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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

UK Porsche GT3 owners are irked that other countries are getting better deals

Porsche 911 GT3 owners in the United Kingdom are up in arms, but it's not for the reason you might think. Okay, well it sort of is. See, it's been fairly well documented that 911 GT3 owners have had their cars grounded over concerns that the engines could catch fire. Porsche is rushing to build and install replacement engines in all 800 or so cars, scattered around the globe.
This isn't really the issue. The problem for these British owners is compensation. While the car's have been grounded, car notes still need to be paid. To deal with this, American GT3 owners are being paid $2,000 per month. German owners get 175 euros ($242 at today's rates) per day while a GT3 owner in Dubai is allegedly receiving $12,000 (it's unclear if this is a lump sum or a monthly payment). Basically, if you aren't able to drive your six-figure super car, you shouldn't have to pay for it. Seems reasonable regardless of the make.
British owners, though, aren't being compensated, and for 30 to 35 owners, that's not acceptable. They've banded together and are led by Sunil Mehra.

Porsche releases new images of LMP1 racecar

Porsche has released another batch of images of its LMP1 competitor preparing for its debut season in 2014. This isn't the first we've seen of the new car, as June saw four images of the new racer undergoing testing. Where those images looked merely like someone taking pics during the test, the 11 new images seen above have all the hallmarks of highly polished PR shots.
That aside, the camo-covered cars still provide another look at what the new LMP1 car will look like when it arrives next season. The taillights follow the example set by Audi, by vertically mounting ultra-thin LEDs on the tips of the rear wing, while the LED headlights sport the four-prong look that Porsche has been pushing of late. Besides those two items, its difficult to make out many details due to the amount of camo.
Porsche's LMP1 effort will be focused on the FIA World Endurance Championship, which will see the revered brand return to the top flights of the 24 Hours Of Le Mans with F1 ace Mark Webber behind the wheel. As we've mentioned before, the German brand has set up a dedicated microsite that will cover its newest racer's progress.