Porsche 911 Targa 4 S

It's ironic that Porsche, one of the world's greatest sports car manufacturers, names one of its least sporty cars after one of the world's greatest road races. Yes, there's always been something a bit wishy-washy about the Targa.

This latest version is better, though. The 996 Targa felt baggy, the sliding roof rattled a little bit in the rails - it certainly wasn't what you'd expect of a 911. I can remember feeling that the whole experience wasn't as taut as I had been hoping.

But in this face-lifted 997, things are much better. The whole car feels as rigid as the coupe, which is impressive, given the size of the glass area in the roof. There's absolutely no rattle from it, and it doesn't feel like there's a lot of weight up there, despite the Targa being a whole 60kg heavier than the normal coupe.

Porsche tells us that the fabric roll cover that slides across inside the roof is new, but it's difficult to tell for sure. It still works fine, and it still blocks out most of the sunlight so you don't scorch your bonce. The 'new' roof still slides in the same way as the old one - a single button drops it below the rear window and completely obliterates your rear view. And the Targa is still the most practical 911 because the rear glass opens like a hatchback. There's 230 litres of luggage space with seats folded.

But then the Targa 4 S driving experience is where the Targa package falls apart slightly. The 4 S is missing too much of that 911 soul - you don't get that classic rear-engined squatting roll through a corner, for instance. The steering feels a bit dead in your hands.

The 4 S simply feels like a really fast car. The Porsche precision is still there, but some of the feel and delicacy that used to make these cars the sports cars to have has been knocked back. Granted, our 4 S has the counter-intuitive PDK gearbox and I'm nit-picking, but the general impression I get is not the ultimate drive that Porsches used to guarantee. Even if this is a Targa.

The engine note has also been tamed, so you can't really hear the classic flat-six noise behind you. It now sounds far better from outside.

All of this is a huge shame. Every Porsche enthusiast has moaned that the character has been taken out of them since the demise of the air-cooled engine, but that never used to matter because the driving experience was so spot-on. Now, though, it's less so with the new double-clutch gearbox. The Targa never had the Porsche perfection, but this variant is now simply the rule, not the exception.

Porsche 913

Forgetting the Panamera, Cayenne and Macan, Porsche offer a pretty well-rounded sports car range. Starting with the Boxster and Cayman, and moving up the multitude of variations of the Porsche 911, all the way up to the 918 Spyder supercar. But there is a HUGE price gap between the top of the range 911 Turbo ($250,000 will all the options ticked), to the 918 Spyder ($800,000). Somewhere in that range Porsche could surely offer something to compete with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. Something like the 913 possibly? Conceived by the fertile mind of Rene Garcia, a professional 3D modeller who has created conceptual vehicles and highly detailed models for some of the biggest movies of the past decade, including the Matrix Trilogy, Transformers, the latest Star Trekthrillers and The Avengers, the Porsche 913 is an exquisitely rendered design in every detail. It has a bit of the 918 Spyder about it, but there’s also a lot of originality to the design. It looks like a Porsche, but a

Lamborghini Canto – What the Murcielago could have been?

Back in the late 1990s, when Lamborghini were starting to realise they needed a replacement for the ageing Diablo, they started reviewing design proposals from various automotive design firms. Zagato’s offering was the Zagato L147 SuperDiablo, or as it was to be later known, the Lamborghini Canto. The Lamborghini Canto first appeared in 1998, it arrived only two years after another Zagato designed Lamborghini concept had been unveiled, the Diablo-based Raptor. The cars shared a number of similar features, including the wraparound windows, triangular lateral air intakes, and trademark double-bubble roof. However of the two, the earlier Raptor was probably the better looking. Clearly Ferdinand Piech – head of the Volkswagen Group – thought so too. After VW bought Lamborghini in 1999, one of his first decisions was to review the Canto’s development and redesign the concept. The car was re-engineered and the rear extensively restyled to include smaller air intakes. The engine was also up

Audi R9 Concept

As Audi’s lineup gets ever more diverse it becomes harder and harder to guess which niche they’re going to try and fill next. The company’s current flagship saloon is the A8/S8, but Russian designer Vasiliy Markin thinks they can go one better so he’s come up with his own luxury saloon concept called the R9. The Audi R9 concept draws on several of Audi’s past and current vehicles for inspiration. Its angular lines were inspired by both the original Ur-Quattro coupe and the 2010 Quattro concept. The R9’s sloping roofline is modeled on that of the A5 and A7 Sportback models. In terms of competition the Audi R9 concept is designed to go head-to-head with the likes of the Porsche Panameraand the Maserati Quattroporte. To make sure the R9 concept would have performance to support both its chiseled good looks and role as Audi’s most expensive saloon, Vasiliy envisages a front mounted V8 engine coupled to a quattro AWD system. HHave more information about this car than please comment us or

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