The Museum run by Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, Germany, has bidden “bon voyage” to its legendary one-of-a-kind Type 64 Berlin-Rome Car. Befitting the 60th anniversary of Porsche in America, the destination of the aluminum body of the Type 64 is the High Museum of Art here – the home of Porsche’s U.S. headquarters. This trans-oceanic trip to The High marks the first time the elegantly aerodynamic coupe has ever ventured outside of Germany.
The Type 64 will be a feature of The High’s “Allure of the Automobile” exhibition running March 21 to June 20, 2010.
In “The Allure of the Automobile,” The High – considered the Southeast’s leading fine-art museum – expresses its recognition of the outstanding automotive developments in the period from 1930 to 1960, focusing on the contrasts in the development of American and European automotive design. Type 64, which will be exhibited in its own gallery space, will be presented along with several other icons of the world of automobiles from Bugatti, Duesenberg, Jaguar, Ferrari, Pierce Arrow, Packard, Cadillac and Tucker. The 71-year old Porsche design, viewed as the precursor of all Porsches, is considered a triumph of exceptional design, innovative construction and superb craftsmanship.
Type 64 marks an essential milestone en route to the first Porsche, the Type 356 “No.1” built in 1948, and thus is of special significance in Porsche history. Built in 1938/39 under the guidance of Ferdinand Porsche, this unique car displayed the features that make Porsche cars special – light- weight construction and superior aerodynamics, exceptional performance, efficient yet reliable technology and a uniqueness of design – that remain embedded in the brand’s DNA to this day. Originally developed for the Berlin-Rome long-distance race, the Type 64 never participated in a race due to the onset of World War II.
“This incredible design piece is the only prewar Porsche and it has never been seen outside Germany,” said Detlev von Platen, President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America. “This may be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to see the Type 64 as it may not venture to this Hemisphere again for quite some time.”
Porsche, the sponsor of “The Allure of the Automobile” exhibit at The High Museum of Art, is also displaying another historic car, the 1953 Porsche 550 LeMans coupe, which will be on loan from the private Collier Collection of Porsche in Naples, Fla.
To learn more about the High Museum of Art and the exhibition, please visit www.High.org
The article below was first published last year in Total 911 Magazine. I had always meant to share it with all of you but for some reason it never got posted. Well, that changes today. Any other “virgins” out there?
Usually, if it’s fast, then it’s for me. Ever since I can remember I’ve been fascinated with speed. Fast cars. Fast food. Fast wome…(you get the idea); hence, a good portion of my passion for Porsche explained. Even still, the allure of Motorsport has always eluded me (much to my surprise and chagrin). That is until recently.
Prior to this past January [2009 that is] my exposure to motorsport has always consisted of trying to hide my ignorance with regard to race results and the proper spelling of the term: Is it motorsport or motorsports? Racing was the land of alphabet soup – I’m talking about acronyms like SCCA, ALMS, NASA, IMSA, etc. – and exotic vehicular vocabulary that required a specialized dictionary just to follow along. I would show up to my local PCA event eager for an evening of socializing with a group of like minded people. However, as soon as the talk turned to, “did you see so and so do such and such?” at whatever race was currently being discussed, my eyes would glaze over and I’d look for the closest bar, waiter or exit (in that order). Not only did I not know what was being discussed, I simply wasn’t interested. Hell, at least if you watched NASCAR you might see some awesome crashes (anyone who tells you they don’t watch NASCAR for the crashes is obviously lying).
I don’t know where my indifference came from. All the elements were there, fast cars, fast food, fast women (and I mean this literally as the amount of female drivers has jumped dramatically in recent years). Regardless, Porsche motorsports just couldn’t hold my interest. It was like watching paint dry. Or, even worse, golf.
All that changed this winter in Florida when I made my first trip, some might call it a pilgrimage, to the 24 Hours of Rolex at the Daytona International Speedway. I don’t really know why I went, something simply came over me. I was living in Florida for the winter and Daytona was only a few hours north. It seemed like the thing to do and a great way to kill a weekend. For those of you that have never experienced Daytona, it combines a storied track with the fastest Porsches on the planet, celebrity drivers and a carnival like atmosphere (literally, there’s a carnival there too).
Thanks to some friends at Guardian Angel Motorsports I was able to get my greasy hands on “hot-pit” passes that allowed me not only into the paddocks, but into the actual pits before, during and after the race. This type of access alone would probably convert most non believers. If it doesn’t, then motorsports are probably not for you. Not only are you inches from the action, you are part of it. Wandering around in the garage and paddock area affords you the opportunity to get up close and personal with the cars and crews of your favorite racing team not to mention rubbing elbows with the likes of Wolf Henzler, Patrick Long, Hurley Haywood, Darren Law, David Donohue and Joerg Bergmeister; just to name a few.
Did I mention the sound? If one of the things that put you in a Porsche in the first place was that exceptional exhaust note then get yourself to a race and you’ll quickly understand what I mean. There is nothing like a sport that can be heard long before it can be seen. The screams of joy howling from the power plants of the P1 and GT class cars are an assault to the senses the likes of which I never before experienced. I’ve been to track days with my local club(s) and even had the good fortune to drive some pretty impressive and acoustically active Porsches (1960 RS 60, 1973 Carrera RS, 1997 Turbo S, etc.) all of which did nothing to prepare me for this aural event. The cacophony from this chorus of cars will literally vibrate your body from head to toe. Note to self, buy ear-plugs for next race, you’ll still be able to hear just fine.
Now, here we are a few months later and no longer do I look for the nearest exit or closest adult beverage when a discussion on racing begins. In fact, you are more than likely to find me in the thick of things, holding my own and eager to show off my new found knowledge and fascinating stories from my most recent race experiences (Daytona, Sebring, a Koni Challenge race at Homestead-Miami International, etc.).
Did you know that Joerg Bergmeister and I have the same watch? He told me so himself when we met for the first time – subtly implying that we’ve met more than once (gotta love those hot-pit passes). Unfortunately, it’s not a Rolex Daytona!!
I forget what silly reality TV show I was watching when I heard the line, “Wow! What a coincidence, your eyes are the same color as my Porsche!” Thinking back I’m pretty sure the line was followed by the sound of someone choking on their beer while simultaneously invoking the universally known posture of “talk to the hand”. I’m fairly certain this little scene involved someone named “The Situation” and possibly a girl called “Shnooky” but I might be mistaken. If you’re not familiar with these cultural references, don’t worry, not only are you better off not knowing, I included a video below that’s along the same lines but might be more your speed.
Anyway, after dredging up memories nightmares of Joey Carrera (and friends), I started wondering, just how many ways has Porsche been worked into pick-up lines. A little Google research and before you could say “single for life” I had a short list of Porsche related pick-up lines. I present them here for you to do with them as you will. However, be warned, I make no guarantees that these lines will work for you. In fact, if you are daring stupid enough to use them, I would suggest bringing a dry shirt to change into after the recipient of said line chokes on their drink and spits it out all over you.
Porsche Pick-up Lines
Social work is such a meaningful worthwhile work that I’ve decided to sell my Porsche and give up my lucrative law practice to join you!
Pardon me, do you have room in your purse for the keys to my Porsche?
Excuse me, but could I borrow your cell phone? I locked mine in my Porsche along with my Olympic Gold Medal, and I need to call my helicopter pilot to come pick me up.
It’s a good thing I’ve got a Porsche, ’cause you’ve got some dangerous curves.
While more of a pick-up “technique” vs. “line”, this one comes from some resourceful desperate soul on the internet: I would park outside a club and once I started to chat up some worthy woman, I would reach in my pocket and hit the panic button on my alarm remote. I would do this several times over the course of several minutes. Before long someone from outside would come in and tell the DJ. The DJ would of course announce, “Does anyone here own a Porsche Turbo? Your alarm keeps going off.” Having not mentioned my car to the woman I was talking to, I would turn and say, “That sounds like my car.” Without fail, the women would respond, “You own a Porsche?”…
Are there more Porsche Pick-up Lines Floating Around?
The lines and stories above are what my exhaustive and scientific research found. Do you know of any others? Better yet, have you ever used one? If so, we want to hear your story.
When a nationally renowned fine art museum is showcasing cars as masterpieces of art in your home town you pay attention. When you are Porsche you become a patron and help welcome the cars that represent the industry’s most incredible designs.
The High Museum of Art exhibition, called, fittingly, the “The Allure of the Automobile,” is sponsored by the famous German sports car company, headquartered in Atlanta, and will feature some of the world’s most rare and spectacularly conceived vehicles ever produced. Among these exquisite collectors items from both sides of the Atlantic will be a 71-year old Porsche design that is considered the precursor to all Porsches—the 1938/39 Porsche Type 64.
This incredible design piece is the only prewar Porsche and has never been exhibited outside of Germany. It will be carefully removed from its perch at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart and flown to Atlanta for the exhibition that begins on March 21 and ends on June 20.
Porsche is also displaying another historic car, the 1953 Porsche 550 LeMans coupe, which will be on loan from the private Collier Collection of Porsche in Naples, Florida.
Porsche Rolling Sculptures
Sometimes referred to as “rolling sculptures,” the incredible cars of the show are a mixture of innovative engineering, uncompromising workmanship and breakthrough design. When viewed as pieces of art, they give admirers a completely new way of looking at the great design periods of our time, spanning the movements from the 1930s to the mid 1960s.
“Our visitors will be surprised to find that today’s vehicles come from a legacy of beauty and innovation comparable to the finest decorative arts that may be found in museum collections,” said Michael E. Shapiro, Director of the High Museum of Art. “This exhibition will showcase the greatest feats of engineering and luxury design from 1930 to 1965, when cars became synonymous with success, power and wealth. Created for the privileged few, the luxurious, custom-built automobiles embodied speed, style and elegance, and influenced art, architecture, fashion and design.”
Six Decades of Porsche in the U.S.
“The Allure of the Automobile” is being sponsored by Porsche Cars North America (PCNA), which is headquartered in Atlanta and is celebrating the brand’s 60th anniversary of selling cars in the U.S.
“The partnership with the High Museum of Art, one of the world’s renowned art museums, is a perfect fit for us,” said Detlev von Platen, President and CEO of PCNA. “This incredible exhibition, ‘The Allure of the Automobile,’ is a celebration of ground-breaking design and engineering — a theme that resonates throughout our brand.”
An Object of Design and Desire
As a focal point of the exhibition, the one-of-a-kind Porsche Type 64 is a unique object in automotive history. It is unlike any other car on display; in fact it is not actually a car at all, but a hand-built, aluminum shell that represents the essence of Porsche design. Even today, when new Porsches are being developed, designers still look to the Type 64 to remind them of the brand’s unique legacy.
The Golden Age of Design
As part of the “The Allure of the Automobile,” the Type 64 will be joined by an iconic list of the world’s finest cars from the “golden age of automobile design.” These include masterpieces by Bugatti, Duesenberg, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Pierce Arrow, Packard, Cadillac, Tucker and others. This first-of-its-kind presentation traces the evolution of the motorcar from the mid 1930s to the mid 1960s, examining the contrasts between American and European design, the influence of decorative arts and design and the significant changes in automotive styling and engineering both before and after World War II.
“Until World War I, most cars had been utilitarian objects with one principal goal: transportation,” said Ken Gross, guest curator of the exhibition. “But as tastes and wealth coincided, designers could create and/or customize an automobile’s body, dramatically altering its silhouette and decoration and producing artful, one-of-a-kind objects. Lavish and often beautifully trimmed with aluminum, chrome, inlaid wood and lacquer, the streamlined silhouettes of the finest mid-century cars represent prime examples of Art Moderne design.”
While the first part of the exhibition will spotlight the custom coachwork, art-inspired styling, luxury and opulence marked vehicles from the pre-war era, the second segment of the exhibition focuses on how the industry shifted in the post-war years, with the Europeans moving towards smaller, sportier models, while the American manufacturers concentrated on mass-producing cars for a booming economy.
To learn more about the High Museum of Art and the exhibition, please visit www.High.org
We first introduced you to Guardian Angel Motorsports last year after a chance online meeting with the founders, Linda and Bruce Ledoux. As it turned out, John and I only live a few towns apart from Linda and Bruce and share a number of mutual friends along with a passion for Porsche and membership in the PCA. We finally had the chance to meet in person at Daytona, in 2009, where Guardian Angel Motorsports raised over $75,000 for Children’s Hospital of Boston.
This year, on January 30, 2010 Guardian Angel Motorsports has again entered a Porsche 997 Grand-AM Spec GT3 Cup race car in the famous Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona sports car endurance race. Their mission is to complete as many laps as possible, raising money for three charities along the way:
LOVE146, working toward nothing less than the abolition of child sex slavery and child exploitation,
FAAN, the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, raising public awareness, providing advocacy and education, and advancing research on behalf of millions affected by food allergies.
Matthew L. Greer Children’s Foundation, the Organization currently plans to educate children, empower them to develop life skills and to help them reach their full potential through supporting organizations that serve children at risk of not reaching that potential, especially in low income areas.
PorschePurist made a donation again this year and we would encourage you to do the same. Listen to Bruce describe his reasons for racing in the videos below.
Kicking off the 2010 Porsche Motorsport Season
Stay tuned all week this week as we prepare for the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. We have interviews with former Farnbacher Loles Grand-Am champ Dirk Werner and last year’s Daytona winner David Donohue. In addition, we’ll be covering the race first hand with updates on Facebook and Twitter.
We’ve been watching The Price is Right for at least 25 + years and in all that time neither one of us can remember a Porsche as a prize – although it is possible we missed an episode or two. Earlier this week a contestant had the opportunity to win a 2010 Porsche Boxster (along with some cash and a trip) in the Showcase Showdown. His bid of $58,500 (for the Porsche, $1000 in cash and a trip to Vegas) seemed spot on, maybe even a bit low. Watch what happens below (if you’re receiving this via email you may have to click through to the site to see the video).
That’s right, he over-bid by ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR BUCKS!!! What’s worse is the kid next to him won his prize and didn’t even seem to know it until Drew let him in on it. Let us on the show, we’ll definitely win!!!
UPDATE: It appears we did miss an episode! Thanks to Max from Facebook for the info. Watch the video below (it gets interesting about 1:45 minutes in).
Porsche is challenging its most passionate drivers in 2010 to hone their performance skills on an array of new and established locations that include the renowned Porsche Driving School at the scenic Barber Motorsport Park in Birmingham, Alabama, as well as other special locations around the globe.
Internationally, Porsche has plans for special hands-on driver training, as well as exclusive travel and driving experiences at exciting locations worldwide. Interested participants can begin booking immediately through the Porsche Sport Driving School and the Porsche Travel Club.
Most appropriately at this time of the year, the first event is Winter Training as part of the Porsche Driving Experience. Two ideal events for beginners are Porsche’s Precision Training Camp in Austria and Camp 4 in Finland. For more experienced winter drivers, on the other hand, Porsche is offering snowbound tracks and ice-lake driving courses prepared exclusively for the German automaker at the Porsche Driving Experience Center in northern Finland, which recently opened in 2009. Here, several Winter Training Sessions are being offered on this frozen tundra from January until the end of April. The ultimate driving experience here is reserved for the Master Training Experience, with Porsches running on ice with spiked tires that promise the ultimate in severe winter driving fun.
As always, the Porsche Sport Driving School operates year round and offers numerous courses for beginners, intermediates and advanced drivers, including special programs tailored to specific groups of drivers. Porsche Classic Training with historical sports cars, for example, is now being held for the second time. Super Sport Training, in turn, thrills drivers with the very high-performance Porsche sports cars such as the Carrera GT, the 911 GT2, or the GT3. The Women Only program, as the name indicates, is targeted specifically at women with a penchant for driving in truly sporting style.
The Porsche Sport Driving School forms the heart of Porsche’s performance driving events for most of its customers and has been a part of Porsche’s special events for many years. North American customers can visit Barber Motorsport Park. Guest drivers of all skill levels receive personal instruction in Porsche’s renowned sports cars from 28 top professional drivers, many of whom are highly accomplished drivers in their sport. For example, the team is led by endurance racer Hurley Haywood, who among other accomplishments, has won five times at the 24 Hours of Daytona, three times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and twice the 12 Hours of Sebring. Various programs include beginning, intermediate and advanced race instruction. Programs can be booked for one, two or three days.
All in all, some 250 instructors working for Porsche the world over guarantee optimum support and know-how for participants – on national and international race tracks, off-road and on ice. Participants even have the opportunity to acquire a motorsport license in order to join in customer races such as the Porsche Sports Cup.
The wide range of activities offered by the Porsche Travel Club subdivided in 2010 into four specific themes is both attractive and highly individual: Porsche Behind the Scenes, Porsche Weekends, Porsche Adventure Tours, and Porsche Camps. Apart from day and weekend excursions to popular destinations in Germany, Porsche Travel Club also offers exclusive tours to beautiful places both nearer by and far away. Driving a Porsche sports car, a Cayenne or the Panamera, for example, guests have the opportunity to discover Provence, the Côte d’Azur, the Alps or the Pyrenees.
The various courses and sessions offered by the Porsche Driving Experience may also be booked by companies wishing to give their employees a very special gift. For further information on both North American and international programs, please visit Porschedriving.com or call 888-204-7474.
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. I had always meant to share it with all of you but for some reason it never got posted. Well, that changes today. Any other “virgins” out there? 
