porsche 356

Report: Diesel-Powered Audi R4 'Looks Good' For Production

Audi e-tron Detroit Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery

Our British friends at Autocar are citing unknown "high-ranking Audi insiders in Ingolstadt" as saying that there is a strong likelihood that a new Audi R4, Volkswagen BlueSport and possibly an unnamed entry-level model from Porsche are in the offing.

Assuming there is a degree of truth to the report from the British mag, the R4 would get a pair of turbocharged gasoline engines (displacing just 1.4-liters and 1.6-liters, respectively) along with the intriguing option of a 2.0-liter turbodiesel mill. Previously, Audi has shown off a small sportscar concept, seen above in the image gallery from Luxist's sister-site, Autoblog, powered by an all-electric powertrain.

Volkswagen, the huge German automaker that owns both Audi and Porsche, will have the final say in the development of all three machines. The good news is that Autocar's unnamed insider reports, "Scale is important to a project like this... But with three different car makers working to a common goal, the chances [of it getting the go-ahead] look good."

[Source: Autocar]

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Porsche Celebrates 60 Years in the United States

by Jeremy Korzeniewski (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

Porsche's 60 year anniversary in the United States – Click above for high-res image gallery

It's hard to believe that 2010 marks Porsche's 60th anniversary of doing good business here in the United States. Though, you might also say that very few automakers have done as much as Porsche in as short an amount of time, which we'd say certainly speaks to the ongoing quality of the German automaker's wares.

Way back in 1950, Ferry Porsche and two Austrians by the names of Max Hoffman and Johnny von Neumann got together to bring the very first Porsche 356 to New York. Ferry Porsche reportedly said he'd be happy to have just five buyers per year... to which Hoffman retorted, "If I can't sell five a week, I'm not interested."

Thankfully, there were somewhat more than five interested parties in those first few years (32 cars imported by 1951, to be exact), despite the fact that the little sportscar had but 44 horsepower from its diminutive air-cooled 1.1-liter powerplant and a sticker price that matched the standard-of-the-world Cadillac convertible of the same era. By 1954, 30-percent of all Porsche production went to Hoffman.

That took care of the eastern half of the United States, leaving the lucrative California market to be ably handled by von Neumann, who bought one of Hoffman's Porsches in New York in 1951 and drove it back to California. The rest, as they say, is history – the Far Left State would go on to become Porsche's largest single market and those early pioneers would prove to be a stepping stone to much greater things with a sportscar heritage that continues down to this day.

Read more about the 60-year history of Porsche cars in North America in the press release after the break, and don't miss the accompanying historic photos from Porsche – plus one not-so-historic shot that replicates one of the earliest photographs of a Porsche 550 Spyder in New York City. The more things change, the more they stay the same... true both of New York's skyline and Porsche's timeless roadsters. See below.

Gallery: Porsche's 60 Year Anniversary in the United States