Audi Quattro Sport

It’s good to have an objective. Just ask Dr. Ferdinand Piech, the man responsible for the marvel  dubbed the Audi quattro. Audi quattro Sport

Piech came by his life’s work truthfully. After graduating from the Zurich Technical University with a degree in mechanical engineering, he joined a small but influential automotive company you might have heard of called Porsche, which at that time happened to be operated by his uncle, Ferry Porsche. A fast learner with a knack for getting things done, Piech dove into Porsche’s efforts in sports car racing and by 1968 he was technical director of the Porsche Experimental department, which is much similar to being given the keys to the candy store.

Piech’s initial objective was to come up with a Porsche that could beat the Ford GT40s and Ferraris  that were dominating endurance racing in those days, and soon he accomplished it with the 917 that took both the 24 Hours of LeMans and the World Championship, while at the same instance, putting a stranglehold on the then-thriving Can-Am series. It seemed that Piech was on top of the world until Porsche decided to modify its business structure, restraining the influence of the Porsche family, and in the fallout Piech was left looking for work. Read more . . .

Porsche or Ferrari?

Ferrari and Porsche are  Italian and German sides of the same coin, respectively.

A red Ferrari and a black Porsche

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  Each represents a distinctive interpretation of the concept of a sports car. Both were founded by a dominant patriarch,  both honed their craft in racing, both designs are more than 50 years old, and both possess styling and engineering  integrity. Whether they are on the track on urban streets, or  of Le Mans, the two brands have constantly been put head-to-head to be compared and contrasted. Even those motorists unmoved by sports cars associate these two names with both style and performance.

Take for instance the passionate Ferrari F430 and the methodical Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. Both cars amaze the driver with their performance while successfully maintaining a respectable amount of practicality, but neither pretends to be anything aside from a sports car. Read more . . .

A Brief History Of Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche was an automobile engineer with more than a thousand patents to his name, and played a vital role in the development of airplanes and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht as well. In the 1920s, he was chosen chief engineer at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart and later set up his own engineering workshop.  Among other things, there he designed the Volkswagen. He acted as Chief of Operations at the plant where the Volkswagen was made, Wolfsburg, and at the end of the war he was jailed by the Allies.

Shiny black Porsche

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He was released a few years  after and immediately went to work building his first car with his son, Ferry Porsche. This car was named the Porsche 356, after Ferry, and was a sports car with styling similar to that of the Volkswagen. It had, in fact,  the same four-cylinder boxer engine, and wore it rear-mounted, just as the VW did. This meant that it was far from being a great sports car, boasting a mere 40 bhp and a maximum speed of 87 mph (140 km/h). Read more . . .

Porsche 550 Spyder

It is difficult  to separate the Porsche 550 Spyder from the legend of actor James Dean, so why Classic cardon’t we get it all out of the way right now. On September 30, 1955, Dean, fresh off the film Giant, left George Barris’s shop in Los Angeles to go racing in Salinas, a farm town inland of Monterrey made popular  by John Steinbeck. (Dean, of course, had recently starred in the movie of Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, set in the same location.) The young movie actor was at the wheel of his Porsche 550 Spyder.

By that time, Dean had done more than a bit  racing. A Porsche enthusiast, he had just traded his 356 for the racier, LeMans-winning 550 Spyder, and he was desirous of testing its mettle (and his own) on the track in Salinas. But as he drove toward the sun on that late Friday afternoon along Highway 46,Donald Turnupseed,a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo,  was driving home in his 1950 Ford. Read more . . .