TechnoFILE's
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Porsche Boxster and Cayman S PDK's – "Pretty Darn Kool"! How can you have a real sports car without a manual transmission? There's a revolution brewing personified by new generations of automatic transmissions that offer so much efficiency and, yes, driving enjoyment that you can almost forgive the fact that your left foot might atrophy from lack of use. Prime among these is Porsche's Doppelkupplung (PDK), which gives you the benefits of both a manual gearshift and an automatic transmission. And be danged if it hasn't won me over! more... Porsche Ups the "Sport" Quotient in Sport Utes, Automatic Trannies Porsche continues to tweak its lineup, making it sportier all the time. To illustrate this, they've added a GTS version to the Cayenne, and a new "automatic" transmission that's anything but shiftless. The GTS version of Porsche's popular SUV does up the sportiness ante over the garden variety models, offering such upgrades as a six speed manual transmission. And speaking of transmissions, I finally had a chance to put the Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe seven speed double clutch transmission through its paces, which came wrapped in the new Carrera 4 Cabriolet. more... Entry Level Cayenne Still a Real Porsche Can a lowly V6 propel a 4800 pound Porsche to the kind of blistering speeds for which the company's vehicles are known? Or is it more a way to save some bucks and gas while still getting the Porsche cachet? Well, with a small caveat on the propulsion part, my answer to both questions would have to be "yes". more... Shiftless? Porsche Creates a 911 Just For You! Few would argue that Porsche's 911 Carrera is a classic. For more than forty years it has been a benchmark sports car, a seemingly timeless style that, thanks to constant refinement and updating, still inspires lust. It's clearly a car that has never been passed by the sands of time or the rigors of fierce competition. That's a remarkable achievement, especially in a time when technical innovations come so quickly it can make your head spin. So it is that the 911 Carrera enters 2009 sporting some healthy technological upgrades designed to make it even more compelling – even in an era when many people care more about gas mileage than in putting a smile on their faces. more.... Porsche Boxster RS 60 – no "Bore Us" with this Spyder How do you make a terrific sports car even more terrific? Well, if you're Porsche, you grab a renowned name from your racing heritage and use that as the hook for snagging potential purchasers looking for a Boxster that's not quite so "ordinary", as if any Porsche can be called ordinary. In this case the moniker is RS 60 Spyder. more.... Porsche Cayenne Turbo S – Power Player What would you do if you had 550 horses at your beck and call? I don't know what you'd do, but I drooled. I mean, such power! And to come wrapped in the 2009 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, the top line model of Porsche's great SUV, well, for what more could anyone ask? more.... Porsche Introduces a 911 for Chocoholics Who would have thought that painting a car brown would cause it to become an object of lust? Not that the Porsche Carrera S isn't an object of lust to begin with. Heck, I've lusted after the 911 since the 1960's and enough other people have too, or the car would have gone the way of such other sixties icons as the Corvair and the E Type Jaguar. more.... Porsche Boxsters – Fun, Fast and Easy to Drive This is open top motoring as it should be – like driving an MGB of days gone by, but with a little more room, a little more luxury – and a lot more performance. Boxsters, unlike B's, also run in the rain and don't require a college degree to get the roof up when the clouds burst. I was lucky enough to drive two Boxsters nearly back to back during some fine summer weather that was perfect for top down driving: the base model and the more adrenalin-inducing Boxster S. more.... Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Lexus LX 570 – Awesome, Times Two They're big, brawny and luxurious – and can go nearly anywhere. But are they any good? Well of course they are – this is high end stuff! "They," are the 2008 Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Lexus LX 570, top of the line SUV's from opposite corners of the world. Both showcase state-of-the-art technology envisioned differently by different companies. more.... 2008 Porsche Cayenne S – Splendid SUV Many of the complaints about the Cayenne, other than basic outrage at Porsche building an evil SUV, seemed to stem from its looking a little bland compared with the Carrera, Cayman and Boxster – and what wouldn't bland next to them? Porsche appears to have been listening, however; the 2008 Cayenne has received a bit of a face lift that makes it look more aggressive and a little more handsome than before. more.... A Tale of Two Porsches – High End Low End, and Low End High End Do you lust after the legendary Porsche, but find the Carrera Turbo just a little too, well, stratospheric? Take heart! Even the more "down to earth" Porsches are still an absolute blast, as evidenced by a couple of weeks I spent with the "entry level" Carrera and the "upscale" entry level model, the Boxster S. Okay, when you put "entry level" and "Porsche" in the same sentence, you're obviously not talking about the same market segment as a Toyota Yaris or Volkswagen Rabbit, as good as they may be. Porsches are world class sports cars, the stuff that dreams are made of (to borrow from Bogie), the kind of car that turns as many heads as they do laps. more.... Porsche Targa 4S- World's Greatest Sunroof! Porsche's 911 Targa, with its virtually-all-glass sliding roof, is the latest and greatest iteration of a quasi-convertible style whose name is synonymous with open top motoring without the hassle, visibility and security concerns of a true convertible top. more.... Porsche 911 Turbo - Can you say "Whoosh!"? Zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds. 480 horses @ 6000 rpm. 460 lb.-ft. of torque from 1,950 - 5,000 rpm. A claimed top speed of 193 miles per hour. You think this might be a fun car to wind out on a back road? more.... Porsche Cayman - a "Low End" Supercar? There's nothing quite like a Porsche, at least in my experience driving and writing about driving. Porsches speak on a visceral level; the current 911 Carrera is the most gorgeous in the car's long history of being gorgeous, and driving one is even better than looking at one. Even the entry level Porsches are a blast, as I discovered during my week with a "HEY!!!! LOOK AT ME!!!!!" "Guards red" Cayman. more.... Southern Ontario in a Porsche Cayenne S There were howls from some quarters when Porsche announced an evil SUV. Could humanity survive? It has so far! The Cayenne features permanent four-wheel drive, four-wheel independent suspension, stability and traction control and the ability to tow 7,716 pounds. The Titanium Metallic Cayenne S of my test is the "second lowest" model of the Cayenne, which is kind of like saying a Mercedes S class is a stripped down Maybach. But the S ups the ante over the base V6 Cayenne, most noticeably by the inclusion of a 4.5 liter V8, a power plant that puts out 340 horses @ 6000 rpm and 310 lb-ft (available from 2,500-5,500 rpm). Porsche says the Cayenne S will do zero-60 in 6.8 seconds and top out at 150 mph (242 km/h). more... Porsche Cayman S "A body designed to seduce. An engine tuned to excite. Performance engineered to reward." That's how Porsche's website describes the Cayman S, the German company's "entry level" sports coupe, and if one is ever going to start believing marketing hype this is a pretty good place to start. After all, the Cayman S has been receiving raves from sources other than those with a vested interest in its profitability, lauded for its seductive body, exciting engine and rewarding performance. So it ain't just hype. more... There's nothing quite like the combination of a warm day and an open top sports car to put a smile on your face. This is especially true when the sports car in question is one of the world's greats, a car that in one form or another has inspired automotive lust for more than forty years. more.... Porsche Boxster S - "S" is for "Sweet!" Ah, Porsche, the legendary marque with the glorious racing heritage. High end performance stuff, this, even at what could laughingly be called its entry level. That entry level would be the Boxster currently, the mid-engined, two seat open top roadster that's guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any car buff. For a base price of a mere $45,000, you can strap yourself into this road rocket and be treated to zero to 60 in under six seconds from its 240 horsepower, 2.7 liter flat six. And if that isn't enough for you, there's the Boxster S, the subject of this piece. It ups the ante in every way including, of course price. In this case, for a base price of $54,700, you get a 3.2 liter six that cranks out 280 horses @ 6200 rpm (and 236 ft.-lb. of torque @ rpm 4,700 rpm), decreases the zero-sixty time to 5.2 seconds and increases the top speed by eight miles per hour to an awe-inspiring 167 mph. Now that's motoring! more... Porsche. Like the Maltese Falcon, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of. People fantasize about Porsche, lust after Porsche. Me, too. I’ve always loved Porsche – from afar, alas – especially the classic 911 that in its latest incarnation is more gorgeous than ever, with lines so muscularly seductive and graceful it can bring a lump to the throat of the car nut. As a writer fairly new to covering the auto industry and working to build credibility in that niche (no laughing, please!), when I was invited to take two versions of this automotive jewel for test sessions, wild horses (or even prancing ponies) couldn’t keep me away. So it was written and so it was done: I got to try the Carrera S hardtop and the Carrera Cabriolet convertible. Is this a great job or what? more...
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think
