1999 Porsche Boxster With Factory Hard Top on 2040-cars

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Son of Porsche 911 designer recalls 1963 Frankfurt debut

The Goodwood Revival is described by its presenters as the greatest motorsport racing party of the year. We often focus heavily on the motorsports, but you can't forget about the party. For the first preview of the new 911 Turbo in the UK, Porsche recreated its booth from the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1963 - the time and place of the original 911's public debut.
Porsche's cameras also caught up with Mark Porsche, the great grandson of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and son of the late Ferdinand Alexander "Butzi" Porsche, who oversaw the design of the 911. Mark Porsche admires the 911's friendly design, which is set off by the round headlights, and says his mother, who was at the original Frankfurt booth in 1963, was milling around the booth at Goodwood - no doubt taking a trip down memory lane.

What do J.D. Power's quality ratings really measure?

Check these recently released J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) results. Do they raise any questions in your mind? Premium sports-car maker Porsche sits in first place for the third straight year, so are Porsches really the best-built cars in the U.S. market? Korean brands Kia and Hyundai are second and fourth, so are Korean vehicles suddenly better than their US, European, and Japanese competitors? Are workaday Chevrolets (seventh place) better than premium Buicks (11th), and Buicks better than luxury Cadillacs (21st), even though all are assembled in General Motors plants with the same processes and many shared parts? Are Japanese Acuras (26th) worse than German Volkswagens (24th)? And is "quality" really what it used to be (and what most perceive it to be), a measure of build excellence? Or has it evolved into much more a measure of likeability and ease of use? To properly analyze these widely watched results, we must first understand what IQS actually studies, and what the numerical scores really mean. First, as its name indicates, it's all about "initial" quality, measured by problems reported by new-vehicle owners in their first 90 days of ownership. If something breaks or falls off four months in, it doesn't count here. Second, the scores are problems per 100 vehicles, or PP100. So Power's 2015 IQS industry average of 112 PP100 translates to just 1.12 reported problems per vehicle. Third, no attempt is made to differentiate BIG problems from minor ones. Thus a transmission or engine failure counts the same as a squeaky glove box door, tricky phone pairing, inconsistent voice recognition, or anything else that annoys the owner. Traditionally, a high-quality vehicle is one that is well-bolted together. It doesn't leak, squeak, rattle, shed parts, show gaps between panels, or break down and leave you stranded. By this standard, there are very few poor-quality new vehicles in today's U.S. market. But what "quality" should not mean, is subjective likeability: ease of operation of the radio, climate controls, or seat adjusters, phone pairing, music downloading, sizes of touch pads on an infotainment screen, quickness of system response, or accuracy of voice-recognition. These are ergonomic "human factors" issues, not "quality" problems. Yet these kinds of pleasability issues are now dominating today's JDP "quality" ratings.

Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer

An Iconic Sports Car, Restored to Seduce
I have been strapped behind the iconic Momo Prototipo steering wheel for a little more than an hour, all windows down as I carve my way up a rugged canyon during an unusually warm Southern California evening, and I am overwhelmed with emotion. My heart is pounding out of my chest, my breathing is heavy and my palms are sweaty because I am completely absorbed by this wondrous machine.
After waiting patiently for nearly four years, I am finally behind the wheel of a classic Porsche 911 restored, modified and tuned by Singer Vehicle Design. The vehicle that surrounds me never rolled off an automaker's assembly line in its current configuration, yet its physical appearance is timeless, build quality breathtaking and driving dynamics peerless.