1972 Porsche 914 Gt Roller on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Porsche trio seals endurance drivers' title

Fifth place. That's all it took for the Porsche team to seal the drivers' title in the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship. And that's just what they did this weekend in the 6 Hours of Bahrain. The leading lineup of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, and Mark Webber drove the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid to the drivers' title to cap a dominant season for the Weissach team. Porsche already won the pinnacle race at Le Mans this past summer, and drove home the manufacturers' title at the penultimate round in Shanghai. The championship-winning trio of Bernhard, Hartley, and Webber won four out of the total eight rounds this season – including the races at the Nurburgring, Circuit of the Americas, Fuji, and Shanghai. That gave them 166 points in the final standings, besting the 161 achieved by the Audi team of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler, and Benoit Treluyer, who won at Silverstone and Spa. In beating Audi to the top honors in the championship and at Le Mans, Porsche has completely locked its corporate cousins (and chief rivals) out of the winner's circle for the first time in years. Last season saw Toyota win both titles in the WEC, but Audi still won at Le Mans. Audi won both titles in the first two seasons of the championship, and the French endurance race all but three times in the past 16 years. The last time Audi was completely shut out was in 2009, when Peugeot won at Le Mans and Aston Martin took both titles in the associated Le Mans Series with its Lola-based LMP1 prototype. This latest achievement only adds to Porsche's unsurpassed sports car racing trophy cabinet. The German outfit won 12 manufacturers' and teams' titles (and another six drivers' titles) in the 1970s and 80s under the previous World Sportscar Championship. It has won at Le Mans a record 17 times, and another 18 each at Sebring and Daytona. Porsche also took the checkered flag at the Targa Florio 11 times, won the Monte Carlo rally four times, the Dakar twice, and with TAG and McLaren, won three drivers' titles, two constructors' titles, and 25 grands prix in Formula One. Related Video: Porsche works drivers win the FIA World Endurance Championship drivers' title The new champions: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber Stuttgart.

Porsche-Piech buy 10% stake in VW's holding company

In August, 2009, as the scuttled merger of Porsche and Volkswagen had gone bad and Porsche was backed up against the ropes, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAHSE) relinquished a ten-percent stake in itself to Qatar Holdings as well as options it held on 17 percent of VW shares. The sale meant that, for the first time since the founding of the company 61 years before, an entity outside the Porsche and Piech families had a say in the running of PAHSE.
Buying that ten-percent stake back returns full ownership to the two families, the holding company's sole possession being ownership of 50.7 percent of VW's common shares. The price paid wasn't disclosed, but at market rates the purchase would be worth close to $1.25 billion. Qatar intends to hold onto the 17-percent stake it has in Volkswagen.

Porsche recalls new 911 models over exhaust pipe issues

Porsche, though the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, announced a voluntary recall on about 2,200 911 Carrera and Carrera 4 models built during the 2012 and 2013 model years. On cars equipped with the standard exhaust system it was found that the tailpipes could separate from the mufflers and become dangerous road debris; models that added the optional sport exhaust system are not included in this recall.
Affected vehicles were built between March and November of last year, but there have been no reports of the problem on any customer-owned vehicles. Porsche first noticed a cracked tailpipe weld on a test vehicle back in May, and since then has found similar problems on other internally owned vehicles, all with more than 25,000 miles on the clock. To fix the problem, dealers will be replacing the mufflers. Scroll down to read the official notice.