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2015 Porsche 911 GTS widens your rear-engined choices

"Porsche needs to offer more versions of the 911" is not a phrase you'll hear uttered often. Not with 15 versions already in the catalog. But with the opening of this year's LA Auto Show, Porsche has introduced four more to bring the total up to nineteen variants. And more are no doubt on the way. What you're looking at is the new Porsche 911 GTS, which has grown from one model in the previous generation to four. Buyers will be able to choose between rear- or all-wheel drive and between coupe and cabriolet body-styles, but either way they'll be looking at a 3.8-liter flat six with 430 horsepower. That slots it in between the base Carrera and the GT3, but unlike the hardcore latter, it can be had with choice of manual or dual-clutch transmission – bringing the available configurations of 911 GTS up to eight. Spec the DCT and you'll be reaching 60 in as little as 3.8 seconds, but the pleasure won't come cheap: prices range from $114,200 for the rear-drive coupe to $132,800 for the all-wheel-drive cabrio, plus another $995 for delivery. But for that much scratch you also get the Powerkit, Sport Chrono package, wider track, lower suspension, Xenon headlamps, Alcantara trim, 20-inch alloys and more all thrown in as standard.

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.

Man arrested for stealing part of Paul Walker Porsche wreck

Humans are odd creatures. Some of us collect things associated with bad events, particularly when it comes to cars. Your author, for example, has the grille of his wrecked 2004 Mini Cooper S hanging on the wall. As a more extreme example, an 18-year-old Californian is in trouble with the LA police, but not for taking an item from his own car accident. Instead, he has been arrested for stealing from the wreck of the Porsche Carrera GT that killed actor Paul Walker and racer Roger Rodas.
And it wasn't a small piece, either. It was the Carrera GT's carbon-fiber roof panel. Making matters worse is word that the theft happened while the tow truck that was hauling the wrecked Porsche was sitting in traffic. According to the LA Sheriff's Department report, "A witness saw a male exit a vehicle that was following the tow truck. The male grabbed a piece of the wrecked Porsche off the tow truck bed." Besides the eyewitnesses, it didn't help that images of the roof panel were later posted on Instagram.
The man, Jameson Witty, was later arrested at his home, where police also found the roof panel. The driver of the car Witty was in when he took the roof panel, meanwhile, is planning on surrendering to the police, according to CNN. It remains unclear if the district attorney's office will charge the two, although if it does, they'll be facing felony grand theft and tampering with evidence.