I spent this afternoon watching the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix. It was an absolute cracker. Every time the cars came through Massenet and into Casino Square, I was reminded of the 2010 R Gruppe Bergmeister Tour, and the three days our ten cars spent in Monte Carlo. Watching the F1 drivers blast at 120 mph or more through sections we trickled through at 30 mph was fantastic.
Bergmeister rallyistes used the city as a base for mountain raids up around the principality, to the epic Monte Carlo Rally routes we were driving. Getting in and out of town was easy enough, but getting around was a headache. Traffic along the GP track in normal running is nigh-on stationary. It’s also quite difficult to equate TV and reality, when parts of the flowing circuit are run as one way or no left/right turn during the normal working week.
We did manage a few runs along some famous stretches, and I got told off by the police once or twice for hanging out the windows of moving 911s with a camera, but it was worth it when the pictures made a cover and a big feature in 911 & Porsche World magazine.
If you’re a diehard F1 fan and have not yet made the effort to get down there and drive the circuit, put it on your bucket list. Trust your Uncle Johnny: it is WELL worth the effort. Though it can be trashy in places, Monaco is a unique environment: a shrine to speed that will undoubtedly inspire something within.
The July issue of 911 & Porsche World magazine just landed on the mat. It’s an interesting edition, with a 924 group test, Cayman R UK drive and the story of Manon Borrius Broek: a Dutch heiress who has accumulated a beautiful collection of Porsche machinery.
I’ve had a flick, but not read any feaures yet. In all honesty, there’s a good chance I won’t. Like most journos, reading magazines is looking back in time. We finish a piece, send it, and look forward to the next one. I usually speed read my own articles, to see what the mag has done with layout and check for any typos, but otherwise I point myself ahead.
That is not to say I ignore the magazines – I definitely do not. My first port of call in any magazine or newspaper is always the letters page. Here we get a golden opportunity to gauge ambient temperature amongst the readership: what they think is hot and not.
Custom Porsche 911s & Porsche World Magazine
This month’s Porsche World carries a great letter (Rise of the Replicas) from John Hammond Jr in the US. John gives the thumbs up to Porsche World’s ‘hot rod’ group test last month, but cautions against the rise of what he calls ‘cookie cutter’ hot rods: the margarine creations of a backdated 3.2 with a center filler cap, recipe repro seats and vacuous roll hoops. “If we’re not careful,”says John, “it will be like the kit car world, where every man and his hound wants to build a Cobra kit car, to the extent that owners of genuine Cobras become tired of being asked what kit they used.”
Not surprisingly, I agree with John. Nothing irks more than a lack of imagination. We’re living in a time where unlimited online inspiration, vinyl wraps and energetic new paints make creating something different a little bit easier, so where are those cars? The scene is certainly starving for them.
Jamie and I have just shot some very unique, proper hot rods in the US, and I’m tracking some European builds that look right on the money, so they are out there to be found. Help is on the way for John Hammond Jr, and all those looking for down-home hot rod spirit from their Porsche periodicals.
God bless the boys and girls who want to stray from the herd: they’re the ones keeping things interesting!
Awesome shoot with Jamie Lipman today. We took a Diablo Red (named by us) Porsche 911 RSR backdate to Bethlehem, New Hampshire on Rapture Day.
The angle I had in mind was take a cool 911 to the start of things, at the end of things. So far no end, but it was a fun morning, touring the town and unleashing some divine Porsche havoc.
Porsche 911 RSR backdate in Bethlehem, New Hampshire
The car is an ’84 3.2 Turbolook that’s been substantially revised, with steel RSR flares, classic low-fat interior, WEVO transmission and suspension set up and a 3.8 litre Rothsport engine.
We shot the car next to the Police Station and in the roads around the town. I’ll let you know what magazine it ends up in.
All the time we were working, I had this shitkicking U2/BB King track playing in my head. LOUD. It’s still playing!
Back in primary school, our teacher (Mrs Bell) would go around the class at 9 AM, asking us to share interesting things that had happened to us since last time. This round-the-class summary was called ‘Our News”.
After everyone who had a story had told it, Mrs Bell would pick her favourite three items, they’d get a line each and we’d write ‘Our News’ for the day in the bottom half of a copybook. You could then draw a picture at the top, to illustrate your favorite story of the ones that had made it into print.
Not much has changed. I still go around my peers and colleagues in the mornings, get updates from the various classmates, pick the stories I like the most and put them on the blog, with pictures of my choosing, or making.
It’s fun to know that ‘Our News’ would still give me immeasurable pleasure almost forty years later, but there you go; life can be crazy like that. So:
Our News: 15th May 2011
Today is Sunday. It is a sunny day.
The weather last night turned cold and rainy, so John, Hayden, Harvey and Alastair went to the Sports Bar at the Monterey Hyatt, and had a few beers while watching the Brumos Porsche win at Virginia Raceway, after a thrilling wet race and some very close racing.
Yesterday, Jamie and John shot three Porsche 911: two hot rods and a beautiful standard 911S. One was shot at Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove, and the other two were on The Preserve, a privately owned 20,000-acre ranch outside of Carmel.
John and Jamie have been doing their usual sun cream forgetting trick, so John is now pinker than a Barbie car.
(I’m sure that last one was also in ‘Our News’ forty years ago, too.)
I’m in sunny California at the minute and loving every minute of it. Today is being spent with those wonderful people at WEVO in San Carlos, plotting our group assault on this weekend’s R Gruppe Treffen, down in Monterey.
Lined up for Team WEVOs weekend works outing is a great bunch of classic Porsche enthusiasts from all over the US and Europe. R Gruppe started as a California club but its influence now stretches much further afield.
Hayden’s got some great cars here at the minute. In one corner is the GT3-engined 912 we are shooting tomorrow: the car that’s kicked the hot rod goalposts into the stadium car park. In another is the black 911 being built for Burvill Senior. Black with orange leather: properly cool.
Outside are the 993 used as shop delivery bus and the ’67 Aga Blue 912: a 36,000-mile all original car with patina that can’t be beat, including the obligatory baked paint.
Also on site is Hayden’s BMW 2002 Touring, owned since 1990. It’s just had a new twin-choke carb installed under outwardly standard California-legal air filter housing and emissions system. Loads of 2002s around here, including the ‘Golf’ car I got a wave from this morning while I was driving Kenny.
Kenny is a ’72 running a 2.4S engine, Recaro sports seats, one-off WEVO brakes, development suspension, Tall Boy WEVO shifter prototype and enough additional trickness to make a grown Porsche fan weep. I’ve just found a spare hour in the schedule so we are shooting it tomorrow.
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