Microsoft Money Leads To Street-Legal Porsche 959s

Ken Greenebaum writes "Soon there will be a 'new' Porsche 959 racing down highway 520 in Redmond. This article in autoweek describes how Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Ralph Lauren teamed up with Bruce Canepa to make the 959 street legal. Best quote: Gates 'suggested to Canepa that perhaps they could federalize the car by buying a number of sacrificial 959s to "crash and test."' They modernized and increased the performance of the already super car to: 575HP making the 15 year old cars race to 60 in 3.3 seconds with a top speed of 215MPH."

Comments

tagging bills together

[zeoslap]

The thing that struck me about this article was how screwed up the US political system is whereby bills are all bundled together, I won't even get into the fact that with enough cash you can get your own laws considered. This particular law was denied twice (which in of itself should see it permanently denied) but on the third try it was ushered through because the bill it was riding on was a sure fire winner, lame.

All that being said it's cool that they finally got the cars into the US, only wish I could afford one :)

Re:tagging bills together

[hey!]

First, let me say that I have several friends who race or simply like to drive fast on a track.

I have no problem with them having a street legal car that will do +200 MPH, because I know they drive at normal speeds to and from the track. Occaisionally they "cheat" a bit, but for the most part they get it out of their system on the track. I remember when on of my friends got his RX-7; he drove like a nitwit for a few months, until he started going down to the track, and realized how idiotic it is to endanger other people who are just trying to get from point A to point B in once piece.

I'm not sure whether I'm for or against this; I have a feeling that the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Speed does kill -- or at least speed differentials. People who make the arguments you have always talk like they're the only people on the road. It's safer for a family sedan travelling at 60mph to share the road with a nitwit driving at 100MPH than to share it with a nitwit driving at 200MPH. The roads are simply not adequately engineered to support these kinds of speeds, much less the speed differentials. Even responsible drivers like my friends sometimes drive with excessive speeds, and the nitwits are going to do it every chance they get.

I'd support making these cars street legal if there were some way to control them off the track. Suppose the car's computer recorded when it travelled at > 100MPH, and at inspection time this would be compared to records kept at tracks. Travelling at speeds exceeding 100MPH off the track would be punishable by permanent license revocation and seizing the car. Perhaps there would be a special key that would enable full performance. I beleive some high performance cars have this, to discourage joy riding by valet parking attendants.

nonononono.....

[E1v!$]

this is just stupid. why bother with that when you can have THIS.

Re:Microsoft money buys laws

[Wyatt Earp]

What has always struck me as idiotic is that the 959 wasn't street legal in the US while other, non-crash-worthy super cars like the Ferrari F40 and F50, Pantera and Shelby Cobra have been.

Why isn't anyone pissed about the import part?

[Excen]

Currently, it costs $90,000 to import a USED Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 to the U.S. and to make it street legal. For those of you who don't know, it's the silver and blue car that Paul Walker drives in 2 Fast 2 Furious. (Yeah, it's the one with the steering wheel on the wrong side. . . ) Mind you, it costs a third of that in Japan BRAND SPANKING NEW! You can buy a 2-year-old Toyota Corolla equivalent for 6 thousand in Japan, however, due to the asinine import laws governing foreign trade, it costs two times the cost of the car to get the tests done to prove that the car was street legal and emmisions compliant in the first place, and to pay the import duties. To get the car released from customs to do the emissions testing, a bond of 250 PERCENT OF THE PRICE OF THE CAR must be put up to ensure that you will get the emissions done. You get that money back, but who has the cash to pony up like that when you are buying a car?

Anyways, that's my rant on Stupid American Laws.

"No beer until you finish your tequila!"
-Leela's Dad

Re:Too bad for them...

[BJH]

Let's see exactly how much a Porsche Carerra GT would cost Bill Gates (relatively speaking).

His net worth is currently $US34,234,884,352.40 (according to the Bill gates Net Worth Page).
A brand-new Porsche Carerra GT costs an estimated $US400,000.
That means that the cost to Bill Gates is approximately 0.0012% of his total worth.
According to the US Census Bureau, the median net worth of a US household in 1995 was $US40,200. Let's adjust that upward by, say, 10% to take into account the past eight years - the amount is now $US44220.
0.0012% of 44220 is 53 cents.

Conclusion: A Porsche Carerra GT for Bill Gates is equivalent to a couple of cans of Coke for the average American.

Easy to handle supercar, too...

[Goonie]

From all that I've read about the 959, it's apparently reasonably easy to drive at sane speeds, and if you up the ante a bit four-wheel-drive tends to tame the handling characteristics of cars quite nicely.

And frankly I'd expect Bill Gates in a 959 to be a hell of a lot safer than a random Hollywood actor in, say, a Dodge Viper with that rubber chassis it's lumbered with...