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Porsche's High-Speed Chase Toward the Digital Future

Porsche's High-Speed Chase Toward the Digital Future

Yahoo27-03-2025

Porsche hasn't always led the pack when it comes to digital infotainment, just look at the current-generation Boxster or the previous-gen 911. Historically, they have lagged behind some rivals in delivering intuitive, feature-rich multimedia systems. However, over the past five years, Porsche has significantly upped its game, notably beginning with the launch of the Taycan. With its latest major infotainment update across the 2026 lineup, Porsche now confidently stands alongside tech leaders like Rivian, BMW, and Tesla.Highlighting the revamped Porsche Communication Management (PCM) system is the introduction of Dolby Atmos sound technology. The goal is to bring studio-grade audio in-car by streaming high-resolution audio directly from Amazon Music or Tidal, something popular services like Spotify don't offer. Available exclusively in vehicles with Bose or Burmester premium audio systems, Dolby Atmos positions Porsche at the cutting edge of automotive audio experiences. Some other automakers like Cadillac and Rivian also offer the ability to stream hi-res songs directly from the multimedia system for the ultimate listening experience.
Porsche also upgraded the internal hardware for their multimedia system, allowing it to operates significantly faster and smoother than before. Enhanced computing power means quicker navigation, more seamless user interaction, and immediate access to apps and infotainment features.
Ever forget to turn the lights off when you left in a hurry? No problem. If you have a connected home, simply say, 'Alexa, turn off the living room lights'. It's the ultimate party trick, one you can pull off without letting go of the steering wheel. Low on milk, cereal or that coffee creamer nobody else in your household seems to like? In the old days, you'd have to wait until you parked to scribble a shopping list (or worse, try to remember it all). Now you just say, 'Alexa, add coffee creamer to my shopping list,' and voilà, it's on its way to your cart. Or, if you're feeling fancy, you can reorder that gourmet coffee you spotted last week, all while breezing through traffic, no need to stop at Erewhon.Sure, it's not exactly revolutionary and can come off a bit gimmicky, but it's nice to have this level of integration, especially when brands like GM, Ford, and Acura already offer similar features. There's no denying it's handy to be able to switch on the lights before you walk through the door, cue up your favorite tunes, or even turn down the thermostat — all from the driver's seat.
With Dolby Atmos onboard, lightning-fast hardware under the hood, and Alexa integration for everyday errands, Porsche's new infotainment suite stands shoulder to shoulder with today's tech-savviest competitors. Porsche is proving that cutting-edge connectivity and classic performance can live happily under the same roof, delivering not just speed on the road, but speed and efficiency in how you handle your day-to-day.

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1979 Porsche 924 Turbo Drive: Kicking It Up a Notch
1979 Porsche 924 Turbo Drive: Kicking It Up a Notch

Car and Driver

time6 hours ago

  • Car and Driver

1979 Porsche 924 Turbo Drive: Kicking It Up a Notch

From the February 1979 issue of Car and Driver. Understanding the Porsche 924 Tur­bo is easy. Just put your foot into it. Not much will happen for a second or two, but when the tach needle clears three grand, you'll think an afterburner has been touched off. This is the first 924 in which speed is of the essence, and that's just the boost this car needed. Sports cars are expect­ed to have a more favorable perform­ance-to-dollar ratio than other cars: per­formance should be in direct propor­tion to cost. The standard 924 is a little behind in the equation, but the 924 Turbo is dead-on, offering lots of speed and quickness for lots of dollars—140 mph in European trim for a cool $20,000. Now before the groans and rolling eyes start at the thought of a twenty-grand 924, consider this: the 924 Turbo cost no more than a stripped 911SC. It's almost the 911's equal in a straight line, and it's free of the 911's diabolical tail-happiness, which has am­bushed more than one expert driver and flung them backwards into the weeds. So, as an alternative to the aging but still vital 911, the 924 Turbo actual­ly makes a lot of sense. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver The extra six grand the Turbo badge costs gets you a 30 percent increase in power. American 924 Turbos, when they debut late next spring, will be par­celed about 150 hp, 35 more horses than are under the hood of a normal 924. We can't vouch for the perform­ances of U.S. cars just now, because the prototypes we drove at Porsche's press preview in Germany were built to Euro­pean specifications. Those cars had a healthy 170 hp (DIN), so were a bit more muscular than the U.S. versions will be. Nevertheless, the same basic modifications will be made to all 924 Turbos, European or American. The heart of the system is of course the turbocharger, in this case a KKK unit located down low on the engine's right side. It incorporates a pop-off valve that opens when you lift off the throttle. This valve and its attendant passage recirculate exhaust gas through the exhaust-side turbine. This keeps the turbine's speed—and hence its pressur­izing capability—from dropping off when you close the throttle momentari­ly, as you would during a shift. This bit of technology, by the way, was derived directly from the Porsche 917 Can-Am car of Mark Donohue and was seen first on the King Kong 930 Turbo street car. Downstream of the turbo's exhaust tur­bine is a wastegate, the preferred meth­od of boost control, set to allow a hefty ten pounds of boost pressure. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver Surprisingly little else was done to the basic two-liter powerplant to prepare it for the stresses of increased power. The block, crankshaft, connecting rods, and camshaft are unchanged. The head is slightly revised with larger exhaust valves. There are different pistons, and an oil cooler has been added to help dissipate the extra BTUs created by the turbocharger. But the extra dollars on the Turbo's window sticker get you more than raw horsepower. As you'd expect, knowing Porsche, the chassis has been upgraded commensurate with the increased per­formance potential. To rein in all the extra ponies, four-wheel disc brakes were deemed necessary. To make room for larger discs, Porsche opted for fif­teen-inch wheels rather than the stan­dard car's fourteen-inchers. And while they were at it, Porsche designers whipped up a new spider-web wheel de­sign. The new 15-by-6-inch rims carry 185/70 rubber, for a slightly larger tire footprint than before. The 924 Turbo also gets the five-speed transmission that is standard on all 1979 924s. Final­ly, the Turbo driveline is beefed up in all the necessary places to withstand the greater torque of the blown engine. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver The only visual clues you have that there is an exhaust-driven supercharger under the hood are a minuscule, soft-­rubber rear-deck spoiler, the special wheels, four new slots above the front bumper, and a NACA duct on the hood (put there not to feed the turbo but to help cool the engine compartment). The interior, with its annoyingly low­-placed steering wheel and recalcitrant pedals, is virtually a carry-over from the standard 924. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver Porsche has made a concerted effort to upgrade the overall quality level of the Turbo, however. To that end, there's more sound insulation through­out, and there's been a general tighten­ing of the bits and pieces that in the past have tended to buzz or rattle. The tur­bocharger adds an extra measure of qui­etness since it acts as an additional muf­fler. It all seems to work, because there is now a feeling of quiet refinement as you motor down the road. Final quality judgments, however, will have to wait until we see U.S. production cars. In other ways too, the 924 Turbo seems to have come of age. Mostly this is a result of the generous power curve balancing the already virtuous agility. In normal driving, when you use the throt­tle sparingly, the 924 Turbo feels, well, just like a 924—though there is an almost subliminal whistle present. But when you hold your throttle foot down, the whistle turn into a whoosh that will be recognized by those who have wit­nessed an accelerating 935 IMSA racing Porsche. There is no subtlety to the 924's turbo; it lets you know it's there with a solid surge of power that pushes you into the seat as the tach sweeps past 3000 rpm. You can feel it fall off boost slightly between shifts, despite the spe­cial plumbing designed to prevent this, but it's back on full song a split second after your boot hits the floor again. In the lower gears, the transition to full boost is sudden. Exiting a second-gear corner, for example, you'll feel the rear tires start to scrabble underneath you as the boost builds. Keep your foot in it and they'll turn to jelly, slewing the tail sideways. Clearly, there is enough pow­er here to keep your attention. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver The well-muscled engine, combined with the 924's good brakes and stable, slightly understeering handling, made our foray through the Stuttgart country­side both exciting and memorable. Out on the autobahn, the 924 Turbo was equally spicy. Set it loose and the scen­ery blurs, pronto. Darkness and heavy traffic prevented us from validating the factory claim for top speed. But that's a moot point anyway, since American cars will have less power and will likely be geared for less top end but equal accel­eration (0 to 60 mph in about 7.8 sec­onds). Still, 110-mph cruising was ef­fortless and reassuringly stable, and bursts to 125 mph were easy work. This 924's got legs. And that's really the 924 Turbo story. Speed, lots of it, and quickly. No 924 Turbo pilot will ever have to slink away from stoplight competition. In the hands of a good driver, a 924 Turbo will catch and pass just about anything on the back roads. The 924 is finally a truly balanced high-performance car, and no excuses or apologies have to be made to anyone, anywhere. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver But is it worth twenty grand? Well, for that matter, is a 911 worth what it costs, or a bottle of Dom Perignon, or a pair of Gucci shoes? The answer, of course, is yes and no. Porsches have survived because they offer their own exclusive brand of performance, and because the market will bear them. The Porsche 924 Turbo may be a far cry from the cars that looked like bathtubs and sounded like Beetles, but in philos­ophy it's not really all that different from its predecessors: fast, expensive, and exclusive. Proof, you might say, that the more Porsches change, the more they stay the same. View Photos Gero Hoschek | Car and Driver Specifications Specifications 1979 Porsche 924 Turbo Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2+2-passenger, 2-door hatchback PRICE As-Tested: $20,000 (est) ENGINE turbocharged inline-4, iron block and aluminum head Displacement: 121 in3, 1984 cm3 Power: 170 bhp @ 5500 rpm TRANSMISSION 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 94.5 in Length: 170.1 in Curb Weight (C/D est): 2565 lb Reviewed by Rich Ceppos Director, Buyer's Guide Rich Ceppos has evaluated automobiles and automotive technology during a career that has encompassed 10 years at General Motors, two stints at Car and Driver totaling 20 years, and thousands of miles logged in racing cars. He was in music school when he realized what he really wanted to do in life and, somehow, it's worked out. In between his two C/D postings he served as executive editor of Automobile Magazine; was an executive vice president at Campbell Marketing & Communications; worked in GM's product-development area; and became publisher of Autoweek. He has raced continuously since college, held SCCA and IMSA pro racing licenses, and has competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona. He currently ministers to a 1999 Miata, and he appreciates that none of his younger colleagues have yet uttered "Okay, Boomer" when he tells one of his stories about the crazy old days at C/D. Read full bio

Porsche Leads At Halfway, Ferraris Struggle at Le Mans
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Yahoo

time8 hours ago

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Porsche Leads At Halfway, Ferraris Struggle at Le Mans

Six hours into the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ferrari's battalion of 499 P racers seemed to be in complete control. In the six hours of night running since, the brand's three entries have all found small misfortunes that have re-opened the door to competitors from Porsche, BMW, Cadillac, and Toyota. Two Ferraris, the red cars numbered 50 and 51 run as part of the factory Ferrari AF Corse program, have been forced down the pit lane for penalties. One was forced to take a drive-through penalty for a procedural violation, while the other was given a five second stop-and-hold for contact with a lower-class car. The third, the No. 83 officially siloed off as a private car by AF Corse but effectively serving as an additional entry for the factory program, suffered from a brief run off the track from what was at the time the race lead. The leading Porsche has suffered a misfortune of its own, though. Porsche's leading car was in the middle of what was still a strong battalion of Ferraris at the front of the field when the entry was forced to stop in the middle of a fuel run. This ended what had been a major advantage for the team's No. 6 entry, which was slightly slower than the Ferraris on pace but had regularly run an extra lap on fuel before pitting and had gradually drawn closer to skipping a stop made by the Ferrari without sacrificing significant pace on track. With half the race left to run, twelve cars remain on the lead lap. That group includes all three Ferraris, the three factory Penske-run Porsche entries, two WRT-entered BMW M Hybrid V8s, two factory Toyotas, and the two Hertz Team Jota Cadillacs that started on the front row half a day ago. Ferrari and Porsche seem to have the strongest pace in clean running, and Ferrari's early advantage suggests that the Italian brand may be in a very strong position to repeat its victories in the last two races here, but all five marques can be seen as contenders to win the race. In LMP2, VDS Panis Racing leads what has largely been an unusually clean race for the generally very busy privateer prototype category. Manthey's 1st Phorm-branded Porsche 911 GT3 R leads the pro-am LM GT3 category, the only GT class still running under the current Le Mans rule set. One car in the Hypercar class, the No. 311 Cadillac of Action Express Racing, has retired. That car first went behind the wall with a power steering issue after sunset. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

I couldn't wait until Prime Day, so I bought a TCL TV from Amazon for $280 — the value is unbeatable, and I wish I had it sooner
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time12 hours ago

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I couldn't wait until Prime Day, so I bought a TCL TV from Amazon for $280 — the value is unbeatable, and I wish I had it sooner

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