I was down with JZM Porsche in Hertfordshire last week, doing a piece for Ferdinand magazine and talking about some other exciting stuff we have coming up together. Spent a few hours catching up with Jonas, and then Technical Director Steve McHale took me on a tour of their highly impressive facility.

As we walked through the showroom of Porsches for sale, one looked very familiar. “This is a car we sold and then bought back. It’s had a Cup engine with loads of 993 RS bits and a full respray: lovely car,” said Steve. I knew all about it – it was Peter Heaton’s 993 hot rod that I shot for 911 & Porsche World magazine last summer, as part of my monthly ‘You and Yours’ feature slot.

Have to admit to being slightly disappointed that it was back on sale. Rolls-Royce jet engine specialist Peter seemed properly in love with the car when we worked together, and the 993 was exceptional throughout. I loved this shot of the front wheel: printed it for my office wall, and put it on my business cards!

I shot the car as it came out of the paint shop after a big-money repaint in Polar Silver. Peter arrived in friend Paul’s BMW M3 Coupe and that was what prompted me to buy my saloon version a few weeks later. The whole day was good fun and also nice to work with C&N Customs in Middle Aston again (they painted the car).

Price has gone up since the last time it was sold: JZM are asking £44,000 for it. See the full Modified Porsche 993 for sale details here. Worth checking out if a unique 993 is on your list of wants.

How many of you have heard of Ferdinand magazine? Ferdinand is a digital-only Porsche mag, ‘published’ once a month and distributed free of charge. Launched in December 2011, Jamie and I supplied a feature for their first issue: it was interesting to see how they handled it.

The story we sent is a Team Glypman classic about our friend, Bata Mataja, and his terrific 356 Speedster, TestiRosa.

Bata is an amazing guy. Arriving in the US with nothing, he worked as a runner on the set of a car-ad film crew. When an opportunity came up to do some custom car preparation for an advert with some hot rod buddies, he took it and eventually started a business doing more of the same. Big American Dream Company is now one of the giants in its field.

Bata is also a respected restorer of significant vehicles (a Jay Leno car in at the minute) and a hot rod aficionado. The cars that Bata owns: well, a story for another day. Suffice to say they are mega.

Anyway, check the story out. Read Ferdinand online here or download it from the App Store here. You can subscribe, so you won’t miss an issue.

Further to the Bata piece, what about the last two pics shown here? It’s a Ninco slot car model of Bata’s 356 Speedster. Built on a Coupe body, it’s not a perfect replica but HOW COOL is a model of your very own car? Totally fantastic!

I’ve had a few emails asking about Race4Change’s ‘silver’ Porsche 911: the Funk/Doig car seen in a few pictures lately.

R Gruppe buddy Jim G in the north-eastern USA says: “I’m curious if you know how the silver finish on the Funk/Doig entry was accomplished? It appears to be similar to the silver on the McLaren F1 cars. I like the effect on a 911, it looks as though it was carved out of a block of aluminum, or stainless steel.”

The finish is paint: chrome paint. Tuthills painted the car from an idea by Funk, seen on some race cars and trucks at home in America. The very expensive top coat is applied over deep, mirror-finish black: any imperfections in the base black will be seen right to the top, so you’ve got to take extreme care with preparation.

John the Body is Tuthill’s resident paint man. John is old school, with a passion for vintage restoration of pre-war Rovers, and a penchant for non water-based paint. John prepped the Safari Rally 911 during the week, then painted it on a weekend, where there would be no dust-raising interruptions around to spoil the process.

Test panels done before the actual paint went on the bodyshell were well worth it. Though bright under sunlight, the up-close finish is soft and subdued, and not too heavy, either. Paint weight is always a consideration on a rally car and this was well within spec.

Richard Tuthill shook the car down with Funk (above) on a test day at the London Rally School in Bicester. The dry air and soft Autumn light gave a Kenya look to the location, and I managed to shoot some nice pics of the car in motion, with (I think) an East African/bushland feel. The pics have since been used in lots of our promo, including the recent Total 911 feature on Björn Waldegård, Tuthill Porsche and Race4Change.

I hope this answers your question Jim, and the others who asked. Feel free to fire more questions our way and we can cover them here on the blog.

Donate to Race4Change!

I’ve started working for the team at MSN Cars in the UK: using my 25-year motor trade experience to put some used car buyers’ guides together. Surprise, surprise, the first one online was a buyers’ guide for the Porsche 911.

The guides follow the full run of a range of cars, in this case almost 40 years. It’s not in depth per model, but intended to give a flavour of model overlap in the used car market: how the various subsets bounce off each other on price, ownership, reliability and so on.

The full spread of a model is quite different to the model-specific buyers guides I was doing for Autocar magazine last year, and require a different approach. I think I’ve hit it pretty sweetly, and it’s good to be back into wider market writing: you can drill too much from the Porsche well some months. An expanding client bank is also appreciated: a change in Features Editors at Autocar taught me that new editors usually means no more work, so you need to keep moving forward if you want to stay busy.

The MSN Cars 911 piece features pics taken by yours truly, and there are some familiar Porsche faces there. The Franklin/Highfield 964 C2, Paul Madden’s ST, Sladey’s 3.2 backdate and my own Orange are all shown. I’m pleased with how it looks and reads, and my editor at MSN loves it too: more features coming soon.

Piece number two was the BMW M5 buyers guide: cars from 1988 to now. I love M cars and my own M3 restoration at Racing Restorations in Pershore is coming on beautifully: great support from the local BMW dealer on discounted classic parts. The article is also now online: you can read the BMW M5 Buyers’ Guide here.

Great mate Gray has just sent me this – had to be blogged. The story goes that he was playing around with a mirror adjustment in his photo editing software and ended up with this. I reckon it was more than just a fluke.

Gives a whole new meaning to heart-shaped Fuchs!

I popped over to Worcester Porsche Servicing after guitar lessons today, to chat with Dom Delaney about the Mitsubishi Evo 10 he is running on next weekend’s Rally GB for some Finnish friends. Dominic’s work is highly regarded in rally circles, so he is extremely well connected. Having not been on a rally in ages, I’m going to do Rally GB with the team, and see what stories and pics we can get.

The visit was a spur of the moment thing, so I didn’t have any camera gear with me. Not too big a worry, as I did have my recently activated iPhone 4S. I played around a bit with that and came away impressed with the 4S camera upgrade. Here’s a few pics of the Jagermeister 934 with the Evo: both excellent cars.

After almost a year of shooting/blogging with my iPhone 4, I had come to know it pretty well. Shooting with the 4S is not the same. I was using Camera+ so I noticed a few differences almost immediately.

First off, the software refocuses lots more often. I might be able to change that, but a quick glance in settings showed no obvious adjustments – I’ll have a better look later. It’s a little irritating but not a deal breaker. The other big difference will take more time to adjust to.

Shoting for Camera+ on iPhone 4, you get used to the exposure levels required to get the most from adjustments you plan to apply after the image capture. The iPhone 4S is different: applying a filter to a picture with what looks like the same exposure settings will give a different result. Mostly not bad, but all different.

This was my first day shooting with the 4S and I have to say I was pleased. I’m looking forward to doing some more stuff at Rally GB: should be a lot of fun. Time for some new business cards to replace the old iPhone pic ones!

Things have been manic here since I got back from Rennsport. Today was the first chance I had to get over to the office, plough through some paperwork and sort out my iPhone 4S, which arrived while I was away.

I didn’t start with iPhones until the 3GS. I found it huge fun to take pics with, and so easy to share from. When the 4 came out, the camera took a huge step forward, so I changed. Honestly, I have never taken more satisfying pics than with the tiny camera on that phone.

Now the 4S is here with an 8MP uber-camera and a double speed processor, so we’ll see what that can do. In memory of my now-retired iPhone 4 (just gone on eBay), I’ve printed one of my favourite i4 pics on a likemycase.com case and wrapped the new boy in it.

Here’s a few more recent ones I liked. The King is dead, long live the King!

Today is Derek Bell’s 70th birthday. Seeing him at Rennsport a few weeks ago, he’s looking great on it: that’s what working at what you love will do for a man. I know the feeling!

Jamie and I met DB when we shot his 928 Club Sport for Porsche World magazine, in late 2009. What was due to be ten snatched minutes for some quick pics at the end of his working day with Bentley driver training, turned into an hour’s chat in the car park at the Goodwood Kennels! Derek is ever the gentleman and has a huge collection of stories. It was a delight and a privilege to spend time in his company.

Whether it’s waiting to jump into the 962, like above at Le Mans in 1987, or seen below in Le Mans, DB has always been balls-out. His autobiography “My Racing Life” is a great read. DB always speaks warmly of the other high cool Porsche guy, Steve McQueen, and one story in the book stands out – about driving with Jo Siffert on the set of Le Mans.

“So we both came charging through White House, Siffert right on my gearbox and, as I eased out to the right of the road on the exit, I saw something which made me do a double-take. On the white line, in the centre of the track, was not only a camera, but a body lying behind it!

“Jo had been all over me through the corner in the 917, that Porsche being a better proposition than the Ferrari, so he almost shaved this lunatic lying in the middle of the track.  When we finished the run, Sturges told us the whole sequence looked absolutely great from where he was watching, but I was pretty indignant. I said, “There’s some – - – - – nutcase lying on the ground in the middle of the corner out there”. So Sturges immediately called up on his radio and said “Steve, get back up here quickly”.

“I’ll never forget the sight as McQueen came roaring up on the bike, hair flowing in the wind and Sturges said, “Steve, who the bloody hell did you put in the middle of the road with that camera?” So Steve just grinned and said, “Oh, it was me!”. Bold as brass, lying in the middle of the circuit in order to get a better shot as we both went by at 160mph within a couple of feet of his nose. Just unbelievable. It’s something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.”

Many happy returns DB and hope you get everything you want today, if there’s anything left to ask for!

Here’s what Porsche has to say on DB’s history:

Born in Pinner, Middlesex, Great Britain in 1941, Bell is considered to be one of the most versatile and popular racing drivers of his time. Matthias Müller, Porsche AG’s Chairman of the Board of Management said: “Derek Bell made motorsport history with Porsche. Whether it was in a 917, 936 or 956 – he was always one of the fastest and most reliable drivers. Derek Bell won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times for Porsche. He won the world championship twice. For that we owe him our gratitude and great respect.”

Derek Bell began his racing career with Lotus in 1964. In Formula 1, he took his place on the starting grid for Ferrari in 1969. In the 1971 season, he drove the Porsche 917 and 908/03 racing cars for the Porsche-Gulf team, forming a successful driver duo with Jo Siffert. This was followed by appearances in the Porsche 934 and 935 in 1976 and 1977, before Derek Bell took his place on the Le Mans starting grid as a works driver in the 924 Carrera GT. In 1981, together with Jacky Ickx in the Porsche 936/81 Spyder, he won the first of his total of four Le Mans overall victories in a Porsche. 1982 saw the beginning of the Group C era with the Porsche 956, during which time Bell made his mark as one of the most successful endurance drivers of all time. Together with drivers such as Jacky Ickx, Stefan Bellof and Hans-Joachim-Stuck, he not merely won numerous overall victories in the Types 956 and 962, but also the World Sportscar Championship in 1985 and 1986.

Derek Bell remains in close contact with Porsche to this very day, constantly undertaking ambassadorial tasks for the Stuttgart-based sportscar manufacturer, such as for example at the Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nürburgring or at this year’s Corso to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the car. There’s no question that Derek Bell also remained faithful to the Porsche brand off the race track: To this very day he can be seen on Britain’s roads driving a 1981 vintage Porsche 924 Carrera GTS.

This is currently going slightly ballistic on my Tumblr page. I call it “Big, Bad and Dangerous to Know”.

I took this at a low point in the weekend. Yes, there were low points! It was late in the afternoon, I’d just been refused a photo pass without prior approval and then scolded by a track lady for standing on a low wall for five seconds. I was dehydrating, sunburnt, carrying a heavy photo bag and life was generally shit.

But life don’t stay shit for long when you’re surrounded by classic Porsche machinery. Standing next to the famous Jeans RSR, the crowds parted for half a second and I was ready to rock. Bam! In the Nikon. I see it as a double page opener for my Rennsport story: we’ll see how that goes.

Ten minutes later, I was in the rental car with a bottle of water, aircon on and the Zuffenhaus boys in the back. We had an early dinner at Baja Cantina, then I dropped them for their flight home and headed off to bed early.

When I woke up, everything was all better. Sleep is the best cure for what ails ya.

Am back in our US home-from-home at the minute after a monumental weekend down at Rennsport Reunion. Thanks to the folks at Laguna Seca Mazda Raceway, all of whom could not have been nicer, and to Andy Schupack at Porsche North America who helped me out with everything I asked for.

I’m doing a piece on the event for one of the UK mags – not sure who yet – but will tell the whole tale in due course. Let’s just say it was non-stop work with breaks for Baja Cantina, so if I told anyone reading that we might be able to hook up and it didn’t happen, now you know why that was.

Friday was HOT! Spent most of the day with great friend Aaron Winans from Zuffenhaus US, as Aaron is a lot of fun and has a very observant eye. We were still in the paddock when everyone was closing down, and I managed to get the security guards to let us ask Porsche if we could shoot some of the central display with no people around. Got the thumbs up so made the most of it.

New 911 looked great, as did the 918 and the rest. Surprise of that section for me was Sally, the Cars 911/996 welcoming people as they entered the Porsche paddock – kudos to Porsche for not taking that too seriously. Everyone I spoke to loved it.

Some truly great cars parked under the Laguna paddock marquee, under umbrellas, in the garages, in the tents, in the trucks, on the track, in the corrals, in the car parks: EVERYWHERE. I only had two and a half days to do my bit, so could not capture everything.

Early in the weekend, I decided to major on two ideas: the story of the event from my point of view, and TwinSpark Racing’s patron, Gijs van Lennep, driving his Le Mans Porsche 917 from 1970 at a track that was likely not suited to the set up and gearing. Both are great stories, so hopefully you’ll get to read them in print sometime. Final thanks to Sharon and company at Gunnar Racing for helping me out with access to the 917 while parked up.

Here’s a few pics to get you started. I’ve got about 2,000 frames to work through, but three features to write before Thursday and probably four separate shoots to organise, so no time to do much processing at the minute. More when I get time!