2009 Porsche Gts on 2040-cars

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Singer Porsche, Koenigsegg, NSX: Leno's life doesn't suck

Jay Leno had quite a productive trip this year during Monterey Car Week. Not only did he get to pal around with Ian Callum and check out the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, but the denim-clad comedian also headed to The Quail to talk to some prominent figures in the modern sports car scene. Capping off the fun, he got to take a drive in a Mercedes-AMG GT S, too Perhaps the highlight of this show is a nearly 10-minute interview with Christian von Koenigsegg. The founder of the Swedish hypercar company digs deep into the Agera One:1's engineering details, relating interesting facts about the aerodynamics and transmission. In addition, Leno chats with Rob Dickenson of Singer about its newly reimagined Porsche 911 Targa, and he gets the latest scoop on the Acura NSX's progress from newly promoted Acura Vice President and General Manager Jon Ikeda. If you like hearing about the nuts and bolts of sports car development, then this video can't be missed. Of course, we were there at Monterey, too, and we pointed our own cameras at some of the amazing machinery, both vintage and modern, at all the various car-focused events of the week. Take a look back at some of our own cool footage in the videos below. Related Video:

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.

The mood at this year’s Paris Motor Show: Quiet

The Paris Motor Show, held every other year in the early fall, typically kicks off the annual cavalcade of automotive conclaves, one that traverses the globe between autumn and spring, introducing projective, conceptual and production-ready vehicle models to the international automotive press, automotive aficionados and a public hungry for news of our increasingly futuristic mobility enterprise. But this year, at the press preview days for the show, the grounds of the Porte de Versailles convention center felt a bit more sparsely populated than usual. This was not simply a subjective sensation, or one influenced by the center's atypically dispersed assemblage of seven discrete buildings, which tends to spread out the cars and the crowds. There were not only fewer new vehicles being premiered in Paris this year, there were fewer manufacturers there to display them. Major mainstream European OEM stalwarts such as Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Nissan and Volkswagen chose to sit out Paris this year, as did boutique manufacturers like Bentley, Aston Martin and Lamborghini. This is not simply based in some antipathy on the part of the German, British and Italian manufacturers toward the French market — though for a variety of historical and societal reasons that market may be more dominated by vehicles produced domestically than others. Rather, it is part of a larger trend in the industry. Last year, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would not be participating in the flagship North American International Auto Show in 2019 — and that it might not return. Other brands including Jaguar/Land Rover, Audi, Porsche, Mazda and nearly every exotic carmaker have also departed the Detroit show. Some of these brands will still appear in the city in which the show is taking place, and host an event offsite, to capitalize on the presence of a large number of reporters in attendance. And even brands that do have a presence at the show have shifted their vehicle introductions to the days before the official press opening in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. In many ways, this makes sense. With an expanding number of automakers, with diversification and niche-ification of models and with wholesale shifts that necessitate the introduction of EV or autonomous sub-brands, there is a growing sense that, with everyone shouting at the same time, no one can be heard.