(Credit:
Jonathan Elfalan, courtesy of Road & Track)
When the weather turns cold, scores of well-to-do winter sports enthusiasts flock to the high slopes of Vail valley in Colorado for world-class skiing and snowboarding. But about 20 miles west of Vail Village, high upon a privately owned mountain, sits a secret winter wonderland: a racetrack made of snow and ice.
The twisty road course, built on top of a golf course, is the training ground for Camp4 Colorado, a winter driving school hosted by the Porsche Travel Club, an offshoot of the Porsche Sport Driving School. Here, with professional instruction, participants drive the Porsche 911 Carrera 4, the Carrera 4S, and the Cayenne SUV, in a variety of exercises designed to familiarize drivers with how the cars respond in low-traction conditions.
When I was invited to participate in the program, I was both excited and hesitant; this California girl has hardly ever seen snow, let alone driven in it.
Camp4 offers both a one-day program and a five-day program. The longer school is a combination of driving instruction and recreational activities (with only two-and-a-half days of actual driving time). Our media program was a tad modified--we did one full day of driving, with some additional organized activities afterward.
Some of the Porsche instructors
(Credit: Laura Burstein)The Colorado school is based on Porsche's Camp4 program in Finland, a winter-driving program in its eighth year that takes place at the Arctic Driving Center, a test facility long used by car manufacturers for covert cold-weather testing. But whereas the Finnish program takes place on a permanent circuit, the Colorado course had to be created from scratch:
While the weather was still fair, a team of designers mapped out the track circuit, careful to avoid obstacles such as sand traps. When winter hit, the builders used a "snow cat" tractor to pack snow into the grass over a period of a couple of weeks to create a base layer. Then, a water truck was used to run about 75,000 gallons of reconstituted water over the track, one section at a time, to create a layer of ice. Finally, fresh snow was dragged over the ice to create a powdery finish. That's no small feat.
Another thing that impressed me about Camp4 was the quality of the driving instructors. Most, if not all, had professional racing experience--including rally, open-wheel, drifting, and Nascar (though I won't hold the latter against them).
Our day began with a classroom session, where we learned about vehicle dynamics such as weight transfer, cornering, and traction, and how applying steering, throttle, and brakes in different combinations could control (or fail to control) a car in a slippery situation.
After class, it was time to head up the mountain to the track.
Continue reading Porsche's winter fantasy camp, part 2 >>>
Volkswagen has four new car architectures planned as part of its revamp, according to reports.
In mid-November Volkswagen announced it would be investing 28.9 billion euros in its automotive division over the next three years. The company said the changes would focus on completely new vehicles as well "successor models and derivatives" for all of its product classes. The investment will include new powertrain technologies and updates to manufacturing plants.
Today it's been reported this will entail the introduction of four completely new base architectures from which Volkswagen will build its new models and updates, according to AutoBlog and Automotive News.
To save on manufacturing costs, several similar-sized cars are often built on the same original platform, though things like exterior sheet metal, engines, and interiors are different.
The R-line high-performance version of Volkswagen Passat unveiled on Monday.
(Credit: Volkswagen)In the case of Volkswagen, the company plans to use its MQB (Modulare Querbaukasten aka modular transverse component system) architecture for "upper-medium" cars like the Passat. The MQB system will be the base for over 6 million cars per year by 2018 and save up to 40 percent per car in development and manufacturing costs.
The MLB (Modulare Längsmotor-Baukasten aka modular longitudinal engine component system) will be used for the Audi A4 and A5. The MHB will be used for small rear-engine vehicles like the Space Up concept car Volkswagen has been unveiling at car shows. A fourth unnamed architecture is also under development for Volkswagen's mid-engine sports cars sold by Audi and Lamborghini, according to AutoBlog.
While Volkswagen released a statement on the revamp, it was not immediately available for comment on the particulars of what those changes would entail.
News of change for Volkswagen is not surprising given an October court ruling that gave Porsche, which holds over 30 percent voting interest in Volkswagen, the ability to exert more control. Porsche has repeatedly said it would like to revamp Volkswagen to make it competitive with Toyota in terms of global sales. Toyota is known as a pioneer for its efficient plants with modular car manufacturing.
A German statute known as the "Volkswagen Law" was struck down Tuesday by the European Court of Justice, opening the door for sports car maker Porsche to acquire the German automaker.
The ruling means that Porsche, which has expressed an interest in making Volkswagen a rival to Toyota in terms of global sales, can now proceed.
Porsche already owns a significant amount of shares in Volkswagen. It's now free to continue buying up VW stock, increase its voting share, become the majority owner and take control of the company.
"With a voting interest of just above 30 percent in Volkswagen, we obviously have a high interest in exercising our voting rights in full," Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking said in a statement.
Specifically, the German law had restricted voting rights of a board member to 20 percent, regardless of the actual percentage of shares owned, and required an 80 percent majority vote to pass resolutions instead of the usual 75 percent required for public companies.
The European Court of Justice ruling on the "Volkswagen Law" (PDF) struck down both those restrictions, as well as one involving German governmental control over a company's board.
The court ruling was not a surprise, as it followed the opinion released by Advocate General Ruiz-Jarabo last February.
"Ruiz-Jarabo considers that the German government's approach is too wide and too far removed from reality, and is not based on overriding reasons relating to the public interest. Accordingly, the advocate general proposes that the Court of Justice should find against Germany," Ruiz-Jarabo said in a February 2007 statement (PDF).
Porsche is planning to partner with Volkswagen on the Panamera, according to a company update to shareholders, saying that the painted body shells for the four-door coupe will be supplied by the Volkswagen Hannover factory.
The engines will be supplied by Porsche's famous Zuffenhausen plant.
Porsche Panamera concept drawing
(Credit: Porsche)The Panamera is the new addition to Porsche's lineup through which the company hopes to "broaden its customer basis further and step up market penetration in order to safeguard long-term growth," according to a statement.
In other words (mine), Porsche hopes to snag more market share from the aging yuppies with car seat issues who probably still consider themselves hipsters.
But at what cost to the brand, I ask you?
The Panamera is scheduled for large-scale production from the company's Leipzig plant for the 2009 market. Porsche said in a statement that it's ramping up its Leipzig plant with a new production facility to the tune of about $206 million and 600 new jobs.
Meanwhile, AutoWeek has done it again, snagging some great spy pictures of the not-so-great Porsche Panamera 2010 in the works.
Admittedly, the actual Panamera (concept shown here) does look better than the Porsche 928 GT it's based upon, but still...a Porsche sedan? I'm just not feeling it.
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