1987 Porsche 944 S Coupe 2-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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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.

Production Porsche 918 Spyder images leak out of Chinese patent office

A few images of what looks to be the production Porsche 918 Spyder are here to say hello, courtesy of a patent office in China. If these provide an accurate look at what the hybrid supercar will look like, there are a few differences between it and the latest examples of the pre-production prototypes our spy shooters have seen.
The jerry-rigged turn signals inside the headlight enclosures and on the front fenders on the prototype are replaced with more polished units inside the headlamps located underneath the main beams. Behind that, the door handles have been swapped from horizontal latches on the door to vertical openings located just behind the door shutline.
We've also seen a Martini-liveried version of the 918 Spyder that has extra carbon elements that don't appear on this car. It was at the Nürburgring with carbon lips on the front fenders and another carbon element that hung from the rear fenders and ran down to the rear diffuser. When we saw the car on our Deep Dive piece, the front lips were gone but that rear piece remained, and we can't tell from the brochure and options sheet that we've seen so far what it comes with. The wheels from the concept and the green brake calipers, minus the polycarbonate covers, should be the standard fitment while the ten-spoke magnesium wheels will be a 29,750-euro (about $39,000 US) option.

Chris Harris hits the track with the Porsche Cayman GT4

The Porsche Cayman GT4 offers the first legitimate chance for Porsche's more compact coupe to really step out of the long shadow of its brother the 911. By placing the 385-horsepower Carrera S engine into the center of a Cayman and sweetening the package with a ton of truly high performance parts, the model can now really show off. The ever-enthusiastic Chris Harris puts on quite a display behind the wheel of the German brand's latest hardcore creation. As is his wont, Harris slides the GT4 all over the Portimao circuit with little wisps of smoke wafting up from its rear Michelin tires. However, what he gets really excited about is Porsche's decision to fit a real manual gearbox, rather than the PDKs rapidly taking over the company's highest performance vehicles. For anyone who loves seeing a sports car's oily bits, stay tuned all the way through because after hooning around for awhile, Harris puts the model up on a lift to find out what's so special. Porsche touts the GT4's 911 GT3-derivied front suspension, but this really shows just how many mechanical adjustments it offers the demanding driver. Related Video: