HOLDEN is on the hunt for a new chief executive to carry it to the end of local manufacturing after the unexpected departure of Gerry Dorizas after only eight months in the job.

A statement from Holden today said Dorizas, who replaced former chief executive Mike Devereux in March after Devereux quit to take a more senior role at the car maker’s Singapore-based office shortly before GM’s announcement that Holden would quit manufacturing in late 2017, would “pursue other opportunities, effective immediately”.

“General Motors is 100 percent committed to the Holden brand and its long-term success in Australia”, GM executive vice-president and GM International president Stefan Jacoby said in a brief statement announcing the move.

“We thank Gerry for his contribution to GM Holden and wish him well in his future endeavours,” Jacoby said.

He said Dorizas had taken the reins of GM Holden “at a difficult period”, and had implemented “a number of measures” to convert Holden to a full-line importer once production of the Commodore large car and Cruze small car were switched off.

The statement said GM Holden chief financial officer Jeff Rolfs will serve as interim managing director until a new appointment was made.

Greek national Dorizas, a former head of Volkswagen India and Japan, Hyundai in Europe and Fiat in Greece, was appointed in February this year, and charged with the job of converting Holden to a full-line importer once the tap was turned of local manufacturing of the Commodore large car and Cruze small car range in late 2017.

He set Holden with a target of toppling market leader Toyota, which dominates Australia’s new-car landscape by attracting one in every four buyers.

Meanwhile, the woman who pushed Fiat Chrysler sales to new heights in Australia has announced she will leave the company.

Veronica Johns was appointed early last year after the departure of car industry stalwart Clive Campbell to take up interests in New Zealand with business partner Neville Crichton.

In her time at the top of the US and Italian car brands, she has helped to more than double sales of some products after repositioning them in the market, making them more attractive to a previously untapped group of buyers.

An announcement for a replacement for Johns, who is believed to be leaving the position for personal reasons, is expected soon.

Despite his history with Fiat, Dorizas is not believed to be in the running to head up Fiat Chrysler’s Australian operations.

We test the 10 best fast cars of 2014 on road and track. Stay tuned to the updates below!

WORRIED looks have been prevalent among V8 Supercar team owners in recent times due to the reports of significant commercial backers in the sport heading for the exit at the end of this season.

Along with the departure of sponsors, there are murmurs that one or two smaller teams may be forced to hand back their RECs (racing entitlement contracts) unless Santa brings them much-needed goodies.

Insiders have told Wheels that the cost of building, repairing and maintaining the new-generation V8 Supercars has hit budgets hard, one saying that his team’s two cars cost $1.3 million to build, instead of the promised $250,000 each.

“Yes, it’s a very tough commercial environment out there,” said a marketer from another team. “Ours is a very expensive sport and V8 Supercars sponsorship is now out of reach of most company budgets.”

Amid these concerns, V8 Supercars will reveal final details of its much-debated Gen 2 rule package by the season-ending Sydney 500 in December.

This is the blueprint for the future of the sport, specifically intending to appeal to manufacturers who have been seeking a race formula of greater relevance to the marketplace (and consumers).

The crux of the mooted changes is a freeing of the rules to allow new and different engines to race in a category that has been a mandated 5.0-litre V8 formula from day one, more than 20 years ago.

Among others, Volvo is eagerly awaiting the new formula, which it expects to be sympathetic to the brand’s new engine philosophy based on turbocharged four-cylinder units producing anything up to 500kW.

Recently appointed Volvo Australia managing director Kevin McCann warned, though, that it was important that any new engines allowed by the category retain exciting exhaust notes.

Two-door body shapes are certain to be part of an overhaul, opening the way for cars such as the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro to be used.

Car manufacturers have been canvassed for views on where the series should head technically following the end of local car-making.

V8 Supercars CEO James Warburton has promised the plans – including a new name and logo – will be revealed very soon.

V8 Supercars: Scott ready to “welcome” homecoming Marcos

EXCITING young V8 Supercars star Scott McLaughlin can’t wait to deliver his own brand of red-carpet welcome to returning two-times champ Marcos Ambrose at the street race at Homebush in December.

McLaughlin said he was pumped to learn Ambrose will race a third Dick Johnson Racing Falcon as a wildcard in the 2014 grand finale as a precursor to his full-time campaign next year with the remodelled DJR Team Penske outfit.

“For sure, I’m looking forward to it – Marcos is a legend of the sport and I grew up watching him and learning from him,” enthused McLaughlin.

“But 100 per cent I’m here to say that, while I respect him so much, I’ll be at Homebush to try to beat him.

“I race hard and I race fair and when the racing starts he’ll be just another racer.”

On Saturday, DJR announced Ambrose will return home soon after the final NASCAR Sprint Cup race of the year at Homestead on November 16 to familiarise himself with the aspects of V8 Supercars racing that he hasn’t tasted since leaving to chase his NASCAR dream in 2005.

“I am really pleased that DJR has been able to put the wildcard deal together for Homebush. I have never driven there, so it will be not only a bonus to do some really good long races, but it also gives me a good look at the track,” said Ambrose from his home in Charlotte.

“It will be a fantastic way to kick off our preparations for DJR Team Penske in 2015 and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into it.”

Team Penske’s Tim Cindric will also return to Australia, one year on from his first visit to a V8 Supercar event, bringing with him experienced members of the Team Penske IndyCar program to support the DJR effort.

Ambrose has indicated he doesn’t have high expectations of instantly matching it with the new breed of V8 Supercars frontrunners, but says he welcomes the opportunity to get up to speed with data familiarisation and set-up on the new-generation Supercars.

Dick Johnson said the Sydney 500 would be an ideal way for Ambrose “to not only get a feel for the car, but also an early opportunity to work with the DJR engineers and crew”.

Ambrose will need to reacquaint himself with standing starts, as well as the good and bad traits of drivers he has never raced against.

“So really for me the Sydney race is about just getting back into the rhythm of what a V8 Supercar is,” Ambrose, 38, told Channel Seven.

“I haven’t been looking at much telemetry over here in NASCAR because they ban it during race weekends.”

So we shouldn’t consider Ambrose’s last-start win in V8 Supercars at Phillip Island in 2005 as a form indicator for Homebush….

V8 Supercars: Jamie on track for title #6

JAMIE Whincup’s grip on a record sixth Australian V8 Supercars title tightened yesterday when the Red Bull Holden racer, along with his regular “Tonto” Paul Dumbrell, crushed his challengers with a dominant win in the second leg of the Gold Coast round on the steamy, brutal, claustrophobic streets of Surfers.

Whincup is on track to move one title ahead of the three other drivers to have won five national touring car or V8 Supercars crowns – Ian Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife.

Earlier on Sunday, Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin nabbed a brilliant pole – his eighth of the season – to equal Whincup’s haul in the tight and unresolved battle of the fast men.

But McLaughlin and co-driver Alex Premat ceded to Whincup/Dumbrell early and then in the closing stages had to deal with the threatening Nissan of Michael Caruso and Dean Fiore.

Saturday race winners Shane van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb (Tekno Holden) again uncorked sizzling pace, but then the Kiwi speedster copped a drive-through penalty for a restart infringement that left car #97 way back in the field.

No doubt propelled by anger and frustration, The Gis stormed back to fifth by the time the chequer was shown, behind Tim Slade/Tony D’Alberto, who enjoyed a fine weekend in their Holden.

Whincup now heads to the penultimate round at Phillip Island next month holding a bountiful 402 points advantage over Ford rival Mark Winterbottom, with van Gisbergen a further 76 points back in third.

F1: Speculation Audi will dump Le Mans and DTM and go F1 racing

RUMOURS have been around for years, but now the grapevine is white hot with stories that Audi is close to abandoning LMP1 sports car racing and DTM (the German touring car series) – two categories it has owned recently – to tilt at Formula One.

Remarkably, Audi has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright 13 out of the last 15 times. How many more times need it win the world’s biggest sports car race to show its technological supremacy?

England’s Auto Express reports that key Audi insiders have revealed the company is developing a 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 and is pursuing one of the Red Bull teams – Red Bull Racing or Scuderia Toro Rosso – to buy as an entry point into the sport.

The report suggests that the luxury German car-maker and its parent, the VW Group, have strong links to Dietrich Mateschitz, who owns Red Bull. Volkswagen’s winning world rally championship team is backed by the energy drink company.

Audi’s hiring of Stefano Domenicali, who recently resigned as Ferrari’s F1 director, is also seen as more telling evidence of Audi’s F1 ambitions.

Outside of F1, Domenicali has no experience relevant to any of Audi’s current motor sporting programs.

Stories of Audi’s growing interest in F1 have been around for some time, but cranked up when an executive of sister brand Porsche revealed that the company first plotted its return to top-level racing back in 2010.

Moto3: Jack keeps alive his title chances

JACK Miller has shown he is not done and dusted in the fight for the Moto3 world championship, pulling back Alex Marquez’s lead from 20 to 11 points after the Malaysian round.

The title will now be decided in the final round at Valencia on November 9.

Miller, who took pole, led the majority of the race at Sepang but missed victory by 0.2sec after being overtaken by Efren Vazquez in the run to the flag.

Marquez finished behind usual suspects Alex Rins and Danny Kent in fifth.

It has been confirmed that Miller’s bike will carry the number 43 into the premier class next season when the young Queenslander will ride a Honda for Lucio Cecchinello Racing, alongside Cal Crutchlow.

The Brit has praised Miller’s talent but cautions that he will need to “calm down” a little when he jumps on a MotoGP machine.

Crutchlow will have a full factory Honda MotoGP bike, while Miller will ride a slightly lower-performance production version.

Record-equalling win for Marquez in Malaysia

DANI Pedrosa slipped off early, leaving the surviving three of the big four to scrap for the win in the Malaysian MotoGP Grand Prix yesterday.

Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez went at it like we see at nearly every race, locked together in a tight bunch, probing and slipstreaming, centimetres apart at 330km/h.

The crowd roared with unabashed delight when Rossi, a winner at Phillip Island a week earlier, pounced at half distance, with Marquez following into second soon after.

But nothing stays the same in MotoGP and Marquez capitalised on a Rossi mistake to take the lead.

It seemed like game over, but 35-year-old Rossi relentlessly stalked the young world champion, as Lorenzo lost touch.

Meanwhile, Pedrosa, who had remounted and resumed in 20th place, made his way forward to 11th before he binned it again, this time more comprehensively.

Then, with four laps remaining, Marquez lit the touch paper and stretched the gap. The fierce Rossi challenge had been quelled.

At the finish, Marquez held a 2.4sec margin to land his 12th win of this stunning season, equalling Mick Doohan’s record of wins in a season.

Marquez was the third winner in the past three races.

MOST OTHER people’s dreams might involve skinny-dipping with Queen Elizabeth II or dining with dead rock stars, but mine have always seemed pretty reasonable.

My dreams have simply been a life-long saga of sports-racing cars from the 1960s and ’70s and Formula One cars from the ’80s. With me driving them.

Klaus Bischof steals my dreams and lives them for real. He can even add the fantasy dinner guests that have included fallen heroes like Pedro Rodríguez, Jo Siffert and Stefan Bellof, and that still include Jacky Ickx, Derek Bell and Walter Röhrl.

As curator of the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Bischof spends his year choosing which priceless Porsches he’ll take on his world travels. In recent months Bischof, who joined Porsche in 1968 as a race team mechanic, has tripped to the Mille Miglia with a 550 Spyder, the Dominican Republic with the 1976 Le Mans 936 and his beloved Targa Tasmania with a 1963 356B Carrera GT.

“That’s the most problem,” Bischof shrugs. “To jump from one century to another.” (We’re not sure if he means the cars, or Tasmania).

I’ve shared the dream a few times, even just two years ago in a selection of Porsche Museum road cars on Austria’s Grossglockner Pass. But the highlight so far occurred in 1999, when Bischof came to Phillip Island with three special guests: road and race-winning (#26) examples of the previous year’s GT1-98 Le Mans car, and one of the latter’s drivers in Scotsman, Allan McNish.

So here, in 2010, was Bischof at Mt Panorama for a Porsche Clubs gathering at the Festival of Sporting Cars. And who’s this? The GT1-98 strassenversion – nice to see you again! And, well-hellooo … a car I feel I know inside-out but have never come close to driving – the fabulous 935.

But this happy scene was merely the prologue to a Dynasty-sized betrayal. My joy would soon be ashes in my mouth. Bischof would drive a wedge between me and a friend of some 25 years standing. I would drive, er, nothing.

I may never erase from my memory the smug, sneering countenance of that great, gangly git Peter McKay in his glistening Martini overalls.

Let me at least tell you I’ve driven the 911 GT1-98 Strassenversion before. For about 50 metres, before I broke it. Any sadness over that was forgotten within minutes by my getting to drive something even better. So (and how’s this for blasé?) the white GT1-98 at Bathurst – the only one of its kind ever built, a genuine road-registerable Le Mans winner – just didn’t, uhh, float my boat. The traitor McKay could drive it all the way back to Sydney for all I cared.

Nope, for me this day was all about the 935. Or wasn’t.

It’s either my age or the longevity of the 911’s shape, but the 935 still seems like a thoroughly modern race car to me. Fact is, Porsche developed the 934, 935 and 936 to contest the FIA’s new-for-’76 sports and touring car classes (in, respectively, Group 4, 5 and 6) the very same year it launched its first 911 Turbo road car.

Porsche built just 20 works 935s, between late-1975 and early-1980. The works cars were built at the Weissach racing department, with Bischof there in the thick of it. With engine capacity creeping up from 2.8 to 3.2 litres, the 935 would largely dominate five years of endurance racing and be capable of top-three finishes at Le Mans.

With a fairly conventional steel shell beneath wildly-winged fibreglass bodywork, the 1976 version’s 2.8-litre, single-turbocharged flat-six engine offered around 440kW. Despite having only a four-speed gearbox, it was capable of 0-100km/h in 3.2 seconds and a standing 400 metres in less than nine. A top speed of 340km/h put it among the fastest of anything in F1, Can-Am or Indy.

The car Bischof brought to Bathurst is one of three works cars built for 1977. It had stepped up to twin KKK turbochargers, helping it to develop 470kW at 8000rpm beneath larger, smoother bodywork. Tyres were little kangaroo-paw 265 x 16-inch on the front, and whopping 360 x 18-inch (originally 370 x 19) at the rear.

With tricknology like titanium driveshafts, cockpit-adjustable, coil-over-damper Bilstein suspension (replacing the 911’s torsion bars) and 917-derived, bias-adjustable four-piston brakes, the 935/76 came in at 80kg under the Group 5 weight minimum of 970kg.This allowed Porsche to ballast the car to its ideal 40/60 front/rear weight distribution.

In the cockpit of my mind, the 935 has always been a swirl of perceptions, like its haunched rear end and needle-like nose; massive horsepower combined with primitive turbo technology. I’d imagined the 935 to be outside the capabilities of any mere mortal.

This car wasn’t. While the prototype-class 936 won the 1977 Le Mans race outright, this very same #41 935 of Manfred Schurti and Rolf Stommelen (later to lose his life in a Joest 935) expired ingloriously at the five-hour mark with a broken engine.

Bischof fixed this car’s engine and changed the wheels and tyres (nobody makes 19in racing tyres any more). And here it sits. “Most cars are [restored] in the race department where they came from,” he says. “They still have the [supplier] connections, and in Weissach, of course, we make the parts by ourselves, like we did in those days.

“It’s still the chassis, completely, the brake discs, the [bodywork], the engine – okay, new piston rings, it’s just serviced but not made new – but the crankshaft housing, camshaft, it’s all original.”

Just as it raced in my dreams, then.

Well, if I can’t drive a 935, I can at least speak to someone who did. And not bloody McKay. Nine-three-fives are no strangers to Australia. In 1982 the first Aussie owner was, appropriately, Alan Hamilton, whose family company imported Porsche from 1951-’92. Hamilton’s collection already included a 934 and the awesome 917/30 Can-Am.

Hamilton had signed homecoming king Alan Jones to drive for him in the reborn Australian GT Championship for 1982. Hamilton became anxious that his factory-promised parts for a 944 Le Mans Turbo replica would not arrive in time.

“I started fishing around for an alternative, and [German property baron] Georg Loos was selling his 935, I believe the last works 935 built,” Hamilton recalls. “I was in Stuttgart at the time, and Georg agreed to meet me. They cleared out the carpark at Werk 1 and he landed there in his private helicopter – as you do. We transacted the deal on the spot.”

The 935 was flown out – by which time the 944 was in fact ready. Jones simply walked off with every one of the nine rounds, with Colin Bond usually not far behind in the 944.

Despite Hamilton’s 3.0-litre example having around 520kW for 1025kg, it was, he says, a much easier car to drive than his 934 (raced in 1980 by Allan Moffat, who would also share a 935 K3 at Le Mans the same year).

“I think [the 935] would still, with modern tyres, comfortably see off V8 Supercars,” Hamilton says. “The power-to-weight is better and the handling would have been superior as well.”

Melbourne’s Rusty French had run a De Tomaso Pantera until, after seeing Hamilton’s car in 1982, “my sponsors decided they’d like to sponsor a 935.”

The only other 935 in the country was a 1977 Kremer K3 owned by Bruce Spicer, and driven by former 911 RSR racer, John Latham. For French, buying the 935 was the beginning of an affair that lasts to this day; he currently has four 935s, including his matched pair of K3s, and is something of a world authority on 935 historic racing and parts engineering.

“I had never driven a Porsche before of any sort and I went straight into a 935,” French chuckles now. “Bruce said to me, ‘take it up to 8000rpm and take your foot off the clutch…’ It took off like a dragster, you couldn’t see the pits for smoke! That’s not the correct way to get ’em off the line, as we found out later.”

At the close of the 1982 season, French bought Hamilton’s car and did to the 1983 GT championship what Jones had done the previous year.

“Until you get used to it, they’re a bit hairy,” French says. “They tend to be a bit tail-heavy. “To describe the power … Coming onto the [old] main straight at Winton in second gear, they’d actually mono up the hill. They’d lift the front wheels off and if you didn’t have them pointing in a straight line, because of the spool in the diff, they’d just sort-of head off towards the crowd.”

French races his “pigeon pair” Kremer K3s each year at the Monterey historics in California, where they’ve won against 35-car, IMSA-pedigree fields.

Here’s cheers to the 935, a car that customers could buy from the factory in 1976 for US$75,000 (just under three times the price of a 911 Turbo, and double a 934) and put themselves immediately at the pointy end of international sports and endurance racing.

One-third of a century later, 935s are still making magic on the racetrack. And some of us are still watching, like dreamy teenagers, from the sidelines. Hmpphh.

DRIVING THE 935 – by Peter McKay

Driving old cars is a bit like revisiting old girlfriends; you’re invariably doomed to disappointment. But with certain racing cars, there should be exceptions. One is the Porsche 935. Legend.

Flashback to 1980, at the 24 Heures du Mans. I was there doing a fly-on-the-wall story about Allan Moffat in his first Le Mans. He was driving a 935 with Bobby Rahal and a bloke whose name I’ve forgotten.

In the middle of the night, in the pitch dark, I’m perched at the end of the Mulsanne Straight (in the era before chicanes) watching the 935 arrive at close to 360km/h, braking ferociously, musically dropping a couple of gears, and then arcing hard into the right-hander, all with a piercing light show and snap/crackle/pop from the exhaust on overrun. I was in lust.

Thirty years later, desire and dreams and rare opportunity fall my way … I’m getting behind the wheel of a 935 at Mount Panorama.

Many years beyond my prime, such occasions are not contemplated without a dash of trepidation. To use a museum piece to re-shape the scenery at Bathurst is a horrible thought.

The Martini 935 is not just valuable; as the winner of the World Championship of Makes, it’s irreplaceable. Yet I’m stunned by Porsche museum curator Klaus Bischof’s unfussy attitude. His briefing takes about 10 seconds; “Start it like this (twist and push), simple H-pattern with four forward gears, the tyres take a bit of warming up, get aggressive with the locked diff … oh, and the brakes are not so good. Enjoy!”

One of the hardest moments to absorb in this whole unlikely sequence, is the hang-dog, “it shoulda-been-me” look on the face of Stahl as, in my borrowed Martini racesuit, I buckle into that left-hooker 935 seat, the seat that has in years past accepted the Nomex-clad backsides of Porsche heroes Jacky Ickx, Jochen Mass, Rolf Stommelen, Manfred Schurti…

Gurgling and shaking up pit lane, I scan a cabin that has many familiar old 911 cues (gauges, switchgear, windscreen, doors…) I realise Kasual Klaus hasn’t even given me a rev limit. I settle on a conservative 6500rpm (later he says 8000 would have been okay).

Bischof has told me that with normal boost, there’s 630 horses to play with, in a car that weighs 970kg. A fiddle with the overtaking boost knob alongside the seat would introduce a further 50 horsepower to the equation. I’m not going there…

The first time down Conrod, I roll off the throttle over the humps, visions of those aviating Mercs at Le Mans dancing into my consciousness.

It feels so, well, wonderful. Effortless. I wasn’t pushing it to the point where I could tell you it needs a tyre pressure adjustment. The torque is fat and glorious, arriving with some subtlety initially around 5000 and then thickening up progressively along the two straights…

The gearing is tall. Gotta be the Le Mans diff ratio. It’s so tall that I decide to grab first gear at The Cutting and again at Forrest’s Elbow. The power-down capabilities are stunning – it squats and fires – though the 935 doesn’t like the track’s ripple strips. And at speed, the car wanders, the fat rubber following the imperfections in the asphalt.

Soon I’m smiling like a fool, easily spinning the engine to my self-imposed 6500rpm in fourth down the hill into The Chase. Bischoff tells me later this equates to 280km/h or so. He’s right about the brakes. The rotors feel like they’ve had a hard life, like a touring car in the last hour of the Bathurst 1000. But we’re not chasing a world championship here, so it doesn’t matter.

So easy to drive, really. Like a 1980s touring car, except with greater steering tactility and more urge. Not at all like the light-switch power delivery I’ve imagined for three decades…

DRIVING THE GT1 – by Peter McKay

If only Porsche had created its GT1 Le Mans cars around Hans Stuck or Walter Röhrl, men of sensible, lofty proportions. Instead, in designing its 1998 GT1, Porsche carefully reduced the Batmobile silhouette to snugly accommodate the pint-sized 165cm, 58kg Scot, Allan McNish, who, let it be said, went on to win the 1998 Le Mans with similarly undernourished driving colleagues Laurent Aïello and Stéphane Ortelli.

Trying to concertina a 187cm me into that alarmingly confined space behind the chopped steering wheel of the homologation special GT1 strassenversion (street version) which formed the template for the car that ate Le Mans, proves do-able – but only just. Knees are jammed under the dash, size-nine race boots only just find accommodation on the pedals, and the helmeted head is cranked at an uncomfortable angle beneath the carbonfibre turret.

Being nominally a road car, the white GT1 doesn’t get the garish livery or race number of the track version. It’s even got a lap/sash belt. But the high-downforce bodywork, bitumen-hugging scoop spoiler and integrated roll-cage are cues to its focused intent – which in ’98 was to win the world’s best-known sports endurance race.

First impressions: this is a big sucker. At nearly five metres long and two metres wide, it dwarfs the taller, louder, brighter 935 alongside it.

With the door open – up and inwards – the driver surprisingly limbos in on the right side of the car, the sequential shift lever to the right.

Rearward vision is rubbish – a mirror the size of a mobile phone is perched on each front guard, the right side one conveniently obscured by a hefty A-pillar. There’s no interior mirror. This may not be a concern when you’re the dux of the class on Mulsanne, but when you’re finding your way among a flotilla of unknown Porsche drivers at Mount Panorama…

Onto the circuit, and another design problem manifests itself on this warm morning; there is no fresh-air ventilation, other than a tiny, indolent fan which seems to work inversely to the engine performance. However my neck is aching so badly over the bumps, and I’m worried about scratching a car worth as much as my house, I care not a whit about stuff like ventilation.

The sequential ’box, I’ve been warned, needs plenty of muscle. Understatement. It needs an almighty wrench, simultaneously using the clutch pedal. There’s no electronic assistance. And still there is reluctance. Initially, I’m missing more gears than I’m finding, my lovemaking way too gentle. Only when I get angry and aggressive does it come together cohesively.

On the straights, it’s a sweet thing, the engine effortless and energetic. I’ve been told to use 6500 to 7000 revs, and at the top end the GT1 offers up that glorious irrepressible surge, like an aircraft just before lift-off. Ah, yes, which reminds me of that sobering YouTube clip of a GT1 driven by Yannick Dalmas executing a clever, if unscheduled back-flip at Road Atlanta during the ’98 Petit Le Mans.

The 1998 GT1 race car’s water-cooled, twin-turboed and intercooled 3.22-litre flat-six is mid-mounted, makes about 640 horses (480kW). The road car doesn’t seem to have that much. Maybe 500. The exhaust noise via the twin copper pipes poking out the rear is surprisingly subdued, inside and out.

The brakes are stunning, as in most Porsches, the steering surprisingly light, although heavier in high-speed turns when the inherent downforce kicks in.

In the end, I get just two laps of Mount Panorama, head cocked at a mad angle, helmet bouncing off the roof, enjoying only selected (smooth) bits of the journey. A pox on short-arsed Allan McNish’s uncooperative gene pool. Maybe that short-arse Stahl would have been a better fit…

PORSCHE 935 Body steel, 2 doors, 2 seats Drivetrain rear engine (north-south), rear-wheel drive Engine 2867cc flat six, dohc, 24v twin turbochargers Power 470kW @ 8000rpm Torque 590Nm @ 5400rpm Transmission 4-speed manual Size l/w/h 4681/1971/1265mm Wheelbase 2271mm Weight 890kg 0-100km/h 3.1sec (estimated) Price US$75,000 (price of customer car in 1976)

PORSCHE GT1 STRASSENVERSION Body aluminium, 2 doors, 2 seats Drivetrain mid engine (north-south), rear-wheel drive Engine 3164cc flat six, dohc, 24v twin turbochargers Power 400kW @ 7000rpm Torque 600Nm @ 4250rpm Transmission 6-speed sequential Size l/w/h 4710/1980/1173mm Wheelbase 2700mm Weight 1250kg 0-100km/h 3.7sec (claimed) Price DM1.5m (new, 1998)

Have you bought our media-rich iPad edition yet? Kings of the Mountain was originally published in August, 2010.

Last Wednesday (October 15) marked the first anniversary of the death of British racing driver Sean Edwards. Edwards was tragically killed in a crash while instructing at Queensland Raceway – he was just 26.

Edwards was a regular in Porsche Supercup Germany, finishing second in the championship in 2011 and 2012, and the Formula One-supporting Porsche Supercup.

A regular podium finisher, with three wins from the first five races, Edwards looked a shoo-in for the 2013 title and was leading the championship at the time of this death.

He was also one of the world’s finest GT Endurance drivers, winning the 2006 GT3 European Championship, the 2012 and 2013 24 Hours of Dubai, and the 2013 Nurburgring 24 Hours.

For a graphic illustration of Edwards’ gift behind the wheel, watch the video above, taken from a 2011 VLN race at the Nordschleife.

It’s long, and the action doesn’t start until around the 1:00 mark, but it’s also utterly mesmerising, with Edwards carving through the pack.

Granted, you’d expect him to fly past the back markers, but even as he works his way up the field he continues to take massive chunks of time out of the cars in front of him.

It’s a masterclass in overtaking on the world’s most difficult racetrack.

It appears the Northern Territory government’s decision to derestrict sections of the Stuart Highway has proved an irresistible carrot to the crew of the world’s biggest car show.

First reported by Behind the Wheel, English tourist Emily Worrall (@EmilyWorrall) snapped off these shots of Clarkson, Hammond and May filling up at the Adelaide River service station in which she works.

The UK crew are no doubt filming one of their epic road trip adventures, in which each of the presenters chooses a car and a number of challenges are given. One of the challenges will definitely be a drag race, with the trio filmed by Facebook user Wesley Gottliebsen at a local airstrip.

Clarkson is driving a BMW M6 Gran Coupe, May is in a Nissan R35 GT-R and Hammond has chosen the very same Bentley Continental V8 S that we drove earlier this year.

Filming for the new series has been underway for a while now, the trio recently hitting the headlines after being chased out of Argentina.

The derestricted highways of the Northern Territory were once worth big money as a manufacturer test site and it appears that once again Australia is on the motoring map.

Have we seen the last of the naturally aspirated Porsche 911 Carrera?

Apparently so, according to MOTOR’s European correspondent, Georg Kacher.

As reported in the latest issue of CAR magazine, Kacher states that both the Carrera and Carrera S will switch to forced induction with the arrival of the 991.2 facelift, due to launch in Europe in the third quarter of next year.

While it’s well known that Porsche is developing turbocharged engines, it was believed that the Cayman and Boxster would be the first to receive boost in four-cylinder form.

According to a source within Porsche, the base Carrera will switch from a naturally aspirated 3.4-litre atmo flat-six to a 2.9-litre turbocharged flat-six, with the Carrera S remaining at 3.8 litres but with the addition of a turbo.

The move is said to be a result of Porsche’s desire to improve fuel economy and cut emissions, possibly in a move to boost sales in Eastern markets, where high CO2 cars are subject to much stricter regulatory measures.

If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it’s that performance will improve markedly. The Carrera is now expected to produce around 298kW/540Nm, up from the current 257kW/390Nm, while the Carrera S will best AMG’s forthcoming GT S with 395kW/700Nm, a large increase over its current 294kW/440Nm outputs.

We’d expect the new engines to also slot in to the Cabriolet and all-wheel drive Carrera 4 models, which would appear to make the 911 Turbo, in its current form at least, redundant.

Thankfully, the hardcore GT3 is expected to remain naturally-aspirated, with a greater focus on lightweight construction.

Porsche Australia had no comment when contacted on the matter, so fingers crossed our Euro sleuth has jumped the gun.

MERCEDES-Benz is believed to be preparing a special one-off exhibit this weekend that will celebrate 60 years of its two-door, two-seat coupe and convertible range.

The German luxury car maker plans to use this week’s Motorclassica car show to display what one spokesman says is “so special that it could be the only one left in the world”.

The exhibit, believed to tie in closely with the low-slung SL coupe and convertible range’s 60th anniversary, will take centre stage alongside the Australian premiere of the German luxury marque’s S-Class Coupe.

The big two-door limousine will officially launch in Australia in February, with Mercedes-Benz using the annual concours d’elegance to introduce Australian and New Zealand customers with the two-door S-Class ahead of its launch early next year.

Mercedes-Benz’s “Gullwing” coupe was introduced in 1954. It initially featured a 3.0-litre in-line six 300SL, and added a 190SL featuring a 1.9-litre four-cylinder engine and a removable roof a year later.

A 300SL-badged roadster version of the low-slung two-door was introduced in 1957.

Benz’s showing of the S-Class Coupe follows on from a similar event at last year’s Motorclassica when it showed the four-door version in Australia months ahead of its launch here.

Motorclassica, an annual concours d’elegance held at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building, opens to the public on Friday morning, and runs until October 26.

The event will have more than 500 classic and collectable cars and motorcycles on show. For tickets visit motorclassica.com.au.

Hot on the heels of the Cayman and Boxster GTS arriving in Australia comes news of the new 911 GTS.

With rumours coming out of Germany that the facelifted 911, due late next year, will switch to turbocharged engines across the entire range (bar GT3), this could be the last opportunity to own a naturally-aspirated 911 Carrera.

We’ll have more on that story in the coming days, but for now, here’s a look at the GTS.

As always with the GTS treatment, modifications are relatively small, but if past experience is anything to go by, cherry-picking choice parts from throughout the range results in a product that’s pretty special. After all, the 997-series 911 GTS was arguably the sweetest car of the entire range.

Headline news is the adoption of the Power Kit, which lifts power from the 3.8-litre flat-six to 316kW and cuts the 0-100km/h to just 4.0sec for the Coupe PDK (4.2sec for the Cabriolet). Top speed of all models is beyond the magic 300km/h mark, while fuel consumption is claimed to be unaffected by the power hike.

Available in both two-wheel drive and all-wheel drive guises, all models receive the wider Carrera 4 bodyshell and are fitted with Sport Chrono, PASM active dampers, sports exhaust and 20-inch centre-lock alloy wheels.

The 911 GTS is available to order now, with deliveries commencing in February 2015.

Model – Price (Manual/PDK)

911 Carrera 2 GTS Coupe – $268,700/$276,090 911 Carrera 2 GTS Cabriolet – $289,700/$297,090 911 Carrera 4 GTS Coupe – $284,100/$291,490 911 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet – $305,300/$312,690