Weekly Porsche Wrap

Best Brand 2009 = Porsche Accessories – Auto Motor Und Sport’ magazine readers voted Porsche Design as a Best Brand in 2009. Quite an achievement, but nothing really surprising. Porsche Design has some pretty sweet stuff if you haven’t looked lately. [Via PR.com]

Liz Halliday signs on with the Porsche Human Performance Centre – THE most successful female driver ever in American Le Mans Series history is linking up with the Porsche Human Performance Centre in 2009. The Centre’s experts will provide her with physical training assistance during the racing season. [Via PaddockTalk.com]

First hand count of time at Silverstone/Porsche Driving Experience – Speaking of the Silverstone/Performance Centre folks, this is what one lucky participant had to say about his experience:

Hi Guys

Went along to a Boxster driving experience today at Silverstone, all I can say is wow what a centre and what a great car!
I managed to drive the new 2.9 with PDK and I was very impressed with its overall performance and ease of use, still prefer a full manual myself but it was no slouch and gear changes were quick and refined, even pulling away hardly any lag at all.
The opportunity arose as part of the Gen 2 cars coming on sale so Mayfair Porsche sent us a letter (of Joy) asking if we would like a drive!

The day started with breakfast (always a good start) and coffee, then a tour around the facility and then a brifing before an hours worth of screaming around in the Boxsters.
We went on the Skid Pan – downhill slope with water streaming down a plastic coated surface – essentially too fast = no grip! the point was to drive around two walls of water – hmm didnt do too well at that to start with!
Very quickly spinning into 360 turns! over and over again!

Then off to the limestone surface which allowed me to learn the basics of drifting – 4th go managed to drift and almost maintain it for a couple of good 360’s! Amazing what you can do in a 200 mile Boxster!
Finally off around the handling circuit which after 7-8 laps started to get some pace but the person in front was holding me up.

Off to the showrooms after for a chat with some people and to find out if I could attend another time for a Cayman run – which was arranged by the sales person from the OPC bless her!

For a session for free – it was an excellent opp to drive these cars off the public roads!

Tone

Porsche 917 turns 40 – The Porsche 917 was unveiled 40 years ago on March 13, 1969 at the Geneva International Motor Show. It became a legend as one of the fastest and most successful racing cars of all time. Some great pictures on the site in the Via link. [Via DieselStation.com]

Kerry Katona, Former British Pop Star, Loses her Porsches – She lost her Porsche Carrera a while ago and recently had her Cayenne repo’d. Get this though. Not only did she lose the Porsches, she’s lost a Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Range Rover. What a bummer. [Via Luxist.com]