Random Rants
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911 and legacy Beetles are both rear-engined, air-cooled, and designed by Ferdinand Porsche, but I don’t see much similarity beyond that personally.
And modern Beetles are very far removed from original Beetles and especially a 911.
Both icons, one centered on performance, and one centered on availability to the Everyman.
And Porsche does stuff like introducing numerous industry-changing technologies in the 959, and then putting 911s and 959s in Dakar rallies, and WINNING them.
Then they made the competition-ineligible 919 Evo, just because they wanted to see how far they could push LMP1 performance without regulations, even after dominating LeMans. They then broke a bunch of lap records at iconic tracks just to do it… That is a culture I can get behind.
Not only is Porsche’s story interesting, related makers and tuners like Ruf, Singer, and the like that have coalesced around them have interesting stories and products as well.
I was dismayed when Porsche “sold out” and started making SUVs, but they crushed that too and I’d love to have a Cayenne. Honestly one of the companies I most admire, up there with IH and IH International.
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I was dismayed when Ferrari stopped making real cars......Cars that had a soul, cars that were hard to drive and cars that people who know about shit like this admired.....
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@Giles yeah. I think that nothing since the F40 has quite captured my heart the way the old ones did. Testarossa, GTO, man those were sexy cars.
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Truly. I think they’d be a cantankerous daily driver even compared to vintage Ferraris and 911s but they are among the most gorgeous cars ever made. I had a matchbox of one as a boy and I still remember it as a favorite. The gullwing doors were functional.
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I think you nailed it. F40 was the last real Ferrari......I was chatting to a friend of mine at the weekend, who started buying Ferraris in the early 80's, and stopped once he had finished with the F40 (he bought so many, he could basically buy any he wanted, no matter how limited). His car of choice after that was Porsche, RS, GT2's Gt3's and Turbos. He drove his Turbo to the Frankfurt motor show from UK and was lauded by the Porsche guys....
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@Tago-Mago Here’s a 56
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/listing/1956-mercedes-benz-300sl-fort-lauderdale-fl-2787594
"I don't give a shit what anyone else is doing, we will do what is best for us and our customers" - Giles P. :)
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@Tago-Mago I don’t think they would mind…but of course, you would have to take us out for the occasional drive
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I found this, when sorting out stuff after my grandfather died. This was just up until 1955, he stopped buying serious cars in the 70's, so there were 20 more years to add to this....
I remember in the early/mid 70's, running out of petrol in a GT40 (this one) when we were doing our regular "let's see how fast this fucker goes", a tad embarrassing. He had a couple of 427 Cobras and a 289 (all at once) after that.......I could bore you to death with all of them........
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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@Tago-Mago the OG, great. Ford made some great ones, too. I think I need one step before that though, which is a pick up truck.
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@Tago-Mago Last time I was in Italy we did the Lamborghini Factory tour. Highly recommend it if you ever are even remotely close to it. Can't say enough good things about the tour. You literally see them hand stitching the upholstery.
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