I wish I was there this time around. Maybe 2013???

http://youtu.be/zFPyMRjdKyA

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Sorry for the lack of posts readers. I’ve been busy consulting and starting two companies, and just haven’t found the time – at all.

Anyway, I had to share this video. This is the craziest thing I have seen in motorsports.

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First, off, I’m truly sorry for taking so long to write a post, and a mediocre one at that. I have been caught up on some very interesting projects, which I hope to discuss with you later, including a nonprofit startup: http://www.BreastfeedInternational.org

Now to the video… it’s a video of an angry Ferrari F430 driver who has apparently just been lightly rear-ended (so what only a $40,000 repair bill???) by a Las Vegas cabbie. Don’t get me wrong, it was the cabbie’s fault, but the response from the Ferrari driver was beyond comprehensible. I think I counted the Ferrari driver striking the cab driver no fewer than 3 times. The last one, weirdly, caused the cab driver to fall backward into the door jamb of the Ferrari. This Ferrari driver, it should be noted, is in no way representative of all Ferrari drivers. I have personally met some that are passionate about their cars, and extremely polite and respectful of admirers, such as myself. Still, the Ferrari driver in this video probably needs to spend some time in jail thinking about is disregard for humanity. My two cents.

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It was this same car that led famous Porsche driver Walter Röhrl to near victory 30 years ago. Dominating the all-wheel-drive Audis for most of the race, Röhrl was in the last leg of the race when his driveshaft went Kaput!

30 years on, he will try again, perhaps with a significantly better designed drive shaft

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9 Magazine has come up with a great new interview with former Porsche CEO Peter Schutz.

The interview describes Schutz’s time at Porsche and how he ended up at the helm.

He describes how he revived the fabled 911 model, and the team he assembled to do that. From a business standpoint, he discusses the organizational challenges, and the way they used motor sport to build the brand.

Most interestingly is in this interview is his interaction with Ferry Porsche. He describes his daily interactions with the iconic man. That alone makes the article worth reading.

See: http://www.9magazine.com/the-man-who-saved-the-porsche-911.html

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This video is of the new Lamborghini Aventador. The engine starting sounds like nothing we’ve heard before in the auto industry.

My neighbor has this rusty old Chevy pickup truck from like 1950, and every time he starts it, my house shakes. I would love to exact revenge every morning by starting this beast:

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This is a shameless plug…

Vote for us here:

http://endrasbmw.com/ultimateblogger/BeyondTheKM

My mother suffers from what I call “look-aholism.” That is, she sees a car on the road, develops an attachment over time, until finally, something catastrophic happens with her current car and she is induced into buying a new one. So recently, I flew up to the Vegas and picked up a heavily optioned BMW 135. For about $50,000, you too can “steal” a fully optioned 135i coupé.

Normally, the drive back from Vegas is fraught with traffic and hung-over gamblers, but I opted for the safer route through Flagstaff. Golden Earring’s Radar Love blasting from my iPod, veins coursing with Red Bull, the late-night drive back from the City of Lost Wages over the Hoover Dam, down through the Arizona Mountains, and into the Valley of the Sun was an unforgettable experience. The 135i with 300-HP easily blew by every car on the highway, and made the trip on less than a tank of petrol. Some love the styling while others blast it for looking too “Bangled,” but know this: whether you are blasting by a Porsche or dicing corners faster than an Audi TT-S, for the smile on your face, no car pays off like the BMW 1er.

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http://tradeporsche.com/

If you’re looking for a used Porsche, Trade Porsche, can be a really useful site with which to start. It offers a ton of parameters for searching. Give it a whirl!

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I have to admit it, while the Toyota Prius is nothing much to drive, there are a few interesting applications of its technology. Most notably, Google has been testing the autonomous vehicle for some time now. They have racked up over 100,000 miles during testing on city streets.

Anyway, check out what Google is bringing to the world of weekend auto racing.

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There’s a German company called Wöhr that makes some really cool and intelligent parking systems. A lot of their systems are fully automated and a lot like parking with a valet – except this valet isn’t like likely to jaunt around town in your Lamborghini.

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A great article about what car companies do to disguise their top-secret prototype cars to gain a competitive advantage in a highly competitive industry.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/pl_motor_prototypes

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Made by hand was the early Porsche 911.

Check out this archive footage from the early 1960s. If you were to tour Porsche now, you wouldn’t even recognize the place!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

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Do you love Porsche 911s but fear oil? Yeah, us too, but now there’s a solution!

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/diy-ev-porsche/

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Fabled test driver Valentino Balboni on Lamborghini’s latest creations…

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Jamiroquai front man Jay Kay has some impressive toys. Known to Top Gear enthusiasts as the former Board-Topper (twice), Britain’s Fifth Gear took a tour of the superstar’s garage and play land, which includes everything from a Segway to a Rolls-Royces to any number of Go-Karts…

Video of his first appearance on Top Gear:

Video of Jay Kay’s 2nd record breaker:

Also, check out his review of the Lamborghini Miura on Top Gear:

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I was recently visiting a new Porsche web site called 911 Nation. On the site, there was a new post arguing the U.S. President Obama and the Democratic Party, which presently controls the U.S. Senate, is working to take certain high performance cars off the road, much to the detriment of the car-buying public.

This is hyperbole and conjecture and it’s apex. They only one putting an end to the Porsche is those that own the company. CAFE standards do not nor will they ever prevent a company from operating. At worst, they charge a sort of fine for each vehicle that does not meet requirements. Though the OEM pays this fine, it is effectively passed on to the consumer, at the risk of that automaker being less competitive. That said, Porsche like every automaker has every incentive to develop state-of-the-art technology that provides us with both a great driving experience and the comfort of know that we are polluting ourselves to a lesser degree as the world population continues to climb.

Obviously, CAFE has nothing to do with extremism of the environmental or other kind. Extremism might dictate that none of us use powered vehicles of any kind, which is clearly not the case here. Indeed, one could further argue that generations of people who have lived in an era of fossil fuel consumption are cheating future generations by consuming resources that are not sustainable.

We need look no further than the new Porsche Panamera Hybrid S, which according to sources has a CO2 g/km of only 160. Indeed that is a competitive number, especially for a car capable of great handling and performance.

I might further posit that America is the follower, not the leader, in developing improved environmental standards with respect to the automotive industry.

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Having been an observer of auto dealer operations for the last eight years, I’ve been terribly displeased with the lack of innovation and improvement in the dealer sales process. The following series is a set of ideas outlined that I believe can make automotive customers, staff, and dealers much happier.

The first big idea that dealers must implement is to emphasize stress free buying in advertising and more importantly, in the showroom. What does this mean? We need to look at it from the buyer’s perspective. First off, people want and NEED to be treated with respect. A 75-year-old with wads of cash falling out of his pockets should be treated no differently than the 18-year-old looking to finance their first car purchase. Indeed, the value of an 18-year-old is far greater when we look at the sales potential over the lifespan of that individual.

To illustrate, let us take the “average” Porsche owner. Because of the relatively high entry-price, they are likely to start buying at age 30 or perhaps a bit older depending upon income level (versus age 22 for a Scion), starting with perhaps a used Boxster or Cayman. We might calculate that profit on such a car is $4000, give or take. Fast-forward 4 years, and they might opt for a new Boxster/Cayman or a used 911 at perhaps $6000 profit. So already from 4 years, a Porsche dealer in this example has profited to the tune of $10,000, or $2500 per year NOT including service profits. Now if  the dealer plays their cards well, they will have sold two excellent cars and still have, on average, 41 years of Porsche driving experience left. So let us assume that the buyer gets married and either keeps their car, or replaces it with something roomier for the young children. For the sake of this illustration, they will buy an entry-level Cayenne – a car that has plenty of room and is safe and sensible for a young, successful family. Such a car might earn the dealer $5000. Repeated again after 4 years and the dealer profits another $5000. Now age 42, the successful father may want to consider moving up to a Porsche Panamera, which while sporty, can shuttle the children around in style now that they are out of child seats. Let us chalk up $7000 profit for that purchase. Then $8500 for a Panamera S another 4 years down the road.  By age 46, $30,500 of profit may be garnered directly from vehicle sales. Hitting a mid-life crisis at 50, your buyer may feel he deserves a sporty Carrera convertible to drive, and so the dealer sells it to him with $10,000 profit.

20 years into the relationship, the dealer has garnered a whopping $40,500 in profit from sales alone. Taken at 20% of profit, the sales person would be well happy to have and extra $8100 into their pocket, on one customer, just for treating them right. If we assume another six Porsche 911s are in that person’s future before they can no longer drive, and if we upsell and retain an average of $12,000 per car, we end up with a lifetime total profits of $112,500 in sales on that one buyer alone, to say nothing of service profits. At a 20% commission, even the stodgiest salesperson is unlikely to turn down a paycheck of $22,500.

While not an actual example, we can use this story to illustrate the importance of getting the buyer into the door at an early age and giving them a great buying experience while relatively young. By continuing to foster that relationship through respect, patience, and knowledge, a company like Porsche can retain a customer for life.

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If you look at the sheer number of exotic car models out there, then estimate the sales of those models ranging from a few dozen per year produced by a company like Bugatti to ten thousand a year produced by sister company Bentley, you might be forgiven for assuming that the global economic downturn never existed.

McLaren, of Formula and McLaren F1 supercar fame, is back with a new car to be launched in early 2011. The new car is the McLaren MP4-12C. It was borne out of the dissolution of the longstanding relationship between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren. The cooperative produced such fabled cars at the Mercedes-Benz SLR and SLC. It will reach 124 mph in fewer than 10 seconds, but will be able to stop in less than half that amount. From the moment the first example is rolled off the production line, it will be an instant hit and a sure-footed supercar. Much cheaper than the original F1, the car should run about £175,000, with both cheaper and more expensive models to follow-up in subsequent years.

For more than a quarter of a million dollars, you might think that such a car would have a very limited following, yet McLaren has just announced that they already have 2700 interested buyers. That is more than two years worth of production. That figure is astounding when you consider the number of people out of work in the US and the EU – the likely primary markets for these cars.

Yet, the figure may not be an anomaly. Rolls-Royce, a unit of BMW Group, has announced record monthly sales since its relaunch in 2003. The company produced 300 hand-made vehicles from its Goodwood facility in June 2010. Sales were up 400 per cent, with strong growth in Asia-Pacific, particularly China. This may cause some to ponder whether the Chinese really are communist!

But that’s not all. Mercedes-Benz also has reported a record June sales month. 113,200 vehicles were moved with strong results from the high-end E-class and S-class models. Interestingly, on the low end of the totem pole, the über-cheap Smart ForTwo has seen a continued slump in sales, even in the new U.S. market. Smart hopes to turn around their sales decline by launching an updated Smart later this summer.

Sources:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/251307

http://www.leftlanenews.com/rolls-royce-bucks-economic-downturn-sells-out.html

http://www.autonews.com/article/20100705/ANE/307059932/1131

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This year’s automotive ads during the Superbowl were a bit of a mixed bag. BMW for example had an interesting ad promoting its diesel lineup, but that ad should have been done last year to compete with Audi’s “green police.” BMW did, however, make an interesting statement by reminding us that though German by design, the SUVs we buy from them are made in South Carolina. I’m not even going to bother discussing the pickup truck ads as they all blow much in the same way that the vehicles themselves blow. The Kia Optima ad was also bizarre and left me wishing I had that minute of my life back…it felt like 10.

For me, though, the biggest disappointment at all comes from VW. VW had teased us earlier in the week that they were going to be airing an ad promoting the new VW Beetle. When I heard this I made the decision to watch the whole damned Super Bowl, which bores me to tears, just to see the new VW Beetle. You can imagine my disappointment and anger then when the age, while well done, lacked any photography of the new Beetle. So I ask, why toss their money away? Why wouldn’t VW use the occasion to announced what is probably the most iconic car in America? The answer: it beats the hell out of this reviewer.

VW’s Superbowl ad for the new VW Beetle:

On the bright side, while silly, the Audi ad did get me to go to their web site and check out the full-length ad, so I guess that’s money well spent.

They actually had several, but the two I’ve chosen were pre-game, unless I am mistaken:

The second comes to us featuring the smooth saxy sounds of Kenny G, aka the Riot Suppressor:

But the big winner is a toss-up for me. Chrysler came up with a surprisingly good commercial – the best “buy America” auto ad I have ever seen. Meanwhile, VW’s new Passat commercial took a hilarious page out of Star Wars. See below.

Chrysler’s ad

The Force ad for the VW Passat:

And the “making of” the Passat ad:

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