Supercar club stories

We’ve got some difficult choices ahead of us. We’re planning a trip down to the south of France this spring and can’t make up our minds on what car to book!

Our hearts and heads are between the Vantage N400 Coupe or a Porsche 911 C2s Cabriolet. We never drove the N400 coupe so I’ve booked it for this weekend to give it a try.

The specs are certainly impressive:

Continue reading ‘Aston Martin Vantage N400′

Ahem. 33% of our visitors voted for the GT2. Then I read Jeremy Clarkson’s review and… it scared me. If he can’t drive, how could a mere mortal like myself could even hope to tame the beast!? And I’ve driven enough Porsches for a lifetime anyway.

The guys at P1 advised me that Lambos were better car during spring and summer. Apparently, the engine and transmission takes some time to warm up. The boot of the Gallardo doesn’t seem to be Jimmy Choo addict compliant anyway.

I’ve booked the following cars for 2008/2009 so far:

• Audi R8: in November
• Ferrari 430: Easter weekend
• Ferrari 599 GTB: May Bank holidays for my birthday

I really want to drive the Lamborghinis LP 640 and LP 560-4 that should join the fleet fairly soon. And fingers crossed, they’ll be getting the new Ferrari California, the GTR and the new Ford Mustang. We might have a second go at the DBS as well…

I’m a happy member of P1, the super car club. It gives me access to £6 millions worth of cars, for approximatly 50 days a year, for less than the depreciation of a new Porsche 911.

Autotrader published a glowing article about P1 which you’ll find here.

There are other super car clubs which are said to be equally serious: ecurie 25 in London, and RPM club in Scotland.

Feel free to post comments or questions if you happen to be members of these clubs or are thinking of joining. You can also contact me privatly on xaveoxf@googlemail.com.

After having had so much fun in the best British car ever made (see the DBS story below), it was time for me to book the new version of the famous Porsche 911- the 997 Mark 2 with Porsche Doppelkupplung (DPK) and test drive it during a weekend in the Cotswolds.

Externally, this new 911 looks exactly like the previous one. The only small restyling is a change of shape of the taillights and some new wheel design. As Porsche puts it on its brochure “Character traits cannot be changed. But they can be reinforced.” I have to admit that it’s smart marketing.

Continue reading ‘Test drive of the new Porsche 911′

Right. We all dream of having top gear moments and driving our supercars on the Millau Bridge, driving from Calais to Saint Tropez in one go, or simply pushing a Veyron to its limits on the Nurburgring.

As eluded to before, my story is a top gear moment… with a twist.

When invited to a weekend in the posh Calais house where my in-laws square (my sister’s in laws) spend their weekends, I thought “right, I’ll call my supercar club, play the last wild card, and book the brand new Aston Martin DBS for the weekend”.  And show off a bit. Make my dad proud.  ‘atta boy.

Continue reading ‘Aston Martin DBS… on planks’

For those interested, this is Porsche’s video explaining how the PDK work. I’m much younger and better looking than the middle age man driving the car in the video in an unecessary attempt to forget his middle age life crisis…

I can’t wait. P1 received the new 2009 911 Carrera 2S with PDK in the middle of August and I’ve been lingering to take it for a ride ever since. The car is booked for a weekend in October. Cotswolds here I come!

In the meantime I stopped at the West London OPC for a quick test drive and a play with the new satnav, bluetooth and iPod connection. However, nothing compares to a weekend pushing the car and throwing it in the corners on the country roads of the cotswolds. I’ll bring pictures.

PDK stands for Porsche Doppelkupplung which I guess means “double clutch”. It’s much faster and smoother than Audi’s DSK and miles better than Aston Martin’s sport shift and Ferrari F1 gearbox. Actually, my concern is that it could be too clinical and might remove some of the driving pleasure that I experience with the manual version of the 997 Mark 1.

The best source for more information is the Porsche website

I’ll share pictures and stories after the weekend. Can’t wait!

In one year of P1 membership I had 40 days of driving, including 8 weekends. I’ve driven a lot of different cars but mainly 911 and Aston Martins. I love these cars, what can I say!

This is the summary:

I still don’t know which one is my favorite, so I didn’t have a choice but go for a second year P1 has some good cars coming my way… hehe.

I came across this picture and it made me laugh. How cool is it to ask yourself every morning: to be or not to be?