Originally, Brett was along as an assistant to Frank. However, as Frank was exposed to more of Brett’s talent behind the camera (and his post production capabilities) Brett’s role grew. In fact, Frank felt that Brett would be perfect to capture what it takes to put together a photo-shoot of this size and scope and create a promotional video for Frank in the process. The finished product is below and while it is definitely “promotional” in nature, it’s interesting to see the number of people and process that go into putting together a photo shoot for a national campaign by Porsche.

Brett just returned from the Nurburgring where he once again was behind the scenes and in the pits with Porsche Motorsports during the Nurburgring 24 hours.

Related Porsche Posts
Pictures and Results of Porsche’s Participation in the 39th Nürburgring 24-Hour Race
How Do They Make Those Porsche Commercials Anyway?
Making of the Porsche Panamera Commercial

[Source: BakedStudios]

According to today’s release, “Porsche Museum’s classic cars will again be on their globetrotting travels.” Racing in the Targa Tasmania, the Millie Miglia, the Kitzbühel Alpine rally, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Silvretta Classic and the Ennstal Classic will be a significant collection of historic Porsche race-cars. See the full release below for details, or simply enjoy the pictures that accompany it.

Related Porsche Posts
Behind the Scenes of a Porsche Photo Shoot Part 1
Why You’ll Never Get to see the Porsche Museum Like This

The legends are under starter’s orders: In 2011 the Porsche Museum’s classic cars will again be on their globetrotting travels. At the pit stops before every race, the Porsche Museum workshop specialists ensure that the ambassadors on wheels of Porsche’s history are in tip-top shape for every event. Every bit as dynamic as the Zuffenhausen sports cars is their race schedule, which is updated constantly throughout the season. Numerous races are already scheduled for calendar year 2011. But the most important dates for the first half of the year are already confirmed.

The opening event for the Porsche classic cars is the 20th Targa Tasmania, being contested in Australia. A very special encounter awaits us there: For the first time in 30 years after their legendary pursuit as outsiders at the San Remo Rally, Walter Röhrl and Christian Geistdörfer are once again lining up on the starting grid in the Porsche 911 SC. The white 911 with its trademark “duck tail” hadn’t raced for 25 years before it was comprehensively restored by the Porsche museum. The SC will be accompanied by the 718 RS 60 Spyder, which won the 1960 Targa Florio, and the 908/02 Spyder, the winning car at the 1969 Targa Florio. Starting on 5th April, the rally winds its way through the north of Tasmania for five days and has been open to contemporary and classic vehicles since the mid 1980s. For the first time, fans can follow the rally on the Internet at www.youtube.com/porsche.

The 550 Spyder, along with other Porsche classic cars, is a traditional fixture of the Mille Miglia, which gets under way on the evening of 12th May 2011. The flat Spyder first contested the thousand miles from Brescia to Rome and back in 1954 and wrote itself into the history books mainly on the strength of a daring manoeuvre by its driver: Hans Hermann drove the 500 with its aluminium body under a descending railway barrier. Driver and car emerged unscathed. A 356 coupé with so-called “Knickscheibe” (bent windscreen) with its V-shaped front windscreen arrangement – will accompany the Spyder. The front windscreen of this Porsche 356 version came by its name because, although it was indeed made in one piece without a central stay, it was bent in the middle.

A 356 B 2000 GS Carrera GT has been booked for the Kitzbühel Alpine rally, for the past 24 years one of the classic car events. Because of its striking silhouette with rear window steeply raked for aerodynamic reasons, this vehicle is known throughout the world as the “Dreikantschaber“ roughly translated as “Wedge Blade”. The “Dreikantschaber“, only two of which were ever made, can be seen from 25 to 28 May 2011 on mountain roads in the Tirol, Salzburg and Bavaria.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is almost unthinkable without a Porsche. This year, the motorsport event, which has been staged every year since 1993 on Lord March’s estate in West Sussex, has been scheduled between 30 June and 3 July. This year, spectators can look forward to an eight-cylinder duet performed by the 804 and 908 racing cars. The 804, weighing a mere 461 kilograms, is the only Formula 1 racing car entirely developed and built by Porsche, winning the 1962 French Grand Prix. With its twelve kilogram body made of foam-reinforced plastic, the 908/3 Spyder is an extreme example of lightweight construction and won three of its four races in 1970 and 1971.

Two further highlights of the first half of the classic car year are the two Austrian events, the Silvretta Classic and Ennstal Classic. From 7 to 10 July, the 356 B Carrera Abarth will be demonstrating its reliability in the High Alps. The first specimen of this particularly streamlined and lightweight 356 won its category in the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 19th Ennstal Classic starts almost immediately afterwards, on 13 July at which the forebear of the Boxster, the 718 RS 60 Spyder will be taking part. In 1960 it gifted Porsche its first outright victory in the USA with first place in the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Also promised is the 904, the first Porsche with a plastic body. Only six months after first being unveiled, it won the Targa Florio and also proved its worth at the Monte Carlo Rally and at Le Mans. To this very day it is considered to be one of the most beautiful racing cars.

With this concept of the “Museum on Wheels” Porsche is going its own distinctive way. Almost all the museum’s exhibits are still roadworthy and as such are fulfilling the purpose for which they were originally built: They move. The Porsche Museum is all about variety and vitality, making it almost unique among automotive museums. Instead of a conventional, static exhibition, it presents a kaleidoscope image of constantly rearranged exhibits.

The Porsche Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For further information please visit www.porsche.com/museum.

[Source: Porsche AG]

CLICKING AN IMAGE BELOW WILL BRING UP A LARGER VERSION In A LIGHTBOX FORMAT TO SCROLL. IF YOU ENJOYED THIS POST BE SURE TO “LIKE” IT ON FACEBOOK USING THE BUTTON AT THE TOP.

Related Porsche Posts
Why Are Porsche Drivers So Attractive?
Why You’ll Never Get to See the Porsche Museum Like This
New Porsche Museum Opens

[Photo Credit: Brett Sloan]

There Are Exceptions

A few sites have stood the test of time and even flourished (PorschePerfect finds interesting items to write about and 9Magazine’s web-site is a resource for Porsche press releases and other product announcements). However, probably one of the biggest surprises for us, is Excellence Magazine. Why a surprise? Well, at first Excellence seemed slow to embrace new media. But now, things have changed. Their new web-site has been up and running for some time now and deserves some attention. In fact, their site goes on to say,

“Excellence continues to thrive as the most widely read independent Porsche magazine in the world. While the internet cannot supplant the printed magazine, it has become an important resource with a rapidly growing audience. Excellence is making a substantial investment in upgrading its website and will be featuring a large amount of content from past and current issues of Excellence. Just as Excellence is the most popular Porsche magazine in the world, we plan to make excellence-mag.com your favorite Porsche resource on the web.”

Your favorite? Okay that might be a bit of a stretch, after all we’re your favorite. Seriously, there’s a ton of room in this market for everyone (as we Porsche owners are so damn passionate) and Excellence is easily the leader. If one day PorschePurist can be looked on as the “Excellence” of the web, we couldn’t be happier.

Things to check out

While your over on the Excellence web-site be sure to peruse their “Of Note” section. Here they showcase content from past and present printed issues from a smattering of regular Excellence contributors and other Porsche luminaries. Here are but a few examples of what they have to offer:

• Photos of Rauh Welt Porsche
• Information and videos (like the one below) of Johannes van Overbeek driving two very special Porsche 935s on the track




• Porsche Insiders Explain the Porsche 918 Program

Enjoy, and if you haven’t already, you really ought to subscribe to Excellence!!*

Related Porsche Posts
Top 5 Reasons for a Porsche fan to use Twitter
What are your 5 favorite Porsche Resources?
Pick Your Favorite Porsche

*We are not affiliated with Excellence Magazine in any way (although we think we would make great friends). We just think they are one of the better Porsche magazines available in the US!

[Rusted Porsche Picture Credit: Dak-A-Tac]

First a primer. Twitter is a social networking tool that allows people to share what they are doing right now, with the world, in the form of short messages otherwise known as “tweets”. Think of each “tweet” as a blog post (similar to what you read here on PorschePurist) only much shorter (as they are limited in size to 140 characters) and not as well written.

Besides the obvious difference in post size, Twitter’s unique sharing platform allows your “tweets” to be shared and re-shared (otherwise know as a “re-tweet”) with your “followers” (friends and others who are interested in what you have to say) allowing your posts to go viral (explosive growth) in a very short time – this is especially easy if you’re a celebrity, a criminal or just plain stupid.

In addition to sharing your thoughts, you can also post news subjects and mark each tweet with a “hash” (#) tag that other people can use to search on such as #Porsche. More importantly, you can easily identify your friends on twitter and share with them by simply including their user name in your post such as @PorschePurist.

Anyway, you get the idea. The point of this post isn’t to teach you how to use twitter. Instead, we just want to point our a few reasons why, as a Porsche fan, you might want to consider it.

1. Porsche News and Information. Lots of It!

While we don’t know the exact number of Twitter users, it’s safe to say the number is in the millions, some say the tens of millions. Amongst this crowded space are thousands and thousands of Porsche fans. While not all of them are dedicated to preaching Porsche only, a fair amount do spread the gospel on a fairly regular basis. If you want to take a look, just go to twitter.com and do a search for #Porsche. The resulting list will give you a good idea of the people talking about Porsche right now and hence the people you might want to consider following. Just remember, as much information as there is, it’s very easy to become overloaded. Follow people carefully and cull your list often to those you interact with and those that provide valuable info. People fall off of twitter (get tired, bored or confused) just as fast as they open up accounts.

2. Free Porsche Stuff

It’s hard to imagine that Twitter could get any more popular than it already is, yet it continues to grow each day. As a result more and more of our favorite brands are coming online. In order to entice people to follow them, or to more effectively market their products, it’s not uncommon to give away FREE STUFF! Porsche, and other companies with Porsche related products, is no different. For example, just last week, a package arrived on our doorstep from @PorscheShopUSA (that’s twitter speak for the Porsche Design Group’s Driver Selection catalog) that included a great Porsche Crest Key Chain, a pen and a new catalog. What did we do to deserve this great recognition you ask? Simple, we just “retweeted” one of their posts out to our followers helping to spread the word. If you jump onto Twitter in the next day or two you can still enter into their current contest giving away 12 items from the catalog during each hour of this weekend’s 12 Hour Sebring Race.

Besides the Porsche Design Group there are lots of other companies doing the same thing. In fact, we here @PorschePurist do it now and again as well. In our last twitter contest we gave away free cases of Mobil 1 oil for new followers. Not a bad deal if you ask us. So, if you’re not already following PorschePurist, be sure to do so now!! There is a new contest just around the corner.

3. Porsche Deals and Promotions

Just like the giveaway offers we mentioned above, lots of places are catching on to the effectiveness of twitter and starting to offer online discounts to their followers. Heck, just a few weeks ago, one Porsche dealer offered an additional $500 bucks off whatever car you purchased. They even went so far as to remind people not to bring up the offer until after you negotiated your best deal (this way, no bias). We see service and restoration shops offering discounts and promoting restoration jobs, independent Porsche dealers showcasing freshly arrived inventory, etc. The list is endless and it’s not just Porsche related.

4. Meet new Porsche Friends and Other Interesting People

A lot of us belong to the Porsche Club of America or other owners clubs for our various countries. As great as these clubs are, not all Porsche owners belong to them and they limit your ability to meet only other members in your area or places you visit. With Twitter, there is no age limit (@PapaPaulVeal is 92 and tweeting away), no geographic limits (@PQRSHE is in Australia, @Total911 is in the UK) and so on. You’re limited only by your imagination and interests.

If you’re looking for a good place to start with Porsche followers, simply follow us @PorschePurist and check out who we interact with and who we follow. You can build your list from there. Here’s a short list to get your started.

@PorscheNewsWire
Porsche
@TruSpeedPorsche
@PorscheHeritage
@Total911
@BevHillsPorsche
@DedePorsche
@MuscleMilkRace
@PorscheDave09
@ThePorscheGuy
@PMLetter

5. How Else Are You Using Twitter?

We promised you five reasons, but we want to hear from you to fill in this space? Are you on twitter? If so, let us know and give us your user name. We’ll be happy to follow you Any recommendations you want to share with your fellow readers here on PorschePurist?

Related Porsche Posts
What are Your Five Favorite Porsche Resources
Porsche Magazines. What’s Available for the Porsche Fan?
Books about Porsche

[Source: 993C4S]

I’ve stated before that I have my own list of Porsche resources (and I definitely need to update it) that I use to collect information, educate myself and come up with ideas for blog posts. I’m interested in what you use.

What are your favorite ways of learning more about Porsche? Your answer can include anything Porsche related, on-line or off. I suspect that most of you will have one or two on-line spots you favor (maybe this site is even one of them). Perhaps it’s a magazine, maybe it’s a friend or mechanic, maybe it’s your local club. Anything goes!

But please limit it to 5.

Related Posts
Porsche Resources

[Source: Post idea courtesy of Problogger.net]

An innovative new website from the Publishers of Totall911 Magazine – www.911faceoff.com – allows
Porsche’s worldwide enthusiasts to sit in the driver’s seat of each 911 model and choose their all-time favorite from an exhaustive online database.

The website randomly pits two 911s against each other in an infinite number of faceoff battles, and depending on the results, it builds a comprehensive list of the top 50 Porsche 911s in order of popularity. To help you decide, each car comes with an image, specification, performance figures and a 911Face-Off rating. And if you’re really stuck, you can opt for a draw.

“911 Face-Off is great fun and surprisingly addictive,” said Philip Raby, Editor in Chief at Imagine. “You can make a snap judgment based on your gut instinct, study the stats carefully before picking, or use our ratings to sway your decision. Not only is 911 Face-Off a lot of fun, it’s also a real eye-opener to see just how many different 911s there are!”

Go check it out for yourself at www.911faceoff.com.

There is so much history, allegory and lore around Porsche (the man, the company, the car) that it would be next to impossible to showcase it in a simple blog post. Fortunately, there have been many, many books written on the subject. I don’t know about you, but I’m a voracious reader, especially on topics I enjoy. In addition, my family loves to purchase books for me (especially on the subject of Porsche) as its an easy, no-brainer gift that they know I will appreciate. As a result, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of books on and about Porsche. I’ve read them all cover to cover, most more than a few times. Here are two of my favorites that I think you might enjoy if you want to learn more about the history of Porsche.

Books about Porsche History

First up is Porsche: The Road from Zuffenhausen is a lavishly illustrated history of the most recognized sports-car maker in the world—Porsche—a story that began more than a century ago. This is the first book in more than twenty-five years to chronicle in such meticulous detail the early years of the renowned automobile company. Perfect for the more than 500,000 Porsche owners and the millions of Porsche enthusiasts, Porsche is a lively narrative of the cars and the people who created them. In the opening chapters, the reader will find the true heart of Porsche and its dedication to design and engineering, and then move on to the pre–World War II development of the first Porsche prototypes, as well as the development of the Volkswagen by Professor Ferdinand Porsche in the late 1930s. The story of the company’s early postwar years in Austria is a tale of commitment to an idea, an idea that resulted in the first 356 model and in a very short time established Porsche as one of Germany’s leading car makers.

Here is the entire history not only of the 356 but also of the development of competition versions, and of the evolution of the 550 RSK and the legendary 904 Carrera GTS. The story of the 911 occupies half the book, as this model has survived for nearly four decades—the longest production of any single postwar automobile design.

I really enjoy this publication. I keep it as a both a book for reference and for discussion around the coffee table. While most books on Porsche are specific to the history of a certain model, this book covers everything from start to finish. The narrative is brilliantly complemented by wonderful historical documents and photographs from the factory archives, provided through the cooperation of Porsche AG and the Porsche family, as well as original color photography by the author.

Second is Porsche 911: Perfection by Design by Randy Leffingwell.

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you may remember I interviewed Randy in early January of this year after receiving this book as a Christmas present. It’s my opinion, that this is one of the better general history books, on the Porsche 911, available today. The photography, combined with an easy to read writing style provide for a great background on the most storied of all models in the Porsche line-up.

If you don’t feel like going as in-depth as some of these books do, the Porsche web-site is an excellent place to get some hi-level history about the company and the cars. The more I keep digging, the more I find. If you’re looking for a list of the best-selling, Porsche model specific books, you can find them here.

Happy Birthday to the Porsche brand and here’s to 60 more!

I have subscriptions to the following Porsche centric magazines:

• Excellence: The Magazine About Porsche(USA)
• Total 911(UK based)
• Christophorus – English Edition (German based; published by Porsche)
• 911 & Porsche World (UK based)
• Gt Purely Porsche (UK based)
• Panorama (USA) See this post on why to join the PCA

What’s interesting to me about the magazines listed above is that more than half of them are published outside of the United States. Christophorus, as the “official” Porsche magazine, is understandably published in Germany. However, to have two of the remaining three published in the UK (I’m not counting Panorama, as it’s not something you can buy in the store or at the newsstand) seems odd. The U.S. is arguably Porsche’s largest market, yet Excellence is the only magazine published here. Anyone car to guess why? I don’t know, but I’m very interested. Is there opportunity for a new player in this space?

I also have subscriptions to the following non Porsche Specific car and lifestyle magazines:

• Robb Report (see yesterday’s post)
• Classic Motorsports
• Classic Motorsports
• Automobile Magazine
• Maxim (more lifestyle, but you can’t beat the pictures)

I’ve included links to Amazon for each of the magazines above. The point of this post isn’t for me to sell subscriptions. I’m more interested in know what you read and if there is anything I’m missing. Please let me know by commenting if there are other resources or magazines I might me missing.

Related Porsche Posts
Porsche Books