One of the most, if not the most iconic car shapes of our time, the Porsche 911 has made it to 50 without ageing a bit.

In fact, the older it gets, the better both the current model and its first ancestors are both looking.

To celebrate, as car companies do, Porsche has created the 911 50 Years Edition which will debut at the same car show that the first Porsche debuted at a half-century ago, the Frankfurt Auto Show.

The Edition houses the S version’s 3.8-liter flat-six upgraded with a Powerkit package that includes the Sport Chrono pack, and puts out 430 horses.

It can be optioned with either a manual or a PDK, and features two special grey paint palettes, big 20-inch rims, and some styling and colour cues from its forebears in the details.

It starts at $124,100.

OFFICIAL RELEASE: 911 50th Anniversary Edition

ATLANTA, June 3, 2013 - The Porsche 911 resolves apparent contradictions like no other sports car - such as between tradition and innovation or between exclusivity and high social acceptance, and of course between performance and efficiency. And so, Porsche is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 911 at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt with a special anniversary model based on the 911 Carrera S: like the original 911, the 911 50th Anniversary Edition is a coupe with a flat-six rear engine and rear wheel drive. Its efficient performance, active sport suspension - and special body have current relevancy: the anniversary 911 features the wide body, which is typically reserved for the all-wheel drive Carrera 4 models. This special edition will be limited to 1963 cars, a number that represents the year of the 911 world premiere.

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Say hybrid car, and you begin to lose a bit of focus. the eyes glaze over just a little…

Say Peugeot Hybrid, and you may be even less interested - unless you remember the Paris motor show last September, and one of the veritable stars of said show, the sublime Onyx diesel-hybrid concept.

Well, Pug is making good use of the positive reaction to its concept, bringing it out as a flagship amid a fleet of display and show cars to the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed.

According to HybridCars.com, the French carmaker will use the festival to road-test the carbon-fibre shelled oil burner.

The 2,400-pound car has a 3.7-liter, V8 diesel engine that delivers 600 horsepower paired with an electric motor that has another 80 horsepower. We would love to see that tackle the hillclimb…

Meet the Twin’Run - not sure why it’s spelled like that, but this is the quirky French carmaker Renault that we are talking about…

Tarting up the Twingo in the lovely Gordini blue - without the trademark stripe - and adding some go-fast bits is the usual fare for these concept/show/show-off cars, but not this time, with Renault shoehorning a 3.5-liter V6 a-la Clio R6, mid-mounted, and pumping out 320 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque through a F1-inspired six-speed sequential transmission.

It sits on 18-inch rims, massive for its diminutive dimensions, and the body is fibreglass and carbon fiber, so it weighs 2,090 pounds.

Plus those spotlights are just so cool…

Check out the short video, and enjoy the noise!

The Festival Of Speed/Behind The Drive-sponsored Mitsubishi Evo VI of Samantha Stevens and Daniel Lemish has claimed equal first in the national Australian Tarmac Rally Championship series after a podium placing at round two, the Lake Mountain Sprint, in Victoria last weekend.

Usually a tricky and technical 10km hillclimb, the Lake Mountain Sprint was changed this year to a multi-stage event, as are all the rallies in this year’s Australian Tarmac Championship series, and utilised both directions of the Lake Mountain summit road, the fast sweeping tarmac from Marysville to the base and the summit of the Alpine resort, and the dramatic tight twists and wide open throttle corners climbing toward the Reefton Spur.

Round two of the national four-round AASA Championship began early on Saturday, where clear skies had clouded overnight producing a slick wet surface. The Competition and Touring fields erred on the side of caution for the first few runs, with crews reporting no black ice or frost, but very slippery sections and changing grip levels.

Previous LMS winners Jeff and Catherine Denmeade (Mitsubishi Evo VIII) fired out of the starters box and built a quick lead, while the next three places were more closely fought between 2012 ATC winners Clinton Arentz and Pete Burrey in an Evo X, Vladimir Berak and Michael Luff in a Subaru WRX, and the husband/wife combination in the Festival Of Speed/Behind The Drive Evo VI, Daniel Lemish and Samantha Stevens; the pair swapping seats for this event.

The tricky conditions caught out one team partway through day one, with a Subaru WRX STI nudging a bank and losing a wheel. Both competitors were unharmed, and the field praised the RallySafe units that MMS runs in all events for alerting the cars to the hazard around a blind bend.

Conditions cleared later in the afternoon, and Berak began to pull away from the battling Arentz and Lemish, only for the former to suffer a gearbox failure. Arentz was forced to return to service, and TMR Australia set about replacing the gearbox – which was done in a matter of hours.

The next day saw a drying road for the first stage, but the dark skies and dense overgrowth promised a slippery introduction to the new sections of roads up to the infamous Reefton Spur. A major moment for Tim O’Connor and Gareth Sutcliffe (Subaru WRX STI) pleased the spectators at the Lake Mountain junction, though he valiantly kept the boot in and made it back to the road without collecting too much of the scenery or damaging his immaculate car.

At the end of the two days and 16 stages, the Denmeades had claimed an easy victory in their 2004 Evo, winning all but one stage of the event. Berak took second place, with Lemish third and halting Denmeade’s winning streak with a day two stage win. Fourth outright and the first Classic car was Keith Morling and son Alex in a Ford Escort, while fifth outright went to Glyn Crimp and Frank Brookhouse in a Ford Focus RS.

The ATC Leaderboard is now tied at the top, with Berak/Luff and Lemish/Stevens on equal points (1312pts), with the Denmeades third (1100pts), Arentz/Burrey fourth (1056pts), and O’Connor/Sutcliffe tied for fifth with Keith and Alex Morling (659pts).

The Australian Tarmac Championship, which is largely based around the alpine regions of north-east Victoria, now takes a break for the winter months and returns to the same region for the Great Tarmac Rally on October 26 – 27, with the fourth and final round, the Snowy River Sprint, on November 23 – 24.

Pic by Razor Photography

Every now and then, we hear a sad tale of woe about a stolen car - usually we feel sorry for the owner of said vehicle, but in this case, you simply cannot avoid feeling a modicum of pity for the thief.

Last Tuesday, a Miss Virginia Maiden of the small town of Kennewick, Washington, woke up to find her Toyota 4Runner SUV had been stolen from her apartment’s parking complex. She reported it stolen, and admitted that she may have forgotten to lock the vehicle the night before after her shift at the local McDonalds.

So, poor Virginia gets a ride five miles down the road for her afternoon shift at the restaurant chain. Lo and behold, at 3pm, her stolen 4Runner shows up - in her Drive-Thru lane. She promptly called the Police, and stalled the thief until they arrived. Probably by making her w3ait in the holding bay for some fresh French Fries…

The thief, a Miss Katherine York, 22, was hit with a double whammy - she allegedly had a heap of stolen clothes from JC Penney and Sears in the boot of the truck. A male in the car with her was set free without charges.

That’s one expensive Happy Meal - but a happy ending for the SUV owner.

The red flag that came out shortly before the six hour mark at this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hour… and at this point in time, it is still flying.

With an unprecedented nine hours under safety car with no sign of abating, the race has been hampered by heavy rain and fog, and was red flagged after just 32 laps.

At present, the Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 leads the race, with Manthey Racing’s SP7 car in second and its sister GT3 teammate in third.

When is an M5 or M6 simply not enough?

Apparently, you cannot sate some people who want an even sharper tool, so BMW has introduced a Competition Pack on its M5 and M6 Coupe, and the M6 Convertible and Gran Coupe.

The rumors have circled for a month now, but today the packs have been confirmed as a power boost of 15 horses, taking the total power of the twin-turbo eight up to 575hp. The Convertible is no faster, but the rest of the range gains 0.1 on the 0-62 sprint, and 0.2 to 124mph.

BMW are claiming a stiffer and lower suspension setup helps its slip, lowering the ride height by 10mm and stiffening up anti-roll bars, rear bushes and springs, which are also complimented by revised damper rates (and a good thing in the 6 Series, which particularly in GranCoupe form can be a teeny bit lurchy on weight transfer).

The Competition Packs also sharpen up the M-diff and the steering rack, plus the hold-onto-your-hats M Dynamic Mode (halfway between full nanny and flying solo on the stability control mapping) has been relaxed to allow for a bit more frivolity.

Finally, a special set of black chrome tailpipes and 20-inch M alloys finish off the Pack. The pricing will be released in August.

OFFICIAL RELEASE:

Woodcliff Lake, N.J. – May 18th 2013, 6:00pm Eastern Time . . . They are high-performance sports cars, each with an individual character and all sharing superior performance attributes with an incomparable driving experience. In the BMW M5 and the BMW M6 Coupe, BMW M6 Convertible and BMW M6 Gran Coupe models, race track technology is brought to the road. For generations, each model has joined race-bred chassis components and Olympic levels of power with linear control which can only be developed through years of laps around the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife in the Eiffel Mountains. Now, on 2014 M5 and M6 models, BMW M GmbH will offer a new Competition Package as an option for the four most powerful automobiles in the BMW portfolio.

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