More Porsche Wagons

So I sent Greg at Daddytypes some shots of a Porsche 928 wagon (or "4 door sedan" as they prefer) that I saw at the Amelia Island Concours last week.

I was curious to see if anyone else had attempted this "dogs and cats sleeping together" project before and found some other Porsche wagons.

The first one I found is a 911 shooting brake by ProtosCar (a Swiss design company that works frequently with Rinspeed, a Porsche tuner) from 3 years ago, and it is perhaps the ugliest thing ever done to a 911:

Then I found a new one from a few weeks ago on Jalopnik:

Much better! I can't believe I missed it on "Maximum Wagon Day" in February. It's even got rear seat DVD for the kiddies!

Basically it changes from a four-seater to a two-seater El Camino/ Porsche hybrid in ten seconds:

"The almost magical transformation sequence is started by two electric motors that drive jackscrews to lift the entire roof of the vehicle. The front part of the roof then folds and in effect becomes the tailgate window while the rear part of the roof turns into the cargo bed. The tailgate is also electrically powered and can be lowered to extend the bed by another 45 centimeters to an overall length of 185 centimeters"

It runs on natural gas, so you can sneer at all those Priuses (Prii?) in the slow lane, too.

It also brings the bling with Swarovski crystals all over the interior and "... rearview mirrors as well as the front and rear bumpers are painted with sparkling crystal paint from Swarovski..." whatever that is. The pictures don't show the paint looking particularly crystalline, although it has that color-shifting paint that changes from "slightly green to copper".

Ok, change the shifting paint to safety orange/ fire engine red and I'll take it.

Why I like station wagons #1

This story about some guy in Germany wrapping his Audi RS6 Avant (station wagon) around a tree has been making the rounds lately. It's one of those "I can't believe the guy walked away from that" things. Driver doesn't know how fast he was going, but said he'd gone faster on that piece of road before. Evidently he walked away from the wreck and called emergency services himself.

The other crazy thing about this is that the bits and pieces that constituted the wreck sold on eBay for 6,700 Euros! $8,800 for a collection of parts you're going to have to pick up with a front-end loader! Of course, before this guy went ice skating with it, it was worth about $80,000.

Anyways, reason number 1 to like station wagons: they're safe, even when you drive like a MANIAC! And this is the car to do it in. 450 HP, o-60 in about 4.6 seconds! That's only about .8 seconds slower than a Porsche 911 Turbo. And you get four doors and a hatchback!

Here's a "before" picture:

The start of my podcast career

One of my "hobbies", I suppose you could say, is cars. I don't own anything exotic or work on them in my spare time, but I do spend a lot of time reading about them. I also listen to some podcasts like Vinny's Garage.
Vinny has a segment of the show called "Take it or Leave it" where he discusses various cars or trucks with people (usually his friends or relatives) and they decide whether they think they would buy this car or not.
A few weeks ago he asked for listeners who wanted to be on the TIOLI segment, so I wrote him this email:

Why I should be on take it or leave it:

I have risen above my humble beginnings, growing up in NYC with no car (My parents don't even have driver's licenses!) to become a gearhead.

I have 22 RSS feeds labeled "Cars" on Google Reader.

I stand as a staunch bastion against the rising tide of anti-minivan sentiment. It's the practicality, stupid. However, I still live in the hope that Renault will put their F1 powered Espace minivan into production. ( http://www.supercars.net/cars/1672.html) I could carry my
three kids and all their stuff and they would never be late for school
again. (OK, I could compromise with a Magnum SRT, but where's my Town and Country SRT?)

Since I am from New York City, I have an opinion on
everything (it's the law) and I am usually right. However, since I have lived in the South (GA) for many years, I am very polite about my intellectual superiority.

I went to art school, but I also went to engineering school. So I've got that whole right-brain/left-brain thing going for me.

I could go on and on, but really, what's the point? Looking forward to
working with you. :)

... with the result being we wound up doing the show. It's posted on his site as show #17, if you have a burning urge to listen.

Boy, do I hate hearing my recorded voice. Not to mention, unless you're a professional speaker, everybody always has those verbal tics which, when you listen to yourself, are very annoying. (I seem to say "exactly" a lot, among other things.) I do display a geek-level knowledge of horsepower and curb weights, though. Chicks dig that.

We talked about "crossovers", which are vehicles that are supposed to bridge the gap between cars and SUVs, but they're not wagons or minvans (heaven forbid!). I don't have much patience for this kind of car, because it seems to be driven by people's insecurities, even more than most car decisions. People who need the space of a wagon or a minvan, but want to think they are more outdoorsy or fun than that. Yeah, sure. To me they are just wagons that get shitty mileage and tip over easily. Or big tall minvans that use 10% more gas and have 20% less space.

It did seem to go fairly well though, and who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to do it again some time.