by John Glynn | Dec 11, 2013 | Porsche News, New Models
Car magazine has just uploaded Georg Kacher’s verdict on his first drive in a Porsche Macan. Kacher would point the pen of truth at anything lacking, but his highly positive verdict comes as no surprise.
“There’s little doubt that Porsche’s plan to build 50,000 Macans per year won’t meet demand,” says Kacher. “It may be an SUV, but it’s a proper Porsche in terms of appearance and talent, it blends street cred and desirability with a reasonable price tag and it might just be, for the many rivals in this booming segment, a worst nightmare.”
Car‘s review shows a £47k cost new, but I’m not sure how that’s made up. Basic Macan S is £43k, but when you add 21-inch wheels, mid range leather, DAB with park detect and a pano roof, you’re up to £51k. Would be easy to get this over £60k, so we’ll have to see how the residuals work out for low spec cars versus stuff with toys.
Residuals for petrol v diesel will also be interesting, as Macan Diesel and S are priced the same. In fact, the cars are priced at £41,600, but Porsche adds £169 for third year Porsche Assistance and £800 for the third year of warranty. You can build your own Macan on the very attractive new Porsche website.
Macan’s undeniable sexiness and outright ability will further reduce the number of people who persist in denying Porsche badge credibility to anything with more than two doors, but that will not be its best trick. The truck still weighs 1.9 tonnes and looks relatively spacious inside. Cayenne is not much heavier, or more roomy, so what happens next for Stuttgart’s biggest SUV? Like all the Volkswagen Golfs before it, will it get bigger and bigger and eventually ooze off the scales? Another Porsche first!
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by John Glynn | Dec 11, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
A number of projects have been enforcing wee-hours Internet trawls for material from the 2013 Safari Rally. This was the first year for a while that I didn’t follow the rally as it happened, so going back through Youtube videos and enthusiast coverage unveils a more human story.
What continues to stand out about the rally is the whitespace. Whitespace on a page is space for the content to spread, unfold, stand on its own and filter into your grey cells. The Ferdinand website runs a ton of whitespace, as that is how I like to read. Whitespace on Safari is fresh air, big landscapes and beautiful light.
Whitespace on a road trip allows room for the tendrils of the experience to wind through the windscreen, into the cracks and crevices of our psyche to massage our imaginations. The greatest journeys take us on a metaphorical learning curve of self: no one comes back from a road trip less resolved than how they departed.
Essentially a competitive road trip, rallying offers similar spirituality – don’t be scared off by the word – in a more challenging context. Testing their stamina, ambition and resourcefulness, the competitors scrape another layer off their ultimate capability. Putting the body and mind under extreme duress is part of the thrill of existence: and is there a better way to have existence fully envelope a consciousness, than fighting for victory on one of the great marathon rallies?
Porsches and philosophy on a misty Wednesday morning: you’re welcome. Anyone who wants to stay up late drinking whiskey and potentially talking this stuff in a remote Alpine ski lodge next June should find a way onto the Twinspark Racing Bergmeister Tour. In the morning, the philosophically less interested take off to drive legendary mountain passes and we hang back, mentally drifting off piste and doing our own thing. The best times await us when we just let them come.
Tuthill Porsche ran an amazing sixteen 911s on this year’s Safari Rally, which must make Richard Tuthill the most philosophical of all of us: he is certainly an inspiring person to work with. Though he will vehemently deny this, his reponsibility for so many epic past projects tells a different story. If you’re looking for the ultimate Porsche Road Trip, then Safari is your thing.
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by John Glynn | Dec 9, 2013 | Project Cars, Porsche Cayenne
The Big Pig (Cayenne S) continues to rack up the miles. Except now it’s doing it fuelled by Liquid Petroleum Gas/LPG, which is proving rather cheaper than petrol. I also just put a new battery on it: made no difference to anything, but it’s another maintenance item off the list for winter. Seen here with good old Northants dirt, winter tyres on 18s and 11 year-old Ciara in the front seat.
I’ve run LPG cars for a few years and been really pleased with the ownership experience. Cayenne creates a few problems when run on LPG, but it’s nothing to do with the fuel. My current issues are all to do with the design of the chassis – specifically the shallow rear floor – and the amount of power the V8 shoves out.
Porsche World might run a story on the conversion, so I’ll save some details until that’s been in print. The basic plot is I was intimately familiar with the kit I’ve been running for the last few years, so had my own views on what might work best for the Cayenne. I emailed a bunch of LPG places to get what the experts felt, had a few crazy quotes back to convert it and did some more research.
In the end, I went for a 59-litre tank in the wheel well and the same OMVL system as used in my Subaru Outback up front. It runs a treat at speed – had 120 out of it thus far and no problems – but it doesn’t much like screaming out of roundabouts or really quick throttle openings in M3/M4 to overtake, so flicks seamlessly straight back to petrol when I do that. Which is fine apart from the LPG alarm beeping.
It’s either a pickup issue (which I doubt, as it happens on an almost-full tank) or just the evaporator can’t handle the sudden demand for all gaseous horses to report to the intake manifold. The installer said the system would handle this motor at full tilt so it is probably just an adjustment issue. I’ll give him some time to sort it out.
The only other issue is a max fill of 43 litres at the minute. I’m getting 18 mpg with air con on and not driving flat-out everywhere, but that’s still only 160 miles. I would love another 160 per tank so the only solution to maintain the boot space would be to cut the boot floor about and squeeze in a 100-litre tank.
Luckily, I know a man – Mr Rob Campbell at Racing Restorations – who can do that fabrication stuff. He loves a challenge and has already promised to make the Big Pig louder, so what’s a little boot floor between friends when the exhaust is being chopped?!
That bottom pic is a six-foot sofa in the back of it last Sunday. Yes, the tailgate closed – who said Cayennes were too small?
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Dec 4, 2013 | Race and Rally, Porsche People
“Some people call me the Space Cowboy, Some call me the Gangster of Love”
I don’t know whether anyone’s ever called Michael Christensen the “Gangster of Love”, but from next year they will be calling him a Porsche Works Racing Driver, which might be even better.
The impressive 23 year-old rookie from Denmark has spent the last two years as a Porsche Junior, racing 911 GT3s, and impressed Stuttgart enough to earn a slot in the works driver lineup. Those who’ve followed Christensen race and win will applaud with the decision. There’s real speed and intelligence in Christensen’s driving – unsurprising when you look at his CV.
Karting from an early age, Christensen rose to become one the of the best by winning Nordic and European Junior titles, finishing second in the World Formula A series and taking back to back German kart titles. He won the Formula BMW Europe Rookies Cup in 2008, and notched up a pile of wins in 2009, only to lose them in a battle over tech regs. Two years in GP3 followed, before he took a shot at the Porsche young drivers selection process, winning a comprehensive support package as a Porsche Junior in the Carrera Cup Deutschland.
Christensen crowned his maiden season with a win at Hockenheim in front of all the right names. In 2013 Supercup, he took a win at the Nurburgring, and made the best rookie award his own. Time will tell what Christensen can do with the works drive, but having him on the team is no bad thing. Graduating to the works team from Supercup at least gives the series some good news this year, following the loss of Sean Edwards.
Congratulations, Michael! Here’s to a great 2014.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Dec 3, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
The Porsche Museum has a special Rennsport exhibition running until March 17, 2014, celebrating “60 Years of Super Sports Cars”.
Porsche Museum Rennsport Exhibition
Some rare birds can be seen in the exhibition, including this beautiful 550: the first Spyder ever bought by a private individual. I don’t know the chassis number, but the colour scheme is perfect for a privately owned car. I’ll try to get a few more details.
Also in the show is Herbert von Karajan’s unique lightweight RS-bodied 911 Turbo: a factory special for the famous German conductor, which featured on the cover of his Famous Overtures album, recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic. Porsche 911 Turbo is classic rock ‘n’ roll!
The Porsche Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9.00 to 18.00. Entry is €8 for adults and UK readers can fly to Stuttgart return from £120 (Flybe out of Birmingham for a January weekend: Friday-Sunday).
