Still a few spaces left for our cool & exclusive Race of Kings Porsche social this Saturday with JZM Porsche and KW RaceRoom. All Porsche fans are welcome to attend, but places are limited to thirty-two people by ticket only. Don’t frown: tickets are cheap! We just need some commitment to know you will turn up!
I picked up the winner’s trophy (above) yesterday, am grabbing the rest tomorrow morning, and the prizes are still coming!
Motor Sport Vision have just sent me a £100 voucher to use on one of their Porsche-Only trackdays or any other day they organise during the year. Goldtrack Track Days have provided two UK track day entries along with 30 minutes coaching from former British GT champion and ex-Le Mans racer, Calum Lockie.
JZM And KW Suspension are providing money off their services and products too, but even if you don’t win a prize, the evening will be good fun in great surroundings with top Porsche company.
Father’s Day is the next day and who wants socks again? Treat yourself and come have fun with us! Call the JZM girls on 01923 269 788 now and book one of the very last places remaining! DO NOT WASTE TIME THINKING ABOUT IT!
Chris Harris videos continue to evolve and entertain. His latest production (apparently filmed on his own) is this one on the 991 GT3: a world exclusive drive of a development car, somewhere in the hills of southern Europe.
Talking to GT3 owners, some are still cross at the technical upsets: PDK-only, electric power steering and a non-Mezger engine. But many more like this fastest, revviest, most-button Porsche, and covet new-spec trinkets like the centre-lock matt silver wheels and that racecar front airdam.
What most are not liking is the financial pain to take to get it. As a good friend and GT3 owner said the other night: “I paid £70k for my first GT3, £80 for my second one and the latest is getting on for £100,000. Porsche are quoting £30k plus my low-mile Gen 2 GT3 RS to get into a new one, rising to £40k when I add some spec.”
The problem is not the lack of forty grand. It’s the airiness of Stuttgart thinking and pricing, the value (and trust) lost in what is still a satisfying machine to drive and the emerging sense that Porsche will keep jacking up the price, every time there’s a new model. You can’t pin all those price hikes on inflation.
Over on Apple’s product treadmill, owners are increasingly fed up with the latest dangling shiny bit mocking their spend on the last upgrade. An iPhone 5 upgrade costs a small fortune, only to find Apple shoving a must-have ‘S’ upgrade out six months later, costing contract holders similar daft sums to upgrade.
Apple has tackled upgrade apathy with some brains, retaining the camera and overall operating system from 4S to 5, so the upgrade was just to have a bigger phone and slightly faster processor. For people who use their iPhone mainly as camera and web device, a change made little sense, so the faithful can wait for the 5S and a step up in camera technology, and let the fashionistas take the 5 to iron out all the bugs.
In contrast, Porsche’s move from 997 to 991 GT3 threw out all the old stuff and went straight to GT3 5S: a big change in spec with a whacking hike in price. Before today, looking at this car on paper begged the question, “is all this new tech really that great?” Masterful demonstration of the tech at work dismisses any notion that this isn’t an improvement.
The facts and the feedback make this a no-brainer. The video rips the numbers to perfection and Harris is Porsche’s best salesman. There is no reason to avoid this car when he shows you what it can do.
With no access to the car and none of this talent behind the wheel, I must talk philosophy. As Harris puts it, a car with this ability, in this shape and making this noise should be the last bastion of a manual gearbox. But with the GT3 now so well engineered, the downside to a manual would be cockpit confusion when really pressing on: the driver becomes a log jam in the flow of speed from chassis to tarmac, and that is not what GT3 is all about.
Will Porsche build a GT3 5S-S with a manual transmission? I doubt it and don’t think it matters. We’re now talking about Porsche past – manual transmission as ultimate go-faster bit is history. If you want a manual box, you’re hankering for old technology in an older car, so just buy an old car. Going slower in an older car is a decision a majority of GT3 owners will not make, and why GT3s will sell on the back of this video.
The new Porsche LMP1 Prototype for the 2014 Le Mans enjoyed a successful rollout this morning on the test track in Weissach, several weeks ahead of schedule. “All is well,” said Fritz Enzinger, Head of LMP1. “Our newly formed team has worked with utmost concentration on getting this highly complex vehicle on the track as [...]
We’ve still got some space on our London Porsche social this Saturday from 4 to 8PM: four hours of Porsche fun with KW Automotive UK, JZM Porsche and now the great team at Goldtrack track days, who have generously supplied two track days as prizes, with additional coaching from our friend and former British GT [...]
We’ve done a few Spa track days with Ron at RSR Nurburg. They are always impeccably organised and one was the basis for my “Lap of the Gods” feature at Spa in June 2010, where Ron talked us through a lap in a GT3, while I also brought out the fun of track days in [...]
Towards the end of the 997, Porsche unveiled a spate of special edition 911s, which raised the spam filters against limited production models. Stuttgart’s just unveiled another special, but this one’s better than expected. The limited edition runout 997 Carrera GTS was probably the best water-cooled Porsche I’ve driven to date, including all the quick [...]
Just had these preview pictures through from EB Motorsport of their all-new Deep 6 and 7R Fuchs reproduction wheels in polished finish. The polished look has always seemed best to me on these rare rims, and EB wheels are designed and manufactured with exceptional attention to detail. Note how these wheels feature the safety bead [...]
Good times for Ferdinand yesterday with long-time creative partner, Jamie Lipman. It was an early start for us, and for Chris from Bedfordshire, who brought his newly-purchased R Gruppe Porsche 911 to London for a photoshoot around the capital. Glynn/Lipman photo sessions are always big fun. This one started with a 6am meet at The [...]
An exciting announcement this morning, as Ferdinand Magazine joins with our friends and supporters at JZM Porsche and RaceRoom/KW Suspension UK to launch the 2013 Race of Kings. Conceived as an annual event held the week before Le Mans, the Race of Kings is a social gathering for Porsche people, to get them in the [...]
Just had news of these nice Porsche 911 plug lead holder kits from our friends at EB Motorsport. Made in Yorkshire by the hard-racing Bates brothers, and used on their FIA-papered Porsche 911 3.0 RS and RSR race cars, each kit includes five large cable rings, which hold six wires, and three smaller rings, which [...]
