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Porsche unlocks secrets of its mid-engine 911

Porsche is beginning to realize that it's sitting on a goldmine of automotive history with its secret vault full of rare cars. Autoblog toured it a few months ago, and we were amazed at all of the curiosities hidden inside. Now, it's starting to let more folks in thanks to a new series of YouTube videos. The first covered the 965 prototype that shoved a water-cooled, Audi V8 into one of its cars. Next up, a mid-engine 911 that acted as the powertrain test mule for the Boxster.
The Porsche 911 is inextricably linked to its rear-engine layout. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. However, at the time Porsche was developing the Boxster, the company didn't want to lay all of its cards out of the table during testing. As opposed to using camouflage, it put a whole different car on top. The prototype looked just like any other 911 Targa of the day, but the biggest giveaway that something was amiss was the heavily tinted rear window. By obscuring it, inquisitive journalists couldn't peak at the new engine that replaced the backseat.
It might not look like anything too important on the outside, but this is a major piece of Porsche Boxster history underneath. Scroll down to watch the video about this fascinating prototype.

2014 Porsche Cayman promo video hits the web

Don't know how we missed this, but you don't have to play around with the 2014 Porsche Cayman configurator to see the new coupe in action; Porsche has given us more than two beautiful minutes of Cayman footage to enjoy.
The partners in the on-screen tango are the 275-horsepower base Cayman and the 325-hp Cayman S. If you like to keep track of such things, the former starts at $52,600, the latter at $63,800, plus $950 destination for each. Watching a video like the one below, however, is free.

Porsche again staring down another $1.8B in hedge fund lawsuits

The sequence of events from 2007 that began with Porsche's secret attempt to take over Volkswagen, and instead lead to Porsche being taken over by VW, continues to instigate lawsuits against the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer. A group of hedge funds that suffered over $1 billion in losses sued the car company in New York. Porsche had publicly stated it wasn't trying to buy VW, the hedge funds in question were shorting VW stock, and when Porsche's actual intentions were revealed, the stock shot up and the hedge funds took a beating.
The case was thrown out over the issue of jurisdiction, then appealed, only to see another suit filed on top of that. After that, most of the hedge funds withdrew their claims in New York and Porsche offered a 90-day window to refile in Germany where it is already fighting a number of other suits over the same issue. The hedge funds accepted the offer, refiling in Stuttgart for $1.8 billion in damages. According to Bloomberg, Porsche hasn't commented on the refiling, but as the same plaintiffs are involved, it's safe to assume that the carmaker still feels the case is "unsubstantiated and without merit." It has fared alright so far even in German courts, with two lesser cases against it thrown out last year.