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Porsche's Mauer recalls the history of the 918 Spyder, hints about next-gen 911

The night before Porsche handed me the keys to its 2015 Macan to drive on both road and track, the company threw together a great dinner for the assembled media in Leipzig. Hosted in Porsche's spaceship-shaped customer delivery center in the eastern German town, I'll admit that I spent the bulk of my night grabbing hors d'oeuvres from passing waiters (they do a nice tuna sashimi), milling around a collection of historic and interesting vehicles on the top floor and gulping down Warsteiner.
In an era of mega car companies, the story of how the 918 came to be was really refreshing.
Before the evening was over, however, Porsche design chief Michael Mauer stopped by my table to exchange pleasantries and thank us all for coming out to drive the Macan. My fellow diners and I passed a pleasant half-hour or more picking the brain of the forthcoming Mauer, and somehow or another, the topic turned to Porsche's newest supercar, the 918 Spyder. In an era of mega car companies (the Volkswagen Group included) and massive development teams, the story of how the 918 came to be is really refreshing.

Leno buys classic Porsche 356 Carrera 2, seeks out and finds perfect expert for help

The world of collector cars is fairly tight-knit when you get down to individual models. Need proof? Just take a look at this latest video from Jay Leno's Garage. The subject is a gorgeous 1963 Porsche 356 Carrera 2. Jay, being known as quite a collector, got a call from someone looking to sell. While doing his due diligence and looking for a 356 expert to go over the car with him, he came across John Willhoit.
Where the story gets weird is when Leno is asked the license plate number - it turns out that Willhoit, owner of Willhoit Restorations, had restored the exact same car more than 30 years prior. He then sold it to the same person that was looking to give it to Leno. What follows is a truly interesting video on the little quirks of the 356, along with Willhoit's personal history on a car he hadn't seen since 1976.
This is a bit more mechanically detailed than Leno's normal videos, but it's on a very interesting subject. Take a look below for the entire film.

24 Hours of Le Mans an on-and-off love affair

There was little usual about this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans - intermittent rain in the weeks before the race meant cars didn't get on track as much as they wanted, and intermittent rain during the race meant cars went off track a lot more than they wanted. The race started with a wet track, and one of the records broken because of the random downpours was the number of times the safety car led the field - 11 times this year - although the record of two hours and 53 minutes of lapping behind the safety car, set in 2011, was not eclipsed.
None of that served to dampen the action. With little more than an hour left in the race there were cars still only a few seconds apart fighting for position, leads still changing because of pit stops and everyone drafting anyone they could.
Things didn't go the usual way up front, either - well, not exactly...