Porsche adds power to its Cayman S sports car

Feeling a little better about your 401(k) retirement account these days? Porsche hopes so. Luxury and performance vehicles are a tough sell during a recession, and the sooner well-heeled customers start spending money again, the happier Porsche dealers will be.

The company has invested some money in its potent mid-level sports car, the Cayman, which debuted in 2005 as a 2006 model. Four years into the model run, Porsche has freshened the 2009 Cayman with a mild restyling of the front and rear — headlights and taillights mostly — and has added power.

The base Cayman gets a larger, 2.9-liter six-cylinder engine, with 265 horsepower. And the uplevel Cayman S now has a 3.4-liter six-cylinder engine, with horsepower boosted from 295 to 320. The Cayman S still isn't playing in the same league as the flagship 911, but it's closer than ever.

On the Cayman S test car, that new engine is matched with a new seven-speed "Doppelkupplung" transmission — that translates to "double clutch," meaning that while this transmission operates as an automatic, it can be shifted manually, thanks to internal clutches. It's an effective update of the Tiptronic transmission, but whether you think it's worth the $3,420 option price over the six-speed manual is up to you.

Fanboys rejoice -- 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS heading to Frankfurt, Germany

We car journalists really are fan boys – and girls – at heart.  We like things that go fast, look cool and scream drive me at ten-tenths of the limit.

We like cars in loud colors, with contrasting wheels and body panels, we like, basically, what we doodled in seventh-grade math class or have played for countless hours on the Gran Turismo. In essence, we like our automotive dreams to come true and to be sitting in our garage at night.

For some of us, that means a Bentley, or a Ferrari or even something a little more classic, such as a 1973 Corvette Sting Ray.

Though all those cars are fine and dandy, today, some of our personal dreams came true with the announcement of the new 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which will be shown for the first time at the Frankfurt, Germany, auto show in mid-September. Work be damned, we suggest you spend as much time watching the Walter Rohrl track video as you can.

Why the 911 GT3 RS? That’s like asking who is more weird, Karl Lagerfeld or Roberto Cavalli? For reasons unknown, choices are deeply personal, and in the case of this Porsche, choosing to buy it would be based not only on general weirdness but also on stupendously amazing awesomeness. The GT3 RS fits into that rare category, especially for a factory car.

The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is the ne plus ultra of the Porsche family, which means that it’s basically as close as you can get to a Porsche RSR race car without having your own racing team.

2010 Porsche Panamera at Laguna Seca

If you've been following our tweets, you know that we are in the Monterey-Carmel area of California covering all the classic, vintage and new car goodness there is to offer at the 2009 Pebble Beach weekend.

Thursday, I had a chance to spend a few hours with the new 2010 Porsche Panamera and while a longer post is still to come, we made a rough video of what it's like to be holding a camera while a professional race car driver, Hurley Heywood, take us on a hot lap. The grainy nature and general jerkiness of the video is a directly analogous to how it feels to be sitting shotgun and barreling through the corners in the new Porsche Panamera four door. As they say, hold onto your hats and glasses.  The video on this post gives you a much better look at the Panamera and the entire setup Porsche created for the automotive press at the Laguna Seca track in Monterey. 

-- Jon Alain Guzik

Jon Alain Guzik is editor-in-chief at DriverSide.com

YouTube video by Porsche

Porsche Panamera at Pebble Beach

Really, who doesn’t love a Porsche?

If we had our druthers, it would be the only name plate in our personal livery. Porsche’s range of cars – the Boxster, Cayman, Cayenne and the ne plus ultra of the stable, the 911, have provided automotive awesomeness for generations and inspired many a film producer, lawyer and dentist to ecstatic heights.

But, alas, as the song goes, you take the good, you take the bad, and, it’s a fact of life, that Porsche has had its fair share of derision of late.

When the Boxster was first released, some skeptics claimed it was the reincarnation of the 914; it went on to become a bestseller. Same went for the Cayman, which critics complained was dumbing down the 911 range. It too went on to stellar sales.

And the Cayenne, perhaps the most vilified Porsche ever released, even more so than the 928. 

Best. Selling. Porsche.

That said, may we introduced the new Porsche, the Panamera, a four-door Gran Turismo model, that will make its North American public debut during Monterey’s Classic Car Week.

Doggone it: Car companies’ pet accessories to keep animals safe

The giant purse means well, sure. It's a practical way of keeping those tiny pups safe between shopping and brunch without the annoyance of a leash or of strangers stopping for a pat ... as long as you're not worried about shedding. And lest we forget, some of us have a best friend that weighs more than a Big Gulp.

Either way, all bets are off when the dog could roam free in the car. As one commenter said another time when Up to Speed broached the subject of in-car pet restraints, “I doubt anybody would want to get hit in the head by a dog of any size.”

Programs like Bark Buckle Up, which works with 15 auto manufacturers, teach the importance of pet safety, such as latching animals to seats for drives. And car companies have come to our aid with lines of pet accessories for both safety and messes.

L.A. Auto Show: Seinfeld’s Porsche and Dan’s Seinfeld

I confess, I have never watched a single full episode of "Seinfeld," and the snippets here and there I have seen left me in stony, un-amused silence. It’s just one of those things. I’m sure there are people who don’t think “The Simpsons” are funny. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Jerry Seinfeld himself, however, has my admiration as a serious car guy. In April, for example, the comedian was bashing around the Hamptons in his lovely ’67 Fiat BTM coupe when the brakes failed. Seinfeld was obliged to go for the ripcord – the handbrake – and rolled the car. He emerged from the accident shaken but unhurt. Cool.

For the intro of the 2009 Porsche Boxster and Cayman at the L.A. Auto Show, Seinfeld lent his beautiful blue-white 550 Spyder, seen below the jump. I was thus inspired to do my Seinfeld impersonation. Very sorry.

-- Dan Neil

The Porsche Panamera shown in full

These are the first official pictures of the Porsche Panamera Gran Turismo. Which is annoying. The car is obviously ready for production, so we might have been able to see it for real at the Paris or Los Angeles car shows. And Porsche isn’t even bothering with the Detroit bash in January. But who can predict the whims of Weissach?

Here it is, then: Porsche’s first sedan in all its four-door glory. Since aesthetics are so subjective, let’s leave opinion on styling to the eye of the beholder and get on with some info about the hardware. On this occasion, the engine is in the front, providing the first surprise -- power will be supplied by V-6 or V-8 engines (no trademark flat-sixes here), with a range of muscle stretching from 300 to 500 horsepower. Some will be turbocharged, and all will feature direct fuel injection for optimum efficiency.

L.A. Auto Show: Porsche acquired VW to save itself

Largely overlooked in the Detroit Big 3 death watch/three-ring circus has been one of the most incredible examples of clever stock trading in modern history. And it happened at a car company!

Last month, Porsche AG surprised the world by announcing it had acquired a nearly 43% stake in Volkswagen AG with an option to buy 32% more. Without anybody noticing, wee little Porsche, maker of scarcely 100,000 cars per year, had cornered a 75% position in VW, which cranks out nearly 6 million vehicles. And since nobody guessed how large Porsche's position was beforehand, short sellers suddenly got caught with their pants down, driving VW stock into the ionosphere. VW shares quintupled, peaking at over 1,000 euros, and making VW, briefly, the most valuable company in the world.

Needless to say, Porsche found itself in the catbird seat, able to sell part of its position without having to cede control of the bigger carmaker. It was a great example of the business acumen of a company that has the highest profit margins in the world of cars.

How high? About 12% high, according to Klaus Berning, a member of Porsche's board and head of sales and marketing for the company, who helped introduce Porsche's new Boxter and Cayman models at the L.A. Auto Show on Wednesday. But the highlight of his speech was ...

L.A. Auto Show: The new Porsche Boxster and Cayman -- no, really

The 2009 Porsche Boxster and 2009 Porsche Cayman have just had their world debuts at the L.A. Auto Show. Pictured is the open-top Boxster and the tin-top Cayman, but also thrown into the mix is the outgoing model, just to give some idea of how radical -- or otherwise -- the restyling has been.

Here’s the tech spec and cash splash. Both of these mid-engined models come in either “normal” or S versions. Starting at the bottom, the Boxster’s 2.9-liter flat-six engine spins to the tune of 255 horsepower and won’t leave the showroom without your writing a check for $46,600. Deplete the bank account by $56,700 and the Boxster S zooms into availability, with a 3.4-liter flat-six and 310 hp. The Cayman equivalents enjoy more power. The base model ($50,300) has 265 hp and the S ($60,200) sports 320.