Porsche has announced that it will take over the test facility at Nardò in southern Italy from next month. Take over means buy: Porsche Cars GB confirmed to me that that the company has bought the facility.
Nardò has been at the heart of European auto testing programmes for many years, and it sounds like that will continue. This will be a relief to the travelling technicians from many marques who like testing prototype cars and vans in the Italian sun! Some good Porsche friends among them.
The Proving Ground is famous for its 12.5-kilometre high-speed bowl, site of many Porsche speed tests over the years. One of the most impressive was the 200 mph run by the TechArt Cayenne Turbo in 2010. Equipped with 680 horsepower and a TechArt aerodynamic kit, the Cayenne was probably doing a true speed of closer to 215 mph, losing some of it through tyre scrub on the banking.
Nardò’s banking is designed so that there is no lateral force up to 240 km/h, almost 150 mph. Running at this speed in the outside lane of four, the steering wheel does not need to be turned. Interestingly, this is as fast as tests are allowed to be run unless the facility has been booked for exclusive use.
The stable climate at the facility, which is situated slightly inland from Italy’s southeast Mediterranean coastline, means the site can be used all year ’round. When Porsche takes over next month, the priority will be to update some of the facilities before opening the place for proper Porsche business, and making it available to other manufacturers. I look forward to visiting the place myself one day.
The interview I recorded in London with BBC Radio 4 airs today at 16:00 hrs UK time.
The piece will appear on Last Word: Radio 4’s obituary show. I think the session went well, but you never know how these things will turn out in the edit. I’m hoping it will come across as interesting, and in honour of the third generation of Porsche car designers: we’ll have to see.
The whole thing was recorded in The Orange: my Carrera 3.0 Coupe. I drove the orange 911 down to London, picked up producer Jane Little and we took a drive around the West End. Tootling around a city centre is not where Orange is happiest, but there were a coupe of spots where it could stretch its legs a bit in second gear. Made both of us laugh.
Jane was quite surprised by the 911’s turn of speed in stripped out guise, with the reduced final drive ratio that Orange runs. The view through that big screen from the low seating position on my car, built to sprint up Swiss Alpine passes, emphasised the amount of glass Ferdinand set into the slim pillars: 60% more glass than the 356. As I say, there were some thrilling turns of speed and Jane asked some interesting questions, so I think it was a fun few hours. Hopefully that will come across on air.
However it turns out, I’m glad to have been asked to contribute by the BBC. I’m sure it will make a reasonable podcast, too. You can hear it at 4pm today and repeated at 8.30 PM on Sunday night. It’ll be on iPlayer once the Friday show has run. Here’s the link to the show again.
I had a call from BBC Radio 4 this afternoon about an upcoming tribute they are recording on Ferdinand Porsche. I’ve been asked to contribute, and suggested another name they should talk to. I’m taking the 911 down to London tomorrow and we’ll try to record something in it. The Orange is no hush puppie, so it ought to be interesting!
Considering Butzi, his place in history and how we should remember him is something I’ve been doing a lot of. I grew up in a broadly similar family dynamic – third generation of a family business that was well established in its field – so I feel some simpatico with his start in life.
Our family business was music: we had a small chain of shops and were Irish importers for Gibson etc. I started ‘working’ there around age 7, and would go to ‘the big shop’ on Saturdays, where my Uncle John and his son Jonathon, Uncle Sean and his son Johnny, two more local Johns, a guitar tech, an electronics engineer and my grandad all worked.
So many Johns and then me on top. My second name is David, so I became Johndee, and that is why my blog is called Johnd Glynn (not john D. Glynn). I didn’t want something with Porsche in the name, and JohnGlynn.com was already taken.
ANYWAY! My dad and grandad were very well known. It was expected that I would follow their musical careers (dad was a successful musician and grandad ran the Musician’s Union in that part of the country) and for a long time I did. I learned how to sell, studied some instruments and generally did what I was told. But, much as I enjoyed working with my dad and grandad, I did feel some resentment for an impending career that was not of my choosing. My big thing was cars, trucks, bikes and books: I wanted to write about cars.
When my grandad died, my dad’s priorities began to change and eventually the business closed down. I was free, but I had also lost a purpose. I wandered distractedly for years before finally, a big bike accident for me and the premature death of my young brother in law forced shifts in thinking, and I finally bought my first Porsche. The sea change came in a 911, on the way home from the Nürburgring Oldtimer in 2009. A chance conversation brought clearer focus, and led me to where I am now: on a journey that still thrills and terrifies in almost equal measure.
Some reading this who will wonder what a music business in soaking wet Ireland has to do with three generations of car designers, hundreds of miles away? Probably nothing if you take it that literally. But I’m not talking literal: I’m trying to explore it emotionally. How does someone feel when the family business is pulled out from under them, or the ties of obligation are severed? I do know something about that.
Thoughts continue before tomorrow’s recording. So many paths are open to all of us but, in the end, we can only take one road. How worn the road is and what lies along the way depends on courage and conviction. It seems to me that Ferry had both, in supersize portions. I don’t know about Butzi as yet, but of the same species, for sure.
Porsche culture reached the end of an era last Friday, when Ferdinand Alexander Porsche passed away.
Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ was the eldest son of Ferry, son of Ferdinand. Ferry once said: “We all have a desire to create something that will show we were here, and did something of value. To create something timeless.” Fifty years ago, his eldest son fulfilled that ambition.
Butzi’s breakthough was not his favourite: this award went to the 904. It was not the most expensive, nor the most exclusive. But it was the most authentic and engaging of Porsches. Butzi gave the world a Porsche that answered more desires than any before, or since. It was, of course, the 911.
Butzi believed that design was not fashion. Good design was functionality. Functional items fit with our needs: they are relevant.
When relevance touches the soul, the subconscious creates deep, unbreakable connections. When something is irrelevant, our conscious minds disconnect and discard, but such a fate never befell Butzi’s creation. 901, 911, 964, 993, 996, 997, 991: call it what you will, since that first line emerged from the mind of Butzi Porsche, the 911 has been the world’s most relevant sports car.
With so many 911s from the model’s half-century history still used and abused, cherished and adored, the revelance is proven. Almost fifty years after its arrival, the 911 remains the machine most connected to the practice of driving, and most aspired to by those who seek the ultimate driving experience.
Through Ferdinand Alexander, all of us who love the 911 discovered one great thing: an instant route to satisfaction. Sitting in Ferdinand’s 911, surrounded by his vision of perfection, we enjoy a space that is timeless: simultaneously of its time, and of ours. We who cannot imagine life without our 911s know its true purpose: it is a direct connection to three generations of engineering genius, and a vital component in the engine of the super-ego.
It’s tough to say goodbye to friends, even tougher when you’ve never met them. But be sure that if you own and enjoy a 911, F. A. Porsche was a friend: one of your best. Let this be in our minds as we say farewell to our friend and inspiration, Butzi Porsche.
Adieu Ferdinand Alexander, on your journey to the arms of your father. You will never be forgotten by those you have inspired. Rest in peace.
Here’s a nice little video of a Porsche 904 prototype from 1963/64 – serial number 904-002 – at the Cars and Coffee event in Irvine, California.
Developed as part of the new 100-car-a-year homologation rules introduced in the early 1960s, Ferdinand A. Porsche is down as saying that the 904 was his favourite Porsche design. Though 904s were initially equipped with the 2-litre four cylinder four cam RSK engine to compete in the under two-litre category, it sounds to me like this car now runs a flat six.
We can see that this prototype has some interesting features. The doors finish at the top of the sill lines: other 904s go down into the sills (see the model box pic above). That rear canopy also looks quite flimsy compared to the later 904 held in the Porsche museum (chassis number 008) which seems much less wavy on video.
My guess would be that early cars went as thin as possible, and the engineers added to the thickness of the fibreglass as development continued: something to read up on later. That said, the finished 904 was a light car. Weight was around 650 kilograms, so it could sprint to 60 in six seconds and on to 160 mph.
The blue colour is interesting: a change from the usual silver. I think metallic colours work better on 904s but a prototype is a prototype: if this is how it left the works, you don’t mess with it.
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