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Amelia Island 2013: Porsche 911 swarms the field marking 50 years of rear-engine goodness

Perhaps one of the most iconic sports cars in the world, it was no surprise that the Porsche 911 showed up in numbers to the 2013 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. Although the original 911 launched 50 years ago, the original and current models are instantly recognizable as 911s, and since the 911 has a storied racing background, there were probably just as many racing versions of the coupe as there were street-legal versions.
As the show's 2013 honoree, one of the prime racing examples was a 1970 Porsche 911 S raced by Sam Posey. There were so many cars in attendance, we didn't know where to look, but a 1985 911 Speedster concept and a Porsche-owned, rally-ready 911 Type 953 were definitely among the more impressive standouts. As an added bonus, Jacksonville-based Brumos Porsche had many of its classic racecars on display including a beautiful 959.

What's the deal with comedians and their cars?

'Round about the time in his life when it should happen for all of us, Jerry Seinfeld's ship came in with a force that almost split the dock. He'd been doing pretty well with his observational style ("There's a cereal now that's just cookies. Have you seen this? Cookies for breakfast. It's called Cookie Crisp. Cookies for breakfast! They oughta just call it 'To Hell With Everything!'"). But he showed no signs of setting the world on fire until he got cast in a show that was either about – depending on the level of comedy geek you ask – the average New Yorker, the very worst people in the world, or nothing. Suddenly Jerry Seinfeld was pretty much the center of the comedy universe. And while his comedy was at once both brilliantly innovative and rooted in the mundane, his next move was a predictable grab at something exotic – he went out and bought his dream car. A rather nice 911, actually. As almost everyone knows, it didn't stop there, and the man put together one of the most enviable collections of iconic Porsches we're likely to see. So what's the connection, if there is one, between cars and comedy? As far as Jerry Seinfeld (the man) is concerned, he's probably not the same guy as the Jerry on Seinfeld (the show) although it's hard to say for sure; his public persona is almost unnervingly well managed. But cars and comedy were the constants in his life then, and, well, just look at what the guy does now; Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is a cultural constant, and we're certainly seeing Seinfeld the man in that one, and cars are obviously still central to his life. And it's been that way with a lot of very, very good comedy guys. Cars seem to round out their lives, to become the yin to their comedy yang. Ernie Kovacs might not have invented visual gags or surreal humor, but he got them both to kill on television in the 1950s, so he's a comedy hero. He died behind the wheel of his beloved Corvair wagon, so he's absolutely some kind of car-guy hero as well. Bill Cosby, the hottest name in comedy for a good long while, had Ferraris, one of two fire-breathing supercharged big-block Cobras (pictured below), and a BMW 2002tii – none of which either contributed to or in any way make up for the profoundly sociopathic creature he turned out to be, but it's still a data point. The Smothers Brothers, who defied the networks and the norms by getting blatantly political before that sort of thing was cool, went sports car racing.

Porsche 911 and Citro"en DS lovechild would look like this

The early Porsche 911 and the Citroën DS were two cars produced in the same era (though the DS launched in 1955, nearly 10 years before the 911), but they were vastly different from each other. The 911 was a uniquely German, pure-bred sports car, while the French-built DS had four doors and focused more on ride quality than sporting intentions. That made it all the more surprising when we came across the 911DS, a creation that binds the rear half of the Citroën to the front of an early, longhood 911.
The folks at Brandpowder are behind the creation, which we surmise was an exercise in design rather than an actual, completed project (some of the images look Photoshopped), but it's compelling nonetheless, with a turbocharged flat-six providing 260 horsepower. We hope someone builds it - though we're sure if that happened the early 911 crowd would cry afoul at one of its increasingly rare and valuable Porsches being grafted onto an old French car.
But as Brandpowder points out lightheartedly, perhaps the creation could transcend popular car culture: "The 911DS represents the effort of two countries, a genuine attempt to join their energy and talent into one thing. We hope Germany and France will be inspired by Brandpowder's story, as a metaphor for a better and greater Europe."