1987 Porche 944 Red/black Combo Garage Kept Gem-never Smoked In Updated Wheels on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Porsche board members facing another ˆ1.8B lawsuit over VW takeover bid

Back in 2008, Porsche got the bright idea that it could take over Volkswagen in the midst of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Ignoring that this was a catastrophic move for the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer that that eventually resulted in it nearly going bankrupt and eventually being taken over by the same company it sought to control, the aftermath has left Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche and board member Ferdinand Piëch in the crosshairs of seven hedge funds that lost out during the takeover and are now seeking €1.8 billion - $2.43 billion US - in damages from the two execs, according to the BBC.
See, investors bet on Volkswagen's share price going down, partially because Porsche said it wasn't going to attempt a takeover. But Porsche was attempting to take over VW, having bought up nearly 75-percent of VW's publicly traded shares. When word broke that Porsche owned nearly three-quarters of VW (which indicated an imminent takeover attempt), rather than go down like the hedge funds bet it would, VW's share price skyrocketed to over 1,000 euros per share, according to Reuters.
Naturally, when you bet that a company's share price is going to drop and it in turn (temporarily) becomes the world's most valuable company, you lose a lot of money, unless you're able to buy up shares before prices jump too much. This led to a squeeze on the stock, which the hedge funds accuse Porsche and Piëch (who are both members of the Porsche family and supervisory board) of organizing.

Watch a marksman go clay shooting from a Porsche 911

A Porsche 911 is exciting. Firing a shotgun at clay pigeons is also exciting. And when you combine the two? An amazing video. This video features British master marksman Phillip Thorrold as he takes on a very different form of competitive shooting, because traditional sporting clays, trap, and skeet must be too boring. By mounting a clay pigeon trap to the hood of a Porsche 911 Targa, Thorrold has melded driving and shooting in a way that hasn't been seen since James May and Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear tried to rethink the biathlon. The Brit makes short work of the clays with his over-under shotgun. Even as he runs form spot to spot to intercept the Porsche, he has no trouble downing the discs as they're launched unpredictably from the speeding, sliding 911. He then hops in the passenger seat and proceeds to take out the tiny, orange clays while zipping down a country road. If that's not awesome enough, the clays have been fitted with exploding discs, for that extra bit of excitement. We've posted the entire three-minute video at the top of the page. Even if you aren't into competitive shooting, this is a spectacle you aren't going to want to miss. Please don't try this at home. Related Video:

Porsche 918 Spyder to birth stretched 2+2 version?

Porsche is known for its ability to spin off a litter of variants from a single model, and according to a report in Automobile the 918 Spyder (pictured here) might not be spared the house trick. Having taken too many brains and too much money for too much time, company chiefs are said to be examining ways to get more for their development euro out of the supercar, and Plan A is apparently otherwise known as Plan 984. That would be a four-seater, rear-wheel drive supercar that uses a stretched mold of the 918's carbon fiber tub, keeping the V8 in the same mid-mounted place and costing around 350,000 euro.
That would be less than half the MSRP of its inspiration, but the details don't sketch out a car that's just half as good. Automobile speculates it would get something like 700 horsepower in order to best the coming 911 GT2, and about 440 pound-feet of torque. The 984 is quite a ways short of being confirmed; even though a full-size study is said to exist, it's like the 918 would need to become a bigger sales hit for the 984 to happen.
The 984's fortunes don't change those of the 960, the supercoupe Porsche is building to challenge Ferrari. Its potential specs haven't changed since the last report in January, power coming from a 5.0-liter, twin-turbo, eight-cylinder boxer engine with something like 650 hp pushing a curb weight of roughly 3,100 pounds. The means a suspected 0-to-60 mile-per-hour time of 2.5 seconds.