PCA NER wishes a very happy New Year to all of our members, friends, families, sponsors, advertisers – and everyone associated with us!
We hope you’ll have a twin-turbo-charged 12-cylinder kind of year!
In exciting news, Palmer Motorsports Park is now available to run in both directions, with clockwise being the newest. Find out what this will mean for your line, acceleration- and braking-zones, and see what it looks like from a new perspective. Our own NER member, Ron Savenor, shares his thoughts on how to get around the track as quickly as possible in the video above.
On Sunday, October 22, members of the club congregated at University Place, the new retail property in Westwood MA for a cars-and-coffee-and-car-show event to benefit our club charity, Homes For Our Troops. The weather was spectacular (due, of course, to Glenn!) and the turnout was tremendous. It was great fun to see families stroll through and check out the cars. Boxsters seemed to be big this year and took home half of the trophies! Check out the second video below for the awards ceremony with David G and his wife, Amy, taking home top honors. Thanks to everyone for coming out to the show!
And a special huge thanks to Betty, Glenn’s wife, for working the entry all day, handing out the car tags and ballots, counting the ballots, for setup and takedown – and for generally being awesome!
The kid’s choice award – the most coveted of the day.
Our PCA NER “knitting club”
I truly love driver-focused Porsches. My cars wear scars from the road proudly. I love patina. It’s funny to have to make a distinction between Porsches because most people might say that all Porsches are driver-focused. And I wouldn’t completely disagree.
But the legends in the Porsche world still raise their heads above and beyond the others. There is a reason, beyond just scarcity, that the 2.7 RS commands so much attention and investment. It’s about distilling the Porsche DNA down to it’s essence. While I’m not comparing the new 911T to the 2.7 RS – or any of the RS models, frankly – it still warms the cockles to see Porsche put out a model that is supposed to evoke the simpler, lightweight ethos of the 911T. First introduced in 1968, the 911T was the entry-level model. No frills. Just drive.
A dirty 911 is a beautiful thing
How does this model evoke that history? Well, it has the engine from the base 911 – and at 370 hp, it’s certainly not going to feel slow. And from there, many things are removed. It has lightweight glass for the side and rear windows, fabric interior door straps (door handles must be really heavy?), a deleted infotainment system, and removed rear seats (you can have the radio and back seats back if you want to add weight back). To make it sporting and justify a bump in price over the base car, it gets PASM (Porsche’s active suspension system), the sports exhaust (which all the turbo cars needs, it seems), and Sport Chrono package. The suspension is reported to be lower than the basic Carrera by 0.8 inches. And it comes with a manual, of course. You can have a PDK as an option, too, I suppose.
Is it a baby 911R? Not really, but I’d have this one over an R. It’s a car that you can use all the time and not worry about as much. Your Hagerty bill will be way cheaper as well. I like the interior back-to-basics look. It is definitely aping a bit of the classic look that everyone is fawning over right now, due in no small part to Singer’s influence, not to mention our friends behind Luftgekuhlt.
And I was expecting houndstooth…
Personally I like the thinking behind the car and would love to see it slim down even more. But the cost of magnesium roofs and unobtanium wiper stalks to get there is probably pushing things back toward 911R prices. This might be the most distilled version we’ll see for now. And, generally, I like what I see.
On Saturday, October 7th, some impressive cars gathered in Northboro to enjoy each other’s company and also to collect food supplies for the Worcester Veteran’s Inc. Food Bank. Our NER Treasurer, Robert Jacobsen, was the driving force behind this event and many local businesses came together to make it happen. This instance capped off a great season of cars and coffee event at LalaJava in Northboro, MA this season. 182 pounds of food was donated to the food bank which is especially important as we move into the holiday season. Many thanks to Robert and to all who attended the event and donated food to a great cause.
Local news coverage via Telegram.com – “Auto Buffs Aid Veterans at Cars and Coffee in Northboro”
Mike Leo and friends
Paul Curtis and his wife Heather with their lovely 914
Ron’s Ford GT and Colin’s Viper pack quite a bit of power into two parking spaces.
Colin explains the vast tire choices for Viper ACR Extremes – you get to choose Kumho’s and Hoosiers. Hoosiers last longer (!)
What a gorgeous day to take a drive around New England, it was this past Sunday! Thirty five cars with sixty people joined us for the First Annual Charlie and Martha Dow Fall Tour. Many thanks to Gary Cooper and Tony Miniscalco for all the work they did to arrange and run this event with help from our veteran tour-meister and ramble-guru, Dennis Friedman, and the activities committee. Charlie Dow’s son, Eric, and his family were kind enough to come and we presented them with a custom plaque made specially for them that will hold a photo of everyone at the event. Thanks to all who participated and thanks to our volunteers for making a very memorable event. We all look forward to continuing this wonderful tradition in Charlie’s name for years to come.
Attendees arrive. Here comes Ramble Master, Dennis Friedman, who is used to a large number of cars at his Rambles.
When do we get this thing started?
Under Bill’s watchful eye, Gary explaining to the group that McQueen was cool, but the tour drivers are not McQueen.
Charlie’s son Eric telling the group how much his Dad loved NER and Porsche, and how he would be thrilled to know his name will forever be associated with the tour.
The group posed for a shot before taking off
NER only parking at Michael’s Harborside
The tour organizers failed to check the commuter rail schedule. Provided by Linda Montoya Mullen from Michael Kaleel’s car.
Where’s the beef?
Gary telling the group that normally the sweeper car is not the first to arrive at the destination
And thanks to Anker Sonne-Berg for the photos unless otherwise noted!
Porsche unveiled the 2018 version of the Cayenne SUV. While this may not be as exciting to the sports car crowd as the 911 Targa GTS might be, it is the car, along with the Macan, that allows Porsche to keep building the lower-volume cars we drool over. And, as a three-time Cayenne owner, I’ll have to admit that it’s a vehicle you can’t help but appreciate. For what it can do, you’d be very hard pressed to find a more capable all-around vehicle out there. The newest version is 164 pounds lighter than the already-lightened prior generation. These are heavy beasts, make no mistake, but the body is now fully aluminum and the chassis combines aluminum and steel.
The new motors are something we’re getting used to seeing from Porsche. The base Cayenne has always had a bit of a gutless V6 in there. Now both the base and the S models have V6’s but with different displacements and turbo capabilities. The base car is a 3.0L car that puts out a respectable 340 horsepower. For reference, my first Cayenne S with a 4.5L V8 put out 325bhp. The S model only has 2.9L but has twin turbos and puts out 440 horsepower. One early driving review seemed to indicate that the base engine was throatier and more satisfying if a bit winded at times. But they preferred it to the more powerful S. We’ll see if that’s the consensus until the uber-Turbo-Hybrid-SE-wunderbar version is announced.
This newest version continues the interesting Cayenne quirk of offering sophisticated off-road capability to folks (myself included) who barely ever use a fraction of that capability. Porsche Traction Management (PTM) is now standard on all models. An interesting new option is rear-wheel-steering. We’ve seen this applied to the 911 range recently to provide more agility as the wheelbase increases and by all accounts, it seems to succeed admirably. I’m not a big fan of diluting the sports-car ethos with gadgetry but in a Cayenne it seems wholly appropriate. Agility in your 4000+ pound SUV is never a bad thing!
There is more cargo space – which is good as my ski equipment isn’t getting smaller – and revised suspension parts too. The tiptronic transmission is still a torque-converter but it’s all new and faster. And the interior has that new style with a big 12.3″ screen in the center and buttons electronically integrated under a glass surface for a seamless look.
Porsche is also offering something really new – Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB). What is it? Apparently they have coated the rotors with tungsten carbide – you know, like on drill bits. They claim it increases friction, reduces pad wear, and reduces dust. Where has this coating been all my life? Tungsten carbide is twice as strong as steel and has good high-temperature stability, hence the use in drill bits, so I guess I can see the potential. And this should be something that might also filter through to our track cars!
All in all, it’s a version that definitely seems to be pulling many of Porsche’s various desirable bits into a car that should sell very well. Who knows, I might even have to see if it’s time to avail myself of these updates.
Porsche adds yet another overall victory to Le Mans history today with the 919 hybrid. The #1 car suffered mechanical difficulties and the #2 car was further back in the field. But in endurance racing, it’s the long game that matters. And Porsche plays that game very well. The reliability that we enjoy in our cars comes from this. Congratulations to Porsche!
And check out the battle between eventual GTE Pro class-winning No. 97 Aston Martin of Jonathan Adam (final year for the V8 Vantage!) and the Corvette C7R effort No. 63 Corvette Racing driven by Jordan Taylor. After 24 hours, it comes down to the final lap!
Full race highlights:
Grab a bit of Le Mans history! Amazon Prime Video released a slew of new episodes about the big race. Enjoy!