It’s been a busy week here at TwinSpark’s UK outpost. As the latest addition to the company furniture, I’ve been settling into my shareholder chair, and swapping Skype calls with my partners, looking at what we’ve got and considering what we’d like to have. Top of the want list is the same as any retailer: more customers.
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft (a company whose founders are renowned for Porsche enthusiasm) once said: “We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we’re in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There’s no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.”
Now, if you asked me as a long-term Microsoft user, was Windows 2000 in touch with customer needs and the [...]
- October 25, 2010
- R Gruppe Europe
- Posted by Rick Bruins
- 2 Comments
I’ve just finished a feature for Total 911 magazine on a good friend of mine in the USA who has a very nice three-car 911 collection. Needless to say, he’s an R Gruppe member, so one of his cars is an early 911, tuned for an exciting drive, but with standard looks up top. It’s the Sports Purpose way.
One of the points my friend made in the interview for this feature is that most people are now building homage cars, following factory looks from the good old days: RS, RSR, ST, 911R and all the variations in between. What he feels is missing is the next big thing in modified classic Porsche, in a similar way to the US hot rodders who customise cars like the Ford Model As, and the evolution of their styles from year to year. [...]
- October 19, 2010
- Porsche 911 Rally
- Posted by Rick Bruins
- Comments Off on Journey’s End: Peking to Paris 2010
I spent the weekend in Paris, meeting Porsche 356 racer Steven Harris and WEVO top man Hayden Burvill at the finish of the 2010 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. The weather was cold but sunny, and the streets were lined with spectators, all eager to see these magnificent machines arrive after their gruelling 14,000 kilometre drive across Mongolia, Russia, Iran and into Europe via Turkey and Greece.
On the 10th of September, ninety eight cars left China. Despite the incredible torture doled out on these vehicles, as they crossed the Gobi desert and used worn-out rock tracks to cover thousands of miles, only twelve retirements are recorded on the official time sheets. I’d call that the best result.
Standing next to cars like the 1903 Itala and the 1914 La France fire engine (“converted into a sports fire [...]
