in the weave don’t mesh correctly and that incomplete joint eventually fails,” explained the mechanic. “Changing the complete wire is the most effective repair. Finding this break was relatively simple with the front stripped, PIWIS hooked up and a probe checking voltage at the front control module. As the name suggests, that box manages everything in the front part of the car: luggage lamp, cooling fans, lighting and so on.
“Solving this problem on the Porsche 997 was a doddle compared to PCM problems with a Porsche Cayenne a while back. That was eventually traced to ignition trouble, but it took two days to find it. The biggest problem with Cayenne is the modules are buried under other parts, and even taking out a seat takes hours. As with all wiring diagnosis, you eventually get there with a logical approach, good wiring diagrams and some help from PIWIS.”
A subdued press release from Porsche Motorsport bearing good news from the World Endurance Championship in Bahrain suggests our favourite auto manufacturer has its own reservations on the situation there. Empty grandstands are no good for race fans.
AG’s quick round-up tells how Team Felbermayr-Proton celebrated its second win of the season in GTE-Am. “With their Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, Christian Ried (Germany) and his Italian teammates Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti won the six hour race on the Bahrain International Circuit against strong opposition from Ferrari and Chevrolet. After a tough battle in the GTE Pro class, Porsche works drivers Marc Lieb (Germany) and Richard Lietz (Austria) pocketed third place, repeating their recent Sao Paulo result.”
“It was a difficult race for us,’ said works man Lietz. “We had to conserve the tyres from the first to the last lap and this made us somewhat slower than the front-runners.” Lieb extrapolated upon his teammate’s view. “We can be pleased with third place. During my first stint I had some problems with conserving the tyres which didn’t work very well and cost me time. Afterwards things ran better. We simply find it hard in such temperatures. We know we have the performance, but not in such extreme heat. We need to work on this. Hopefully it’s a bit cooler at the last two races in Fuji and Shanghai and then we should be back up there again.”
I watched a bit of the race on Motors TV. It started just before sunset, ran into the night and certainly looked tough enough. Plenty of Porsche drama late on, when the JWA-Avila Porsche pitted from 4th place and immediately returned to the pits. Initially it looked like retirement from team & driver tweets, but the car eventally rejoined and finished in the points.
Starting from third on the GTE-Am grid, Paolo Ruberti soon snatched the lead, which they held for the majority of the race and stretched to a one-lap lead by the flag. Having started their season with a win at Sebring,this was their fifth podium from six races. “The whole team is very pleased with this win,” said Paolo Ruberti. “It wasn’t an easy race under such extreme temperatures but we did our very best. Now we’re looking forward to the race in Fuji.”
Porsche pictures from the weekend were beautiful: top marks to whoever was behind the lens this weekend. The absence of spectators at this gorgeous circuit is perhaps the most interesting point to take away from the pics. They certainly seem shot in such a way as not to highlight the emptiness: one wonders how much of the decision to run at night was a factor here also. All of us must hope that the humanitarian situation there improves as soon as possible.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
“The future of Porsche” was how Porsche President, Matthias Müller, described the Panamera Sport Turismo concept, just unveiled at the Paris motor show. Turismo features what Stuttgart calls e-hybrid: plug-in hybrid with a petrol engine.
“Today we’re taking a look at Porsche’s future,” said the President. “We’ve developed an entirely new vehicle concept, which did not exist so far. A very special sports car, which is perfectly in line and a perfect fit with our customers and the future of Porsche.
Transport Bulky Sports Equipment
“It’s become an uncompromising Porsche for active people who not only want to experience the fascination of power and dynamics on the road. This innovative vehicle design is tailored to our customers’ needs, like a bespoke suit. Customers who want very good everyday usability and flexibility, without renouncing the Porsche typical performance, who occasionally need sufficiently large luggage space to transport bulky sports equipment, however still appreciate the elegance of an exclusive Gran Turismo.
“Innovative: that is also the drivetrain. It’s a highly efficient plug-in hybrid system. Looking at our concept car is, at the same time, a look at the future of Porsche. Not just in terms of the drive; the design anticipates many of the things that our customers will find with Porsche in the future.”
Muller repeated his assertion of this as the future later in his presentation, so it’s clearly more than fantasy. How will Porsche fans greet the news that a five-door estate with a silent electric motor is the future? Or are shareholders’ reactions more important?
What do you think? Is it a sports car, or a big, fast Prius? Note: I am pro-Prius.
If you watch the English version, your sound will take until Müller exits the car to come on, so do not adjust your set. Note that the pop-up window for video is also titled “direction future”.
Porsche has been beavering away on its 918 Spyder Nürburgring programme. Two days ago, a 918 Spyder prototype set a 7:14 (minutes:seconds) on the Nürburgring, which Porsche says is amongst the best for a street-legal vehicle on production tyres.
In fact, it’s just 4 seconds faster than the time Porsche claimed for test driver Timo Kluck in a 911 GT2 RS on Michelins back in 2010, but almost 30 seconds slower than road-legal Radicals. If you’ve ever experienced a Radical, you’ll know it is hardly the same. Still, half a minute’s a bit of a gap.
With this lap time set one year ahead of the Spyder’s launch date, Stuttgart delights in the 918’s progress. “By turning in this fabulous time, the 918 Spyder prototype fully confirms the viability of its future concept, after just a few months on the road,” said Dr. Frank Walliser, overall 918 project leader.
Surprisingly, Porsche notes that, as they only had one clear lap available, the time was set from a standstill. It also notes the Michelin tyres and an optional Weissach package, which “integrates modifications to boost driving performance”. I don’t know why the über-Porsche to beat all others has a standard non-sport configuration, but it just goes to prove that everything’s an option on a Porsche price list.
There’s a ton of Youtube video of the 918 at the ‘Ring. Here are two of my favourites, starting with a some video of a 918 unload, and shots of Walter Röhrl driving EVO’s Harry Metcalfe et al ’round the track. The second has some great tracking footage of the 918 in motion on the lanes around the circuit, including one of my favourite routes out.
Youtube vids show how every notable European pressman has run ’round the ‘Ring in this now. It’s not due out for a year and it’s already everywhere. By the time it gets interesting and heads to Le Mans, we’ll be burnt out on Spyder.
“Some of the earlier Boxsters were build in Finland and no one seems to care about that,” was pointed out by Jeroen B on the Ferdinand Facebook page.
Andrew D also picked up on that thread. “Is this so bad? Does this not mean that its essentially what was Karmann of Osnabruck building it? I used to own a Karmann-built Porsche and didn’t think it was bad. Porsche did farm production of SWB 911 bodies out to Karmann, and it’s the I-Ching. So it doesn’t bother me. If they’re now owned by VW group they could be even better!” Fair points, but not the point. The point is how people will talk about it.
After twenty-five years in the motor trade, and ten years with Europe’s largest car valuation company, I don’t doubt that VW ownership means “last of the proper all-Porsche Porsches” is a line we are about to see more of in classifieds.
Something is always ‘the last of’. 356 guys made “Real Carreras have four cams” t-shirts when the 2.7 Carrera RS first came out. “Last of the proper 911s” runs all the way from ads for SWB cars, to the end of ’73, to the Carrera 3.2, to the narrow-body 964, to the air-cooled 993. ‘Last of the proper/Metzger 911s’ is how GT3 RS 4.0 buyers were sold their cars.
Pitching cars as a one-off opportunity never stops, and some Porsche owners can be super sniffy about Volkswagen associations: witness the market’s regard for 914/924 and 944 models, and the speed with which 944 owners will now email me, saying their cars do not have a van engine.
I’ve owned enough Mk2 Golfs to go down as a Volkswagen fan and am proud of my 924/944 ownership. But, let’s say in ten years time, you’ve got two identical Boxsters: same colour, mileage and options. One is Volkswagen assisted, one is completely from Stuttgart. Which one will you go for? I think the answer is obvious.
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