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Another great day yesterday. And yeah, it's been a total blast.
In no particular order, yes, our delivery guy was Tillmann, and he was both very knowledgable and a really good guy. I was kind of in a daze at that point, with a perma-grin, and it was fun to spend 90 minutes or so with him going over the car.
Sorry for the radio silence yesterday, but we were busy from the time our feet hit the floor at 6:30 until we hit the sack at 1:30 am. Tuesday was about connecting with Porsche's heritage (which, for me was really about it coming alive), the people who make the cars and made our cars, and the people responsible for the Club Coupe project. Yesterday was all about enjoying the cars.
Yeah Mark, tow hook mounted front plates were a big relief when we packed the cars in the morning and headed out of the factory. We made a quick drive to the Solitude Castle for a photo shoot and then headed toward Peter Porsche's new toy museum in Austria, where we had lunch with Peter and he accompanied us on a private tour. The museum is worth a visit and was really busy; there are some remarkably rare vintage toys, many of which are the only known to be in existence. And the restaurant is serving food worthy of a Michelin star. Peter Porsche was generous with his time, humble and completely enthusiastic about this museum.
The drive to the museum from solitude took a little longer than planned - we didn't get there until 3:30 or so - and we didn't leave the museum until a little after 6:00 for our overnight stay in Leogang, Austria. The drive to the hotel was stunning, if a little wet, through the mountains. The day ended with dinner at a very cool mountain lodge in Leogang. Incidentally, My wife and I would come back to this spot for an extended stay in a second; it's spectacular and the hotel is really nice (Mama Thresl, it's called - here's a link to the site:http://www.mama-thresl.com/en/index/1-0.html).
Sorry for the lack of pictures - I'll try to make up for that today - but here are some impressions of the car. And yes, except for the color, this is simply a GTS Coupe driving review. But what a hell of a delightful car the GTS Coupe is! Really nice power, balance, and handling. Not to start a "politics and religion" tangent, but the EPS is superb as is the 7MT. I found the steering familiar and feedback at least as good, if not better than, my 997. I was worried about the feel of the manual transmission, but those were baseless worries. I spend pretty much all day in Sport Plus mode and didn't find the ride too stiff or harsh at any point with our car's combination of Sport PASM and no PDCC.
I hope the school of thought that you break a car in the way you are going to drive it is right, because I spent roughly 400 kilometers doing just that. Plenty of WOT and, um, use of generous revs. I'm pretty sure I kept it below 6,500 rpm...pretty sure...but the engine is seriously sweet up above 4k RPM. There were a couple of times that we were above 200k/Hour on the autobahn and the car felt nicely stable. So much so that my wife had no idea we were going that fast, except for the speed at which cars in the right lane were coming up and disappearing.
Today is a big day of mountain driving and, yeah, it's okay to be jealous. God knows I would be! We're headed toward Gmund for lunch and a private tour, and then on to Zell am See to meet up with the International Porsche Days event. I'll try to post pictures today, but it's going to be another very full long day so apologies in advance if I don't post pictures until tomorrow.
My wife keeps reminding me to take extra aspirin to deal with the headache resulting from perma-grin.
We were up and out early from the hotel Mama Thresl in Leogang Austria to Gmund. It was roughly a 3-hour drive mostly on country or mountain roads, the best of which was the Katschbergpass. I may or may not have hit the rev-limiter while passing a bus on this drive. Hopefully the mechanical gods appreciate my enthusiasm and this offering will make my engine blessed for life.
It would be surprising and unfortunate if my wife and I don't get back to the Mama Thresl hotel. I think everyone else on the trip said the same thing. Hard to explain, but it is a unique place in a beautiful setting that makes you wish for more time there. I highly recommend looking it up.
The visit to Gmund was kind of a spiritual thing. We were able to visit the barn building that has been preserved, which served as the design office, conference room and kitchen for the genesis of Porsche. The museum is interesting and worth a detour, but I'd have been disappointed if it had been a sole destination. That said, if you're even remotely close its worth checking out. Just for the pilgrimage alone.
From Gmund we took the Grossglockner Pass and had lunch near the peak at the Glocknerhaus, which promised "breathtaking views" and delivered! Unfortunately the descent down the Pass was wet, but still great fun and a nice way to become aquatinted with traction control.
I'll get back with more details, but the net is yesterday was maybe the best driving experience day of my life. Seriously. Particularly the Grossglockner Pass was like being in sports car Disneyland with a fantastic car!
looks like the CCs are being built with regular "red " tail lights, not the darkened/ smoked ones as was originally listed on the press kit from January and which are available from places like Suncoast for $$$. They would harmonize well with the CCs std blacked out rear graphics and std black headlights..I wonder why they were left off in production , since nothing else was .
Porsche should offer a swap out by request since that initial spec sheet may have led some CC buyers to believe they were also getting the " GT3RS " tailights and factored their higher price into the calculation of the CC MSRP's " valuation " before options.
JD, what color are the two turbos? They look really like club blau color from your pics.
Hey Tim. Nice touch from Porsche to have the two tour cars be blue as well, right? They're both Sapphire Blue. One is an S. And holy hell, I can tell you that the Turbo S has remarkable acceleration in the mountains!
Love the pics and commentary, JD, please keep 'em coming.
For those who Facebook, PCA's FB page has been posting regular updates on the boys' trip along with plenty of photos. https://www.facebook.com/porscheclubofamerica
Love the pics and commentary, JD, please keep 'em coming. For those who Facebook, PCA's FB page has been posting regular updates on the boys' trip along with plenty of photos. https://www.facebook.com/porscheclubofamerica
Sorry for the radio silence yesterday. I drafted a long post, but lost hotel wifi and the iPad app crapped out so it never posted.
Definitely check out the Facebook page in the link above. Among other talents, Vu is an awfully good photographer and lugged the good / heavy 35mm equipment over here.
We got lucky yesterday with some dry weather and roads. There are something like 170 Porsche cars from a boatload of international Porsche Clubs here in Zell am See. It was great to see some rare and beautiful cars, including a Champagne Yellow '66 911 being driven by a couple of fellow PCA members from Michigan. It's also nice to see the reaction that the Club Coupes are getting from other Porsche enthusiasts and from tourists who are here.
I thought we were going to spend a couple of hours yesterday puttering around the area at low speeds and seeing the beautiful Austrian countryside. Not! We spent 20 minutes of doing that, then ended up on some great twisties on which we got to do some spirited driving. And because the roads were dry yesterday and Porsche is hell bent on showing us a great time, we drove the Grossglockner Pass again (most of Thursday's drive was wet...and trust me when I tell you that if you're not insane, you don't want to drive at 8/10ths on that road, downhill, in the wet). For me, again, that was another best drive ever experience. Beautiful views, really nice road and for the most part other drivers displaying remarkable etiquette in letting faster cars past.
I've driven our car now more than a thousand kilometers and am feeling nicely familiar with it and its road manners and capabilities, which are both remarkable. I'm driving entirely in sport plus more and have no issues whatsoever with the ride with PASM Sport suspension in sport plus. The 7 speed manual is great and the clutch action just right for my taste. A very pleasant surprise for me is the rev match feature in sport plus mode. I seriously don't understand why others dislike this. I had to spend some time adjusting to how it worked, and keeping myself from trying to override it, but that didn't take long. There isn't a world in which I'll be better at matching revs than this car is and I really appreciated it doing its job while I had my hands full on the Pass yesterday.
More Porsche Days activities for us today in Zell am See. Autocross in the rain, tours of Wolfgang Porsche's estate and Porsche Design headquarters during the day, then a big awards dinner tonight. Oh, plus the concours - hopefully indoors - so hopefully there will be good photo ops.
My wife and I are very grateful to PCA, and in particular to Manny and Vu for everything they did to make this car a reality. If you haven't had the pleasure, they're really good guys who work hard for the Club and its members. And in Manny's case, as a volunteer. Likewise to Porsche cars for the work of the Exclusive department, to the travel club, and to the member liaisons for pulling this trip together. Seriously, if you have the chance to do a tour with the travel club, don't miss it. These people are doing everything possible to make sure we have a great experience, for which I'm both grateful and humbled.
I just checked out Vu's latest picture postings on FB and the thought occurred to me...what you guys are experiencing is like your very own exclusive, personalized Porsche Parade in Europe. Just awesome.
I just checked out Vu's latest picture postings on FB and the thought occurred to me...what you guys are experiencing is like your very own exclusive, personalized Porsche Parade in Europe. Just awesome.
That sounds right. And "just awesome" is a good way to put it.
Wait until you see the pictures from last night. I was fortunate to have my car on stage during the ceremonies for the Porsche Days event right next to the LeMans trophy that Porsche brought to the event. I only had my iPhone with me, so no particularly good pictures, but I'm sure Vu has it covered.
We're on the run again this morning. A great day of soaking in Porsche car and family and design heritage yesterday. Today my wife and I say goodbye to everyone and head to Salzburg. Can't wait to get behind the wheel again!
09-03-2015, 01:24 AM
