Mrs Glynn and the Glynnettes have cleared off to Wales for a fortnight, so I’ve taken the chance to get stuck into my eBay campaign. I am totally browned off with being laden down by stuff I am not using, and am unlikely to have time to use in the next 12 months, so it’s all going. Everything. Yes EVERYTHING. It’s a major life clearout.

I spent the first hours of freedom this morning digging out gear that I took pictures of months ago and never advertised, dusting it off and getting it into GarageSale. Just as I was considering a coffee break, neighbour Kev (the drag bike champ) tapped on the window and told me it was time to put the kettle on. While supping our tea, Kev spilled the beans on his passenger run in an index-timed drag car, where the idea is to set a time first, then make sure you don’t go faster than it. See what you’re thinking there? That’s exactly what we both thought too.

Here’s how Kev’s run went. The driver pulled a burn out, then rolled into stage and launched, whereupon a program shut the power down for a preset interval, to help them make their time. The driver still has his foot flat on the floor and hasn’t touched anything yet. Then the power came back in and the car shot off again, with a gearchange solenoid selecting the ratios. This is not how I want my drag racing.

It got me thinking how little interest I have in ‘stamp on the pedal and let the electronics do the rest’ driving. It’s just so dull compared to how things used to be. Watching in-car footage of the Spa 24 hours while eating dinner left me feeling not that different.

Then tonight, I thought about the recent Youtube clip of the grid girl fainting on Ronald van de Laar’s Porsche 911 GT3-R, and the ensuing furore over a racing driver who only seemed concerned about his car. I didn’t have a problem with that – seemed reasonable given that five horny grown-ups rushed to be the first to pick the honey off the Tarmac. Anyway, I went looking and found a clip of the ensuing race. It’s gripping stuff.

There are two things I love about this whole affair. Firstly, I love that Ronald stays strapped in while girl plus sign clonks to the ground, whereas Stirling or Graham Hill would have been vaulting the bonnet to dispense the kiss of life – the second she started swaying. Secondly, I love that Ronald’s focus has not been interrupted in the slightest by the grid upset. He tears the 911 through the field in a way we Porschers can be proud of. The ADAC GT Masters is a series we need to watch!

I’ll start you off with the grid girl thing (as I know you’ll all like that) then show you the racing. Watch it to the finish, then watch it again. I did.

That little trip I took to France earlier in the month yielded some great results. I got to take a lot of pictures I liked, lots I didn’t like but that taught me a few things, and also made a pair of great articles out of it.

One of them is a piece for Total 911 magazine on our trip to Classic Le Mans: the driving, the drinking and the atmosphere. I met Jamie down there to shoot the pics and he did a cracking job.

Le Mans atmosphere research is straightforward enough: wander about, see the big guns, find out who’s up to what and make copious notes on everything. As the journo is responsible for setting the tone on a piece like this, it was my challenge to decide on the opener: that full-spread start picture that sets the tone and lures the reader in.

After a few days’ thought, I decided on a gaggle of 911s on classic two-lane blacktop: one of those tree-lined Frenchie boulevards, with stone farmhouses dotted either side of the road and peasants on bikes wobbling up the middle. Onion strings would be a plus.

Just up the road from my rented gite was the perfect location, spotted as I arrived in the Orange from Monaco on Thursday afternoon. One sunny morning, we took 4 of my housemates’ cars down to the perfect spot, briefed them on what was required and Jamie got the shot on the second run. As the car world’s number one snapper said immediately afterward: “if there’s one thing we do to the max, it’s nail a tracking shot!” Here’s a little video of lining the cars up before turning around and doing the business.

The mag may decide to go another way on how to lay it out, but this is how I saw it on location. Check the finished product in an upcoming edition of Total 911 magazine.

Rob Dickinson’s Singer road car is being officially launched tonight at Singer HQ in Sun Valley, CA. Here’s a blistering pic of the prototype shot by my Porsche creative partner, the erstwhile Mister Lipman. This was taken on California Highway 1, at sunset.

In an ideal world, I’d be able to zip in, cover the launch and drive the car tomorrow morning, before jetting out again and on to the next classic Porsche assignment. Sadly that is not the case: our favourite Porsche mags can’t bankroll us to that extent and I’m swamped with work in any case. We’ll let the rest have a first sit and drive, and then get under the Singer’s skin in a few months’ time.

When I heard about the grand unveiling, my first question concerned the clothes the car would be wearing. What colour would the modern classic sport at launch? Creator and journo had chatted at length about this during our 911 &  Porsche World photoshoot high on Mulholland Drive, and in the months since.

My favourite design mockup was a soft Sea Green: so different to most modern widebodies, yet comfortable and familiar. Almost Kremer-like.

News from Sun Valley is that Green was the colour chosen: a shade called ‘Very Very’! Can’t wait to see pics from the event in the next few days.

I just picked up this divine 1990 Porsche 964 RS to sell on behalf of a very good friend.

The car has done 54k kilometres and, though not mint, it is in very nice condition, uncrashed and unmolested. Most importantly of all, it is quite simply the best-driving 911 I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Why is that? Because the suspension has been tuned by none other than Mister Walter Rohrl, when it was used in development for Bilstein shock absorbers.

It’s set to go on sale at just under £60k. I reckon I could raise the folding if I really put my mind to it. More details later, with pics of Walter in the car.

It’s a real buzz to see Porsches in a car park at a classic event one year, and on the grid the next.

Porsche 356 at Classic Le Mans 2006

On my first visit to Classic Le Mans, 356 devotees Andy Prill and Richard Clark had just pulled off their own South American coup by tracking down and buying one of the 5 original cars (2 ex-Le Mans 550s and 3 356s) sent from Germany to compete in the Carrera Panamericana. Spotting the car parked up in the paddock, buddy Brian and I chatted with Andy, and I remember thinking how great it would be to visit events in such a unique discovery.

Simple, classic Porsche 356 interior

Lo and behold, the car ended up racing in the event driven by the two friends, this year carrying car number 1. A recent video interview with Andy on Porsche Origin tells how it has been around the world, racing at many more historic events in the last few years.

The same is true of Charlie Remnant’s divine 911 ST (above): spotted in the car park in 2008 and in the paddock this year. The car was also co-driven by Andy at CLM: quite the busy boy in those crazy temperatures! Such engagement with the core purpose of the car, and fans (like me) who come to see classic Porsches racing, puts these 356 and 911 people high on my list of ‘Proper Porsche Guys’.

Getting one seat at CLM is pretty special, but doubling up means you either have a screw loose or have got the Porsche bug bad. Watch the Porsche interview from Goodwood below: no prizes for guessing which applies here. Loving the Goodwood race number!

I got an email from Mr Total 911 magazine editor Raby the other day, telling me he’d be near the house this week. Did I want to meet up for lunch? “Sure thing,” says I, “let me know where and when.” The ‘when’ was today. The ‘where’ was the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone.

At just over ten miles from IB Towers, Silverstone is a favourite haunt. As another Silverstone fan (& lap record holder/race instructor) wanted to meet for a coffee and to discuss my potentially helping to sell his ex-Walter Rohrl-driven 964RS, I hooked up with him at the circuit diner, before trundling around to the Porsche Centre for lunch. Yes, my life is hard!

First impressions of the Porsche Centre are positive. On arrival there’s a C-plate Flatnose parked outside, so it’s not all current product. Good sign #1.

Inside, there’s a beautiful 356 Coupe, a Spyder race car and some very nice new cars, including a Vader-spec Panamera and a McQueen-spec 911 Carrera S: good sign #2. The 911 is painted special order Lamborghini Grey: the same colour Pete von Behrens chose for his insane WEVO-built Cup-engined 912, previously featured on the Classic Porsche Blog. With white wheels and the white S side flash, the car looks fabulous. A brave factory order for a demo!

Upstairs, the restaurant has one of the Fuchs-like Sport Classic rims hanging in the wheel display: good one #3. iPhone pic:

Nick Perry, fellow car anorak and media man at Porsche tells me that UK prices for the Sport Classic wheels are not yet set, but I expect more than a few modern 911s to start wearing these as they become available. Editor Raby has info suggesting the double-bubble Sport Classic roof is on sale at OPCs for a tidy £900, but the man from Del Monte says the roof, ducktail and paint code/trim colour are all unobtanium, to preserve the car’s rarity value.

Surely just a matter of time before someone figures out a reproduction: I’d put money on a Ruf Roof and Ducktail package in due course. Given the sea of RS reps in existence, Sport Classic reps are an interesting thought.

Lunch at the Centre was excellent, and left time for a quick tour of the place before Phil and Ali got started on their feature: shooting the Classic Experience. The Classic setup is an ’85 3.2 Carrera, a 993 and a 997, all owned by the centre and intended to give the driver an impression of how the 911 has developed over the years. Both classic Porsches came in through the dealer network.

The centre also keeps an average of 20 cars on its test fleet: manual and PDK versions of all production models, as well as examples of various power levels: with and without ceramic brakes and special suspension packages.

Alongside the Classic Experience, the Porsche Driver Centre runs other menu experiences (download the pdf here). There’s the GT day for a very reasonable £400, which includes a bundle of laps behind the wheel of a GT3, and ‘YouDrive@Porsche‘ days, where you can sample the centre’s facilities using your own four wheels (including a go on the skid pan/handling section), and round it all off with half an hour behind the wheel of a 997 Carrera.

In spite of my diehard corporate cynic gene, I enjoyed my visit to the Porsche Experience Centre. It’s not trying to sell you anything: it exists to support the dealer network and, more importantly, new Porsche customers who want to understand what their car is capable of. It’s a unique facility that sets our favoured manufacturer apart, so hats off to the guys who made it all happen.

Just sorting through the pics of the recent R Gruppe Bergmeister Tour for a Porsche World magazine feature. Here’s one that brings back happy memories: the time the front runners came around a corner at a rate of knots, to find one collapsed mountain and a road full of Volvo earthmovers shifting the debris. Everywhere we went, workmen were repairing landslide damage.

Sam and I actually came back this road about twenty minutes later. There was a three-ton rock in the middle of the road, right where my car is parked out of shot. It fell a few minutes after we left to head back up the Col. Two lucky escapes in one day! We were on our best behaviour after that.

Don’t suppose I need to say that a bit of tyre smoke needed to clear before I could take this picture…

Classic Le Mans was HOT. Too hot! As we were so busy with shooting a Total 911 piece and sorting bits for Jamie’s uber-cool Renault 8S, I didn’t get much time to wander around the car park either.

Thankfully, I can count on some stalwart Porsche pals to help me out with keeping an eye on the public parking. My buddy Chris Tarling took a couple of shots of an interesting early 911.

The colour on this hybrid looks like Irish Green. I love the front flares and curved rear quarters. Black-rimmed rear lenses do the business. Contrasting bumpers and engine grille are groovy, and loud pipes save lives!

Banded steels and sticky tyres are a look – no idea what it must drive like with all that dish.

The front end is love or hate, with grilled-out markers and indicators and the black-rimmed lights. The flip up centre filer is sweet, and I love the wiper-off look. Like being back in California. I think the whole thing is old-school cool.

I’ve been giving serious thought to selling my Carrera 3.0 and building something irreverent on that early T shell I have. I’m sort of on the fence over whether to sell the T as a potential rally car project or just do something with it and buy another Varmint-type SC from the US. I’m not dead set on owning an all-original early 911, but this car gives me the hots for the early 911 outlaw look. Tough to decide which way to go sometimes.

If this car rings a bell with anyone, get in touch!

Just had this through from 911 & Porsche World magazine.  Sounds like it might be good.

NEXT GRAND NATIONAL AUTOJUMBLE

Following the success of this year’s long-running Porsche Autojumble at The White Horse pub, Husborne Crawley, the organiser, Gerry Gibbins in conjunction with 911 & Porsche World has returned the event to its twice-yearly status.

The second Grand National Autojumble of the year will take place on Sunday 26th September at a new venue: Windsor Racecourse. The event joins 911 & Porsche World’s established annual Porsche Picnic, which has moved from its previous venue (Wellington Country Park) for the past five years. Joining the Autojumble and Porsche Picnic are enthusiasts from 911 & Porsche World’s sister titles: Classic Porsche, Ultra VW, Auto Italia and Japanese Performance.

A fabulous open-air venue with Windsor Castle and the River Thames on its doorstep, this assortment of cars at the course will create a relaxed and easy-going environment, taking you away from the hustle and bustle of race circuits or the confines of an indoor event.

So, come along and rub shoulders with the magazine’s editorial team, car clubs and readers alike and enjoy picking up a bargain at the Autojumble!

I’ve been back from France for a couple of days but, thanks to some serious deadlines and a couple of big (ultimately successful) meetings, I’ve not yet had time to sort through the pictures and video shot with my cameras. However, here’s an iPhone vid I think some of you will like.

I shot it on the Friday at Classic Le Mans, in baking heat: track temp was 45 degrees. At the time I could barely stand still for long on the tarmac in the 908 paddock – it was seriously that hot.

This is the scene just before the Porsche Spyders headed down to the pitlane for their Friday afternoon practice session. It gives a good idea of the level of energy you can absorb just by being around these cars. Makes me want to go and grab a cold Iced Tea and run off to the grandstands to watch the action!

I’ll post some more pictures tomorrow.