Porsche 911 2009 News

Those 13 seconds are the difference in lap time around the Nurburgring between the upcoming 991-series 911 and the car about to head into the history books. The upcoming Porsche Carrera S with a PDK gearbox and sports suspension has lapped the famed German course in seven minutes 40 seconds, already at the same pace as the GT3 and Turbo from the outgoing 997 series. The 911 program director, August Achleitner, says the stopwatch provides the proof of the improvements in only the third all-new 911 design since the car was created in 1963. The car gets everything from a 10-centimetre longer wheelbase to seven- speed manual and PDK double-clutch gearboxes, electrically-assisted power steering, more-powerful engine and a slippery new body with a drag co-efficient of just 0.29. But he focusses on two major changes for the car that will reach Australia early in 2012, one that is down to major noise-supression work and the other that comes from the optional active rollbar system in the 991. "First, it's the wide range in comfort and the operating range of the car," says Achleitner. "Then, one button and this car changes so dramatically from a modern comfortable car to almost a racing car." He says Porsche focussed heavily on weight reduction for the new 911, achieving a 35-48 kilogram cut despite a stiffer bodyshell and extra equipment that adds around 80 kilograms. One key was comparing Porsche parts to the lightweight motorcycle components used by Ducati. "We laid out all the parts and discussed them. We even compared them to motorcycle parts to see why they are so light and we are so heavy,"  Achleitner says.

Testing of prototypes in Europe points to a preview sometime next year, even with the rollout of the current 997 continuing with everything from the GT3 to the ultimate GT2 RS.  Cars have been caught by Carparazzi in both winter testing in Scandinavia and hot laps at the Nurburgring, where a radical new hybrid 911 racer - using a kinetic energy recovery system developed by Williams F1 - led the Nurburgring 24-hour race a fortnight ago. The new 911 is the 998 series and European sources hint at a first public appearance towards the end of 2011, most likely at the Frankfurt Motor Show. That would indicate Australian sales sometime in the first half of 2012. Development of the 998, says Carparazzi, is focussed on improving the car's efficiency.  The current 997-series 911 has all-new engines so there will be no change in capacity for the 998, just more work on emissions and fuel economy. The car is also likely to be lighter, with more aluminium in key areas, and will have the latest paddle-shift PDK gearbox. Porsche tries to disguise the 998 test cars with fake air vents in the rear wings, hoping to distract with talk about something on the GT2 turbo front. But the car is definitely the new model, with a slightly lower line and what looks like a longer wheelbase.  It also has giveaway mirrors which have - like a growing number of cars - been moved onto the door itself from the area around the A-pillar. The latest Carparazzi picture also shows the car's genuine tail lamps for the first time and points to headlamps which are slightly more upright.

That's the bottom line on the 911 Turbo S convertible, which will be unveiled next month at the Geneva Motor Show before local sales in September.The force-fed droptop, which also comes as a coupe for $423,300, has had a major power boost from the 'regular' 911 Turbo's 368 kiloWatts to a full-house 390 - with 700 Newton-metres of torque.Porsche says the extra punch drops the 0-100km/h sprint time to 3.3 seconds and lifts the top speed to 315km/h.  The Turbo S comes standard with Porsche's Sport Chrono package, including launch control, as well as paddles to shift the PDK seven-speed, dual-clutch gearbox.It's the first new Turbo S model from Porsche in five years and comes with traction management, all-wheel-drive and a mechanical rear differential lock.Porsche says it has also improved efficiency with fuel economy of 11.4 litres/100km, no more than the regular 911 Turbo.

JASON Bargwanna has locked down a drive for the 2010 V8 Supercar season, joining Kelly Racing in one of the family team's Holden Commodores. Bargwanna loses his drive soon with the closure of Sprint Gas Racing but becomes the third Bathurst winner at the Kelly team alongside brothers Rick and Todd. His current team mate Greg Murphy is now expected to move to Super Cheap Racing in 2010 alongside Russell Ingall in a Commodore sponsored by Castrol.KEVIN Weeks and Bec Crunkhorn did it again in the tragic Classic Adelaide rally last weekend, scoring their third straight victory in a Porsche 911. The pair considered withdrawing after the fatal crash of Glen Tierney and David Carra, but carried on to the finish as Allan Simonsen won the modern category in a Mitsubishi Evo and Rob Devenish took the classic category.Gabriele Tarquini clinched his first World Touring Car Championship in Macau on Sunday driving a Seat, defeating his team mate and defending champion Yvan Muller. Tarquini was only fifth for the weekend but the one-time Bathurst V8 racer, who competed for TeamVodafone in 2008, picked up enough points to edge Muller - who has also raced at Bathurst with Triple Eight Racing - in the battle for the driver's championship.CHAD Reed took the lead in the Super X motocross championship with a clean sweep of the second-last round at Waikato in New Zealand last weekend. He heads to the grand final in Brisbane on December 5 with a 14-point lead over Dan Reardon after dominating on his Monster Kawasaki, taking 80 points in NZ from Tye Simmonds on a KTM and Reardon on his Honda.JUNIOR go-kart racers will get an elite championship series in 2010 when the baby class is returned to the four rounds of the official Australian CIK Championship. The KF3 category, formerly Junior Intercontinental, will be added to the KF2 and KZ2 titles in the championship program as karting officials look for a junior to succeed the likes of Ryan Briscoe, Michael Caruso, Tim Slade and Andrew Thompson as previous winners of the championship.THE Alannah and Madeline Foundation, set up following the massacre at Port Arthur in 1996, is the official charity of the 2010 Australian Grand Prix. The Foundation will received the proceeds from the official auction at the grand prix ball, to be held at Crown on Friday, March 26 next year.FORMER V8 Supercar team boss John Briggs has called time on his motorsport career because of a health problem. Briggs had just returned to the Australian GT Championship as a driver and agent for the Mosler sports car brand.V8 Supercars will race under lights for the first time at Yas Marina in the Middle East at the start of the 2010 championship season. The format for the meeting on February 18-20 will follow the successful pattern of the Abu Dhabi grand prix last month, with a day-night competition that will see the Falcons and Commodores blazing through dusk and into a fully-lit after-dark finale. 

January/February kicks off with the Turbo version of the 911 and the GT3 race/road car.  An even racier version of the GT3 arrives in April.  Porsche Cars boss Michael Winkler says the GT3RS will be ‘very radical’.  "It will not be the car you want to take home or to get the groceries, but it will be road-registerable," he says."We have orders for 24 already, but I can't even give you a ballpark figure yet on price."  “Production starts in February… if we sell 20-25 I'd be very happy.Also arriving in April is the 911 Sport Classic with three already on order, according to Porsche Australia PR boss Paul Ellis."This is one for the Porsche purists; a tribute to the iconic things we've done with our sports cars," he says.  "It has woven leather seats and a big duck tail which is a tribute to the famous 1973 2.7 RS.  There is a slight bubble in the roof as a salute to the Spyder, it has black five-spoke Fuchs wheels, more power than the Carrera S and manual only highlighting it's for the purist."Also coming in April is the Boxster Spyder which is another niche product with Porsche Australia expecting to sell about 20-30.  It will be limited to one production year like GT2 and GT3.  Meanwhile, the next-generation GT2 arrives toward the end of next year.Winkler says the new Cayenne was also due late next year with a hybrid version.  "As much as 25 per cent of total Cayenne sales could be hybrid but probably more likely about 15 per cent," he says."I would expect hybrid sales would be more a substitution for buying the V8 because of the power it delivers from the combined petrol and electric powertrains."

"Don’t rev the (expletive) out of it," screams veteran racer Tomas Mezera over the intercom.  The instructions are duly obeyed by the pupil driver on the track who changes up to fourth and nods his head, even though the instructor is standing behind the Queensland Raceway pit wall, some 200m away."Ease on the throttle," is the next instruction Mezera enthusiastically gushes as the driver sweats it out in the cabin of the Porsche GT3 where the airconditioning has been turned off.  Welcome to the high-pressure world of driver training, Porsche style.Mezera, a former Bathurst winner and veteran of many forms of motorsport, has been running the Porsche Sports Driving School for five years at Mt Cotton training centre and the Queensland Raceway in south-east Queensland.He says they get participants from around Australia and Asia through the courses which start with three introductory levels at Mt Cotton, then progress to the top two levels at QR.For the media launch of the new GT3, Porsche put the assembled motoring journalists through the demanding level four "Master" course.  Mezera was joined by V8 Supercar driver Fabian Coulthard, a former Carrera Cup champion who moves to the Holden Racing Team next season, and several race engineers from various motorsport ventures.Mezera and Coulthard would be our instructors with the journalists split into two teams of four.  Thankfully I was in the team with the more cool-headed Coulthard.  Training begins with a detailed talk by a fired-up Mezera. It seems he does everything at 100mph, although he is careful to ensure that everyone understands each point before moving on.He describes everything from correct seatbelt harness procedure to correcting under- and oversteer.  The two teams then gather around the car as our instructors talk through the various controls and demonstrate the six-point racing harness.The instructors follow up by taking us out on the track in one group in a Cayenne SUV to show us the lines through the corners, the apexes which are depicted with cones and the braking markers.  Then I am strapped into the passenger's seat for the ride of my life as Coukthard take each of us for several fast laps in the GT3.My own exploits at QR have been in much less powerful cars and motorcycles so the g-forces in the GT3 through corners and under acceleration and heavy braking are remarkable, even on road-going grooved rubber.  I concentrate on braking markers, apexes, turn-in points while at the same time trying to keep my morning tea firmly in place.Now it's our turn to drive while Coulthard sits beside us, urging us to keep the power on when we want to back off, push the brakes even harder and not to turn so early into the corners.  "Then we are not so brave," says Mezera. "You will be in the car on your own with earphones connected to our CB radio and the great thing is you can't talk back."Now the pressure is really on, although Coulthard's reassuring voice over the headphones shows little emotion, just cool encouragement.  We then drive several with the instructor in our ear while we are trying to stay focussed, not panic and keep the speed up.And there is no chance for "bench racing" lies after each session because a flash stick full of the car's telemetry is loaded into a laptop and a race engineer shows us exactly how fast we were going, according to the unerring satellite Drift Box software.My engineer is Andy McElrea, a former New Zealand Formula Ford and Trans Am champion who runs a team in the V8 Supercars development series.  And he has the same story for me as all the other journos: we are too brave under brakes into corners resulting in lower exit speeds and slower lap times.  "As they say, in with care, out with flare," he says echoing Sir Jack Brabham's dictum of "in slow, out quick".It's an easy lesson, but do you think we learn? No.  Throughout the various sessions which lengthen from five to 10 laps at a time, the high-speed turns one and two remain our downfall.  By the closing sessions, I'm on the brakes earlier and on the gas earlier, but it's still not enough.On my best lap of 63.6 seconds around the truncated Clubman circuit, I am entering turn one almost 20km/h faster than Mezera on his 60.1 second fastest lap, but exiting 20km/h slower.  Foolhardy bravery under brakes may have served me well in my limited racing excursions, but it is not good for my lap times.To back up the lesson on slower entry and faster exit speeds, McElrea hands me a copy of the graph that compares my lap and Mezera's. It's a lesson I can take home with me and ponder at my leisure.  The other major lesson is about being smooth.Mezera points out that application of brake and throttle needs to be smooth to control the pitch of the car which determines the level of grip available at the front for steering and the rear for power.  "The Porsche is very sensitive to pitch because there is no weight in the front," says Mezera."When you get off the brakes, the front pops up very quickly and then you have less steering grip, so you have to get off the brakes slowly."  It's a similar situation with getting on the power.  Meanwhile, body roll is controlled by winding on and off steering slowly and smoothly.I heed the advice and the smoother I drive, the more my laps times tumble.  It may not look as spectacular for the cameras, but it pays dividends on the telemetry graph.  At the end of the day, we've done about 30 laps on our own and 10 with an instructor.The Master course costs $2997.50 and, unless you already have a CAMS racing licence, you can only do it after you have competed the first three levels costing a total of $4070.  If you go all the way through to the GT3 Cup course, it will have cost you an astronomical $13,062.50, but you should be ready to mix it with some of the best in the high-adrenaline world of racing.

Audi and Mercedes-Benz have both just confirmed they are building high- performance voltsters, one based on the R8 and the other on the latest SLS Gullwing, and Porsche says it is also working towards a plug-in speed machine.The baby Boxster is the most likely target for the battery-powered speedster, which comes as Porsche confirms an extension of its hybrid range to the 911. It is already committed to petrol-electric hybrid versions of the Cayenne and its latest Panamera. "I am also convinced that one day Porsche will have an electric sports car in its line-up," says Michael Macht, the new boss of Porsche. "Since this trend towards electric power is unstoppable, our engineers are already working hard on this challenge."Macht made his first public appearance since taking the top job at the Frankfurt motor show and is highlighting the changes which can be expected under his leadership.Most importantly, there is expected to be a greater focus on Porsche's historic engineering strengths and less emphasis on short-term profits. Macht says Porsche needs more green technology but emphasises that its electric car plan depends on better batteries. "Everything we have seen in this area has not yet been sufficient to meet our substantial demands, particularly when it comes to battery technology and charge cycles," he says. "An electric sports car would therefore only make sense for Porsche if it offers the performance and cruising range similar to that of current sports cars in the market."There was no sign of the electric project at Frankfurt but Porsche did show a prototype of its Cayenne hybrid and is talking opening of sharing the work on the Panamera.On the 911 front, there is clearly an opportunity for a hybrid. "Why not?" says Macht.But a 911 hybrid will be more like a Formula One car than a Toyota Prius, as sources at the show say Porsche is looking at a Kinetic Energy Recovery System for the car. This, like the current Ferrari and McLaren grand prix racers, would store braking energy and use it to give an electric boost for acceleration.A KERS-boosted 911 would allow the car to have the same performance as today's car, or better, with a smaller petrol engine. But there is no news yet on what some of KERS system is being targeted, as there are a number of designs using both flywheel and battery systems for energy storage.

Only about five Porsche 911 Sport Classics — a hand-built, bespoke celebration of the 911's 40-year history — will come to Australia from a fixed global production run of just 250. So exclusive is the car that Porsche Australia spokesman Paul Ellis doesn't know the final price and has yet to take any orders. "But we know we'll sell what we can get," he says. "This is a very exclusive car that is basically hand built. It even has a woven leather interior as well as the very best components from Porsche." The Porsche 911 Sport Classic revives the aura of one of its most outstanding models, the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7. It's taken Porsche three years to develop this car and yet it will make only 250 units. To be shown at next week's Frankfurt Motor Show, the Sport Classic has been developed by the company's specialist department, Porsche Exclusive. Reflecting the Carrera's design is the Sport Classic's ducktail rear spoiler and the Fuchs-style design of the special custom-made alloy wheels. The distinctive double-dome roof is borrowed from the style of the 911 Panamericana show car and in the roofline of the Carrera GT. The coupe is further defined by its more powerful engine, unique exterior with reshaped front and rear styling, a new centre section in the roof, new side sills and new shape of front and rear lights. Porsche says that every car in this limited series comes in an exclusive paint colour called Sport Classic Grey with subtle dark trim strips. The interior is finished in Espresso Nature and is claimed to go further than the current customising portfolio available on the other 911 models. Power comes from a worked version of the 3.8-litre flat-six engine that now delivers 300kW. The engine has a unique six-butterfly intake manifold. The Sport Classic has a six-speed manual transmission and sprints to 100km/h from rest in 4.6 seconds and on to a top speed of 302km/h. Fuel consumption, for those who care, is claimed to average 10.6 litres/100km. While the limited edition 911 Sport Classic is based on the 911 Carrera S, it has aluminium doors and features the rear bodywork of the all-wheel drive models — meaning it is 44mm wider and has a rear track extended by 34mm.  

The Frankfurt Motor Show literally roared to life this morning when a classic BMW 507 roadster ran laps of a custom-built oval track inside the German carmaker's $30 million stand.

This time it's the 911 that everyone dreams about - the road rocket GT3 RS.Only 20 cars will come to Australia and the order book is already filled, although things could change as Porsche Cars Australia is also getting ready to roll out the regular GT3 and the Turbo at the top end of the 911 lineup. The GT3 RS is going to have a pricetag in the $335,000 range but that has no deterred drivers who want the ultimate in hard-edged 911 motoring."We're holding 20 orders at the moment. With a bit of luck it might be better than that, if we can get some extra supplies," says Michael Winkler, managing director of Porsche Cars Australia. "We've got an interesting year coming up in 2010. We've got the Turbo, the GT3 and the GT3 RS. They are very special cars, but in some cases we will be talking to the same people."First pictures of the latest RS - a model that tracks back to 1973 - show a car which is more extreme than ever before with a power upgrade, bigger wheels and tauter gearing over both the outgoing RS and the cooking-model GT3. "It's a lot more hardcore. It is a car very much for the extreme enthusiast. We're talking about the guy who wants to go to the track. And, around the world, collectors who want something which is built in such low numbers."The key to the RS deal is a 3.8-litre flat six with a romping 335 kiloWatts. That's up by 11 from the regular GT3 and a full 26 kiloWatts more than the previous-generation RS. The engine also has lighter parts inside to make it respond quicker and rev higher.There are shorter gears in the six-speed manual and different differential ratio, which hurts top speed but boosts off-the-line acceleration and punch out of corners.Porsche says the RS is 10 kilograms lighter than the standard GT3 and it is easily picked with a giant carbonfibre rear wing and flared guards to cover wider front and rear tracks. It sits lower to the road and there are extra aero parts in the nose and a titanium sports exhaust.Mechanical changes to the RS run deep, from active drivetrain mounts - to resist twisting forces in corners - to a lightweight lithium-ion battery and 19-inch alloy wheels with 245x35 front tyres and 325x30 rear rubber on 12-inch wide rims.Porsche's active suspension management is also standard, but with sports settings for extreme driving. It's the first time the system has been expressly tailored to the RS.Winkler says the RS will come in the first quarter of next year, soon after the regular GT3 and Turbo. "The other two cars will land before Christmas, but we'll wait to release them in January," he says.The sales target for the GT3 is around 80 cars and he is not making predictions on the Turbo. "I'm just trying to be very prudent because the market has been quite difficult. It is very important not to over-stock the market."