Crown

cdixon:

I've seen exactly this car today - I looked stunning. 

I think white is a great colour for the Speedster and at a white car the black Fuchs wheels and black rear stone chip guards look best.

--

The secret of life is to admire without desiring.

Just over 4000 miles on the clock now and I took the GTS to over 150 mph today!!

Two miles of open road at dusk and couldn't resist  - the car was so stable and, with zero traffic, I just kept accelerating.  Without realising it I reached 150 very quickly but backed off when I saw the needle and thought of potential consequences!

Not the smartest of moves, but the thing is... the car still had plenty of grunt to go!

Not sure what I'll do next time I get the chance - any thoughts??

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

John H:

Just over 4000 miles on the clock now and I took the GTS to over 150 mph today!!

Two miles of open road at dusk and couldn't resist  - the car was so stable and, with zero traffic, I just kept accelerating.  Without realising it I reached 150 very quickly but backed off when I saw the needle and thought of potential consequences!

Not the smartest of moves, but the thing is... the car still had plenty of grunt to go!

Not sure what I'll do next time I get the chance - any thoughts??

 

John,

I know what you mean!!       So next time just take her to 190!!  

John H:

 

Not sure what I'll do next time I get the chance - any thoughts??

 

 Book a track day as soon as you can , ideally one with a good straight line ( the N'Ring when hired for courses, or Le Castelet if you would link it with a few days on the côte d' Azur ) but it certainly would be better around your place so you get to do it !!!

DO it , John 

 997.2 C2S, PDK, -20mm

 Join the Porsche club and take it onto Oulton Park at their end of season track day... I will probably be going again...

Or you could book a  track day at Silverstone (make sure you get the new full GP circuit).. You should be able to get some speed up down the hanger straight !

Hi Chris - not sure Oulton Park has a long enough straight.  Hilltop into Knickerbrook would probably have been okay until the arrival of Hislop's chicane!  The only possible place would be City Hall to Druids... but I doubt it.

Have booked a day at Silverstone end of July so should get it out of my system then...

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

John H:

Hi Chris - not sure Oulton Park has a long enough straight.  Hilltop into Knickerbrook would probably have been okay until the arrival of Hislop's chicane!  The only possible place would be City Hall to Druids... but I doubt it.

 

 

 

Have booked a day at Silverstone end of July so should get it out of my system then...

 

 

 

 Yep no long straights, but near to you and great fun circuit....

cdixon:

 Yep no long straights, but near to you and great fun circuit....

Great fun circuit no doubt.  Driven it often in many differing vehicles and conditions. 

Only a few miles from my home, but I'm looking for somewhere to test the top speed of my GTS and hoping Silverstone will be the answer...

Failing that, I will take to the Autobahn - can anyone suggest a suitable section..?

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

Since we've been talking about Oulton Park Circuit, here's a clip about the naming of "Knickerbrook" by Blaster Bates - please watch more videos of his on YouTube... they're hilarious..

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

At last a 911 Jeremy Clarkson WANTS to drive....

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/clarkson/article639644.ece

--

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

John, could you post an image of the text without a link to the Sunday Times (access "for subscribers only")?

Thanks.

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

First Nick, now Clarkson. Porsche gets them all.

The secret of life is to admire without desiring.

Rossi:

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

First Nick, now Clarkson. Porsche gets them all.

A so witty and yet so true statement at the same time. 
 

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

John, could you post an image of the text without a link to the Sunday Times (access "for subscribers only")?

Thanks.

Copy of the text from the article...

"I’d pretty much decided over the past year or so that I couldn’t abide Sebastian Vettel. All that finger-pointing when he won a race. And the hair. And the way he blamed his team-mate for the crash last year. Ghastly jumped-up little German prig.

But last weekend, there I was, enjoying a plate of scrambled egg in Monaco, when I looked up to see the man himself, running towards me like he’d just crossed a desert and I had the keys to a fridge full of cold beer. We chatted about his forthcoming appearance on Top Gear and he was utterly charming; delightful.

The day before, I’d bumped into Mark Webber and he was charming too. I reminded him that the first time we met, he’d been employed by Ford to chauffeur fat drunks in dinner jackets from a hotel to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t mock. I got 80 quid a day for doing that.”

In my brief visit to the principality, I met lots of people involved in Formula One. And they were all much the same. Michael Schumacher. Nick Fry. Martin Brundle. Christian Horner. Rubens Barrichello. All of them made the Duke of Cambridge look like a lout.

And then we get to Bernie Ecclestone. It was late, and I was wandering about the harbour, wondering whose party I was going to gatecrash next, when down the ramp of what appeared to be a floating city bounded the octogenarian. Without wishing to sound like Piers Morgan, he was all smiles, and after dispensing a good deal of bonhomie, he invited me for a drink on Flavio Briatore’s boat. You won’t believe this but he turned out to be charming too. Well, I think he was charming. Flav doesn’t bother much with consonants. He just sort of makes a noise when it’s his turn to speak but he did a lot of smiling, and gave me a lot of wine.

So, behind the sponsorship and the nonsense and the backbiting, I have to report that the silly world of F1 is rammed full of people you’d like very much to have round for dinner.

Unfortunately, the people F1 attracts to its showcase Monaco event are not quite so charming. Let’s deal with the men first. There are two kinds, as I see it. There are those who have the money and they are all very greasy. And then there are those who ride around on the big shots’ backs, like oxpecker birds, picking at their fleas.

This is a mutually beneficial arrangement because the rhinos get to be surrounded by acolytes who agree with everything they say and laugh at their jokes until they are told to stop. And the oxpeckers scratch out a living by selling the rhinos superyacht insurance and hideous watches.

Occasionally, I would be grabbed by an oxpecker and made to meet his rhino and there is no small-talk manual in the world that covers this sort of encounter. The rhino has no clue who I am — he has someone to watch television for him — and the oxpecker is not really allowed to speak. And you can’t ask the rhino what he does for a living because you know full well he sells guns and arranges for people to be murdered. Besides, to prevent you from asking any questions at all, he spends the entire time in your company yawning. Billionaires yawn almost all the time.

I’m told that on one of the really big boats, there was a young man who is employed to sit around all day, getting a tan and staying fit. His job? He’s the owner’s heart donor.

Then you have the women. Mostly, they are prostitutes. I suspect that if you were so minded, you could come home with a veritable smorgasbord of sexually transmitted diseases. But not the billionaires. They have someone to make love for them.

If you were to drop an atom bomb on Monte Carlo during the grand prix weekend, you’d mourn the loss of the sport’s inner circle. But on the plus side, with the outer circle gone as well, there would be a measurable improvement in the planet’s quality of life.

Of course, you might imagine that if you were to drop an atom bomb on Monte Carlo at any time, you’d achieve the same result. But I’m afraid not. The billionaires don’t actually live there. They employ a man to go into their apartments once in a while to make phone calls and switch the lights off and on, so the tax authorities think they do.

All things considered, then, I was very pleased to leave Monaco to come home and watch the race on television. But I was not at all pleased to discover what car was waiting for me at the airport. A Porsche 911 GTS.

This is a reviewer’s nightmare. It’s like asking a restaurant critic to write about a McDonald’s burger that has exactly the same ingredients as all the others but in a slightly different arrangement. Some colleagues of mine recently worked out that there are currently 153 different options available across the 20-strong 911 range and that, as a result, there are 9.6 trillion mildly different permutations of what is basically the same bloody car.

There is, however, one thing that sets the new GTS apart. The price. If you were to buy a standard Carrera S and equip it to the same level as the new model, it would cost around £95,000. But the car you see in the pictures today — including a few extras — is just £81,968. And thrown in for free is the much better-looking wide body from the Turbo and a bit of black paint here and there.

I suspect there’s a good reason for this unusual act of generosity. Next year we will see the arrival of a new 911 — which will be the same as all the others since Hitler first came up with the idea — and they need to get rid of all the parts before the production switchover. What you are buying, then, is not a new car. It’s the last version of the old one.

I’m told by enthusiasts of the breed that it is also possibly the best. They like the look, the rear-drive simplicity, the value and the Alcantara steering wheel. They say that it combines all the best things from the massive Porsche option list in one unbeatable package and that everyone should have one immediately. My eyelids are starting to droop. Because if there’s one thing I hate more than writing about a Porsche 911, it’s driving one. I feel like such a plonker. Fifty years old. What am I saying? It’s one of two things, actually. I’m an enthusiastic motorist (in which case, give me a wide berth at parties) or I’m having a terrible midlife wobble (in which case, give me a wide berth at parties).

Plus, I’ve never really liked the way a 911 feels. I’ve always quietly respected Porsche’s attempts to marry thrill-a-minute driving with everyday usability but I’ve always thought that it was chasing an impossible dream. The two things are mutually exclusive. To be fun, a car must be a bit mad. And the 911 isn’t.

So why did I enjoy my time with the GTS so much? And why did I also enjoy the GT3 version that I drove onto these pages not so long back. The car hasn’t changed — at all — which means I have.

And that’s probably true. Yes, a Lamborghini or a Vauxhall VXR or a Mitsubishi Evo are all fantastically insane and I love them for that. But now I’m past 50, I don’t really want flames coming out of the exhaust any more, and a ride that cripples my back.

You don’t drive a GTS. You dance with it. It is a beautiful experience, actually, and yet there are no histrionics. The sat nav and the iPod connectivity all make sense. And it’s not huge or loud or uncomfortable. It’s as lovely as Sebastian Vettel, in fact.

So bear that in mind when you see a middle-aged man driving a Porsche. He’s not having a midlife crisis. He’s just grown up."

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

Rossi:

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

First Nick, now Clarkson. Porsche gets them all.

Why did reading that make me think of the old phrase "There goes the neighbourhood"?   

fritz

 Clarkson makes me feel old now 

very good write up - funny , sarcastic but very true in may ways....

Rossi:

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

First Nick, now Clarkson. Porsche gets them all.

I don't know why but Porsche really has "something". After getting my wife the M3 Cab and after getting myself the X5 M, a car I absolutely love (even now), my feelings are still with Porsche. I was looking left and right (Maserati, Aston Martin, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, etc.) but I'm still in love with Porsche, I can't help it. 

The next car decision will be difficult... 

RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 997 Turbo, BMW X5 M, BMW M3 Cab DKG, Mini Cooper S JCW

 When I was a lad, school teachers drove MGs and Triumphs, salesmen with white shoes and  blown-dry hair drove Corvettes and all the guys around Berkeley and Palo Alto -- the guys on their way to a Nobel Prize -- drove Porsches. Oh, and Janis Joplin.

So for me, Porsche was always the car driven by the kind of guy I aspired to be. I know that's changed over the years, but not for me. 

Porsche is the smart guy's car.

"We all love the music. What we hope is that the music loves us." -- Tom Waits

I fell for Porsche when I was a kid and saw a yellow Targa very well driven on an Alpine Pass. When we stopped at a rest place at Furka Pass, Switzerland, I saw the driver accompanied by a stunning blonde.

At that moment it clicked for me that Porsche was the right package for me. I became a  fan

--

"Form follows function"

Rossi:

 

cdixon:

I've seen exactly this car today - I looked stunning. 

I think white is a great colour for the Speedster and at a white car the black Fuchs wheels and black rear stone chip guards look best.

--

The secret of life is to admire without desiring.

In my town there's someone driving a blue -one, i thought it the best combo, after seeing sunday a white one on the motorway i've to admit it's equally stunning!

965 3.3turbo/  993 targa / 996 cab /997S cab

Audi R8  //  Audi A5 S-line 3.0tdi Quattro/ RR 4.4i

reginos:

I fell for Porsche when I was a kid and saw a yellow Targa very well driven on an Alpine Pass. When we stopped at a rest place at Furka Pass, Switzerland, I saw the driver accompanied by a stunning blonde.

At that moment it clicked for me that Porsche was the right package for me. I became a  fan

A fan of Porsche or the stunning blonde? 

The secret of life is to admire without desiring.

Rossi:

reginos:

I fell for Porsche when I was a kid and saw a yellow Targa very well driven on an Alpine Pass. When we stopped at a rest place at Furka Pass, Switzerland, I saw the driver accompanied by a stunning blonde.

At that moment it clicked for me that Porsche was the right package for me. I became a  fan

A fan of Porsche or the stunning blonde? 

Both

--

"Form follows function"

Rossi:

PureBlue:

Ha, Clarkson finally succumbs to the inevitable! 

First Nick, now Clarkson. Porsche gets them all.

 
When you live long enough, eventually nothing comes as a surprise 

JC's hatred for Porsche has now transformed to loving the GT3 and the GTS.

And yet, he says it is because he has changed not the car. So that calls into question everything he wrote before - since the new JC would (potentially) view all those other cars differently too ...  That seems to me to be the logical corollary of his new view.

It also proves that he only writes to provoke a response - there is no objective substance behind his views.

RT Moderator - 997.1 C2S GT Silver/Cocoa, -20mm sports suspension/LSD, PSE, short shifter, SportDesign rims, Zuffenhausen collection

Why? We all change our views and preferences throughout life. In politics, food, friends, hobbies etc etc. Why JC must not be allowed that simple fact of life?

"Form follows function"

reginos:

Why? We all change our views and preferences throughout life. In politics, food, friends, hobbies etc etc. Why JC must not be allowed that simple fact of life?

What he said...

"We all love the music. What we hope is that the music loves us." -- Tom Waits

I love to watch and read JC - being a bit sarcastic , laugh about yrself and be a bit less serious has proven to be the best mix ! I hope TG will continue for a very long time still...

reginos:

Why? We all change our views and preferences throughout life. In politics, food, friends, hobbies etc etc. Why JC must not be allowed that simple fact of life?

Indeed! That's why youthfulness is wasted on the young.

John H...I had the opportunity today to drive a Carrera GTS with PDK on 1.9 mile road course. The car was absolutely fantastic. I have a greater appreciation for the benefits of PDK.  It has certainly made me give the PDK transmission serious consideration for my next car.. Thanks for your insights..

2006 997 C2S Cab, Triple Black,  2006 Cayenne Titanium Iceland Silver Metalic New York

Bob - you're very welcome...

This morning I'm off on one of my jaunts to Devon & Cornwall.  Will report back as this will be my first one in the GTS.... full story & photos to follow...

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."