#Porsche

Porsche announced Wednesday that Oliver Blume would succeed Matthias Müller as CEO of Porsche, after Müller left to save head Volkswagen last week.

Blume, who is 47 years old, has been the head of Production and Logistics for Porsche since 2013, and was head of production and planning for Volkswagen before that. Blume was responsible for planning at Seat in Barcelona from 2004 to 2009, and worked on the Audi A3 before his tenure in Spain. According to Porsche, Blume has worked under the Volkswagen umbrella for more than 20 years.

Blume’s challenges at Porsche won’t be as extensive as Müller’s, but will be substantial. As CEO of Porsche, Blume will oversee the iconic 911’s shift to turbocharged four-cylinder engines, the next generation of Panameras and whatever comes of the Mission E electric car concept.

Suzuki announced Saturday it will sell its 1.5 percent stake in Volkswagen to Porsche next week, finalizing the divorce between the two automakers.

Porsche’s next-generation Panamera (likely 2017) was spotted going through its paces in Colorado this week. The new car will be the first MSB platformed car for Porsche, which is expected to underpin more Stuttgart models — and perhaps the Bentley Flying Spur.

Two models were visible in Colorado, including what could have been a Panamera S with a large rear spoiler. (Pictures after the jump.)

The stopover in Colorado is usually one of the last powertrain tests a car will undergo before its final announcement.

After Volkswagen admitted to gaming emissions tests with software containing a “defeat device”, German publication Der Tagesspiegel (via Jalopnik) is reporting that Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn will be replaced at the end of the week by Porsche CEO Matthias Müller.

The German outlet — the name of which translates to “The Daily Mirror” — reportedly gained the information from “supervisory circles”.

Volkswagen has not yet confirmed the rumor.

Update 1: Reuters is reporting that a Volkswagen spokesman described the report as “ridiculous.” A spokesman for Porsche said Müller is at a Volkswagen board meeting today in Wolfsburg.

Porsche announced its all-electric four-door concept sedan at the Frankfurt Auto Show, complete with 15-minute charging (to 80 percent) and 310-mile overall range. There’s also some holographic and emoticon blather, but we’ll get to that later.

According to Porsche, the Mission E will use two electric motors with a combined output of 600 horsepower to power the car up to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds. The car’s 800-volt charger would be a first for electric cars, and would help the car charge up to 80 percent in 15 minutes. According to Tesla, the Model S takes about 30 minutes to charge up to 80 percent for similar range.

Porsche didn’t say when (or even if) the car would make it into production, but it’s likely that something very much like it will be heading our way soon. Maybe this will be a new Panamera?

Only seven years removed from selling more than 100,000 cars in the United States, Scion’s current woes are more easily understood by looking at the brands which now outsell Toyota’s “youth” brand.

One such Scion-besting automaker: Porsche.

Rewind just one year and Scion, through the first eight months of 2014, was outselling Porsche by 10,000 units. Yet in the first eight months of 2015, Scion only outsold Porsche three times — in February, March, and May — and trails Porsche by nearly 2,200 sales heading into September.

Porsche is certainly not a Scion rival. Even the FR-S, Scion’s most costly car, costs only half as much as Porsche’s least expensive car, a basic, un-optioned Boxster. (Is there even such a thing?)

But the change in order speaks volumes about Porsche’s steady climb to record highs and the fall of Scion, the latter of which saw its share of the U.S. market fall by 73 percent, from 1.04 percent in 2006 to 0.28 percent in 2015.

So. They finally did it, didn’t they?

Porsche followed the lead of Ferrari (with either the California T or 208GTS, depending on your awareness of history) and Ford (with the Fiesta EcoBoost, of course) by making the entry-level 911 a small-displacement turbo. It had to happen, because in its successful quest to become primarily a manufacturer of unibody “trucks” Porsche became too large to reasonably plead an indulgence, er, exemption from Europe’s state religion of carbon-emissions laws. By the way, the next time you’re reading about the sale of indulgences and all of the other ridiculous behavior practiced by Christian Europe six hundred years ago and you’re feeling very smug about living in era where reason holds sway over craven superstition, take a nice long look at this and tell me how much difference you truly see between now and the era of Leo X.

Will Porsche’s switch to smaller, force-fed engines counterbalance even an hour of one region of China’s use of coal for power? It’s best not to think too much about that. Could Porsche accomplish a similar amount of carbon-production reduction by changing the engines in the Macan and Cayenne, perhaps giving them all ludicrous-pressure four bangers like the one in the AMG CLA 45 and therefore leaving the naturally-aspirated sports cars alone? We really don’t want to think about that. It would be like a husband wondering why his wife comes to bed in curlers but insists on a manicure before his brother stops by for dinner. Could it be that he’s no longer the most important member of the family?

This is not a train that we, the occasional Porsche buyers of America, can stop. And it especially is not a train that you, the person from the Internet who has never bought a Porsche but plans on picking up a Carrera G50 some time in the next ten years if the prices come back down, can stop. All we can do is look back at a few great Porsche Turbos and Monday-morning quarterback Porsche’s new product line.

Let’s do that, shall we?

Porsche announced on Sunday that when its new 2017 Porsche 911 Carrera and Carrera S go on sale in March 2016 they’ll be force-fed air through twin turbochargers — and not naturally aspirated like nature intended.

Instead of a 3.6-liter flat-six behind its rear wheels, the new 911 Carrera and Carrera S will sport a twin-turbocharged, 3-liter, flat-six engine. (Porsche didn’t directly specify in its statement the engine’s number of cylinders, so if you want to play a fun game today, read how some outlets have written around it.)

As our own Tim Cain points out, the output of the new turbocharged Carrera and Carrera S, which is 370 horsepower and 420 horsepower respectively, is shockingly close to the 415 horsepower produced by the 996 Turbo from 2000.

Unsurprisingly, Porsche boosted the price too — a new Carrera will run $89,400 before delivery and options, which is more than $5,000 dearer than the current generation.

Reports out of Germany indicate that ousted chairman and current majority owner of Volkswagen’s parent group, Ferdinand Piech, may have tampered with the board nomination to replace him.

Piech may have prevented current VW CEO Martin Winterkorn from becoming chairman after the two’s public feud ultimately resulted with Piech’s abrupt resignation in April, Reuters reported.

If true, the backroom dealings would indicate that while Piech may not be overseeing VW anymore, he still wields significant influence on its operations and leadership.

You really can’t ask for a more pleasant, harmless example of schadenfreude than the recent, and well-publicized, decision by “outlaw” Porsche painter/sticker-applier/Vimeo-movie-star/used-clothing-retailer Magnus Walker to crash into his own car hauler. Nobody was hurt beyond his own sore back and no one besides Mr. Walker himself had any monetary loss from the incident. Heck, with the extra publicity it might be a net gain for the dreadlocked whiteboy from the United Kingdom.

Which leaves us, the viewers, absolutely free to laugh and/or gloat about the whole thing. But if we want to take a minute to be thoughtful about it, there’s a more important lesson to be learned, and it’s not “OMG THE 911 IS DANGEROUS EVEN FOR THE MOST TRAINED RACING SUPERSTAR”.

Some ink has already been spilled on TTAC — and elsewhere — about the SCCA’s new Track Night in America program. I won’t rehash the the excellent overviews of the program that Jack and Bark M. have already provided, so any reader unfamiliar with the program should avail themself of the linked articles before diving into mine.

I picked up a 2015 911 GT3 in late June and resolved to put my new toy on the track, with some helpful nudging from my buddy Bark. Bark’s job brings him through Atlanta with some regularity, and we’ve met up every few months over the past couple of years to talk cars and eat overpriced Mexican food. Atlanta Motorsports Park had a Track Night event on August 4th, and Bark would be in town that day; I had no excuse not to go with him and try it out. You can read Bark’s thoughts on the day at Jalopnik.

Many Internet Car Experts believe that any Porsche, no matter how battered, is worth big money. Spend some time around the 24 Hours of LeMons and you’ll learn otherwise, and of course you can always find 924 s, 944 s, 914s, and even the occasional 928 in the cheap self-serve wrecking yards. The 944 is the most common, but for some reason I have never shot one for this series. I’ll remedy that soon, but for now here’s a much-abused 924 I spotted in Denver not long ago.

Steve McQueen’s 1976 Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera fetched $1.95 million at auction, according to Hemmings Daily.

The specially ordered, air-cooled turbo Porsche had a few cool factory features including dual mirrors, limited-slip differential, black leather buckets and the original tag with McQueen’s custom-ordered slate gray color still riveted to the door jamb.

Considering a fine 1976 Porsche 930 with 64,000 miles on the clock went for nearly $300,000, I figured the auction for charity of McQueen’s car would fetch around the same.

I’m wrong. I can admit that to you now.

Germany’s Nurburgring Nordschleife will be reopened next year for manufacturers’ bragging rights after officials announced Tuesday that the track’s speed limits — added after a crash during a race killed a spectator in March — will be lifted, PistonHeads is reporting.

Track officials also announced they would be smoothing some parts of the track to keep cars from launching into the air, including the section that launched a Nissan GT-R GT3 into a crowd in March, and keeping spectators from certain areas of the track.

The track may be open for full-speed testing in 2016.