Porsche

71: Chrysler gets plug-in hybrid fever

Chrysler and GE working on a plug-in hybrid, Toyota doubles the range of its fuel cell car, Porsche's 911 gets a badly need tech upgrade, and what ever happened to that sat radio merger? Listen now: Download today's podcast

Porsche gives 911 a serious tech update

Porsche offered details on its four 2009 911 models, which go on sale in September, which include a new navigation system and a double-clutch transmission. The 911 Carrera Coupe, 911 Carrera Cabriolet, 911 Carrera S Coupe, and 911 Carrera S Cabriolet also get their flat six engines fitted with direct injection, resulting in increased efficiency and performance. The cars don't look substantially different on the outside, although they do get LED tail and parking lights, along with an adaptive headlight system.

The 3.6-liter flat six-cylinder engine in the 911 Carrera gets a 20-horsepower increase to 345, while the … Read more

Photos: Exotic cars

The stuff of calendars and posters, exotics are cars you will rarely see in real life. Lucky indeed is the individual who gets to see a Bentley Continental GT Speed or a Spyker C8 Aileron drive by on the street. We've gone through our auto show photographs to select rare new production cars.

Click here for photos of exotic cars from recent auto shows.

How to drive like a billionaire

Today and tomorrow, some lucky people are driving a set of supercars, including a Ferrari F430, a Lamborghini Gallardo, and a Porsche Turbo 997, around the Auto Club Speedway track in Fontana, Calif. To get this lucky, all you have to do is pony up $4,990 to Supercar Life, a company with a fleet of very fast cars that it uses to host track events. The company provides professional instruction to the drivers, taking the morning of the event day to show them how to drive on the track. During the afternoon, the clients take the wheel.

For people … Read more

Photos: Performance testing at Laguna Seca

On the second day of the 2008 Western Automotive Journalists Media Days, we drove a variety of different cars at Laguna Seca. This famous track employs a number of technical turns, not to mention a quarter-mile straightaway, for testing handling and acceleration.

Click here for photos of production cars tested on the track at Laguna Seca.

Prizefight: Porsche 911 vs. Audi R8

In his latest prizefight, Brian Cooley looks at two high-stepping German cars, the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S and the Audi R8. Both cars have all-wheel-drive and both top $100,000 in price, but which is better? Brian compares powertrains, handling, design, cabin electronics, and a special category for cars in this segment.

Review: 2008 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet

"Taut" became our word of the day as we started to test out the 2008 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet. There is nothing loose about this car--it goes exactly where you point it and evenly distributes power when you push the accelerator. Its exterior lines are simple, with no excessively flared fenders or gaudy spoilers, maintaining the original 911 look. Our 911 model gets a lot of modifiers in this incarnation: the "4" means all-wheel-drive, the "S" marks it as a sport version, and "Cabriolet" is a fancy word for convertible.

But … Read more

Porsche's phone gets bleached

As believers in the universal worship of gadgetry, we at Crave do our level best to tolerate products that are restricted to certain geographic regions even if they're outside the United States. But sometimes there are products that deserve to be shared equally--especially those that don't include us. Case in point: The Porsche phone.

We're not talking about one of those pimped-out Goldstriker numbers that just use Porsche leather, but the real thing in all its solid aluminum-block goodness. After all, our U.K. counterparts have already gotten their grubby continental mitts all over one, and they'… Read more

Porsche engineers a new audio system

We've seen everything from toasters to coffee makers developed by Porsche Design, so it's always nice when they come out with something that's a little farther along on the high-tech evolutionary scale. And the Porsche Audio System fits that bill, at least where design is concerned.

What makes it different are the three dials that control the volume, AM/FM radio, and other functions, which are hollow for a good reason: There's a speaker in the middle of each one, in a 1.5-inch cone, complementing the 3-inch subwoofer in the back, SlashGear says. A separate … Read more