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I picked up my car in Toronto in Feb 2018. I had specced it to have minimum chrome, no Turbo badging, CF/black leather interior. and the usual torque vectoring etc, plus 21" Color-matched wheels and 20" regular winters.

RDMcG wrote: Fri Aug 25, 2023 12:39 pm I picked up my car in Toronto in Feb 2018. I had specced it to have minimum chrome, no Turbo badging, CF/black leather interior. and the usual torque vectoring etc, plus 21" Color-matched wheels and 20" regular winters.final_Large-5.jpg

Looks great! The spec is clean. Carmine Red I presume?

At the time, factory delivery had been suspended because of all of the Dieselgate stuff, so I determined that sooner or later it was going back to Germany. However,am unusual opportunity arose. I had met someone in Zell am See when I was at the Dr Porsche event in 2016 with my 991RS. He was in voted with the Concours of America in Detroit.
They were looking for a Panamera ST to add to a background display for the Concours. Was I interested?

Well, getting exhibitor status looked like fun, so off we went; I also took my 997RS as a runabout.

This looked like fun to be enhanced the scenes at a big concours, so I was on.
Drove down from Toronto and took my 997 RS as a runabout.

The quality of the cars on display was amazing Obviously my very ordinary Panamera was not an entrant!

my favourite was not Porsche but a magnificent Delage.....

Still, I really wanted to head for Europe, and though this is no track car, to track it anyway. That Fall I built the plan
I would ship it back in 2019, and have it delivered to my hotel in Frankfurt, run up through North Germany and the Harz Mountains, stop over in Berlin and run up to Copenhagen. The areas I wanted to drive in were not heavily touristed and had some superb placed to stay.

I also wanted to vMax on the autobahn and return to my old haunts at the Nürburgring and Spa where I have some local friends.

This takes a bit of planning, but as arranged, a small blue truck drove to my hotel and unloaded the car in five minutes. I had been in Frankfurt for two days to shake the jet lag and we were on there road in an hour...off to a variety of castles which were magnificent places and some lovely old towns Stayed at my usual hotel in Berlin:
and then off to Copenhagen for a few days where I just parked the car.

Then it was time for some proper driving back in Germany.. The Pana is very quick indeed and we hit over 300km/h on the autobahn. Rock solid.

Of course ,the challenge would be to see how it would work on a track given its size and weight.

The Nürburgring is a much slower track than Spa but it is not a forgiving place. It had been a few years since my previous visit. The car performed much better than I expected...amazing how surefooted something this size can be. Brakes could have been a little better but it is not designed for this abuse:)

And then Spa for a full trackday.


This is fairly full out stuff. Not over marshalled and there are frequent accidents. Blood fast track with some very quick drivers. After a track walk we were free to have at it. I had not been there for quite a while so used an instructor initially.

Was nice to have my plate (EAURUGE) actually on Eau Rouge, and that complex of corners is very difficult to get right....

I have driven it down a lot of Route 66 as I have a house in Scottsdale when my dog winters.....