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Jay Leno welcomes finely rebuilt Porsche 356 into his garage

Not a month after the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer visited Jay Leno's garage, another artfully restored Porsche has rolled in. This time it's a 1957 Porsche 356A Outlaw, the "outlaw" moniker referring to Porsches that have been restored outside the bounds of period-correct orthodoxy.
This 356A was literally done from the ground up by Michigander Chuck Olenyk, the floor of the car having fallen apart so badly that he couldn't remove the roof at first since it was holding the vehicle together. Olenyk said that of the 2000 hours over seven years that he spent restoring the car, 500 were spent just on repairing the rust. That's undoubtedly some of the reason why when he tried to sell the unrestored car as a roller in the nineties for $1,000, no one would take it off his hands.
Olenyk fitted a mildly tuned engine from a Porsche 912, the transmission from a 356B, the brakes from a 356C, Fuchs mags and a modified replicar Speedster roof from Intermecchnica. It lacks nothing even with just 115 horsepower, and it adds to that with charm and aural appeal. You can see and hear the full story in the video below.

Weekly Recap: Porsche embarks on Mission E

Porsche's board of directors approved the company's first all-electric car Friday, signing off on production of the eye-catching Mission E concept that debuted in September at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It's set for launch by the end of the decade. The Frankfurt concept uses lithium-ion batteries to power two synchronous motors that create more than 600 horsepower and provide a range of 311 miles on the European cycle. It's capable of hitting 62 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds and can run the Nurburgring Nordschleife in less than eight minutes. In a statement, Porsche board chairman Oliver Blume called the Mission E the "beginning a new chapter in the history of the sports car." Porsche is backing that up with a roughly $1.1-billion investment that will create more than 1,000 jobs at its facilities in Zuffenhausen, Germany. The company will spend more than $760 million at its main site there to build a paint shop and a new assembly plant. It will also expand an engine factory to make electric motors. Porsche's renewed electric ambitions come as it grapples with fallout from parent company Volkswagen's diesel-emissions scandal. Porsche uses a VW diesel engine in the Cayenne SUV, which it stopped selling in November until a fix is found. Still, Mission E's scheduled landing could be as much as four years away – when Porsche and VW hope their diesel woes will be long over. The electric strategy is clearly a long play to provide its enthusiast owners with an efficient form of sport and luxury as fuel economy and emissions regulations tighten around the world. And if you still can't wrap your head around electric Porsches, the company also just announced plans to make the 911 Turbo and Turbo S even more powerful. Electric propulsion is part of Porsche's future, but for now at least, it isn't everything. OTHER NEWS VW sales crash 25 percent in November Finally, the other shoe dropped. Volkswagen sales plummeted 25 percent in November as fallout from the company's diesel-emissions scandal finally showed up on the sales charts. VW had managed to tread water with flat sales through September (the scandal broke more than halfway through the month) and October. The company stopped selling its 2.0-liter I4 and 3.0-liter V6 diesels as it works to make the engines complaint with emissions rules. VW admitted to rigging its diesel-powered cars so they could pass emissions tests in the United States and around the world.

Porsche Macan to get four-cylinder engines

Porsche hasn't offered a four-cylinder engine since the 968 went out of production in 1995 - the better part of two decades ago. There'd been talk of a four-pot Boxster or an even smaller model to slot in below it, but while the latest intel indicates that Porsche is moving ahead with its four-cylinder plans, it's a different kind of vehicle that will get it first.
That, of course, would be the new Macan. Just revealed a few weeks ago at the LA Auto Show, the Macan crossover is being launched with a pair of twin-turbocharged V6 engines (a 3.0 with 340 horsepower and a 3.6 with 400 hp) and a six-cylinder turbodiesel with 258 hp. But smaller engines, according to emerging reports from Autocar and Auto Express, are on their way.
Word has it that Porsche is preparing a 2.0-liter turbo four with 280 horsepower and a diesel with the same displacement and cylinder count, engines that will power new entry-level Macan models that will slot in beneath the existing Macan S, Macan S Diesel and Macan Turbo. While the diesel is tipped to be ported over from the Volkswagen parts bin, the four-cylinder gasoline engine is said to be under development by Porsche itself, which could mean it will have a boxer layout.