June, 2023 - The Heat is On!
June: the last full month before our monumental double-car Euro Delivery trip. We were now only six weeks away from the start of the adventure; in fact, less for me, as I myself was going to be taking an extra week before the delivery to do some outdoor adventuring in the Italian Dolomites. Several of the important to-do items from May were well underway but not quite complete, and so spilled over into June, and completing those were the first order of business. Time was running short. The heat was on!
June 1, 2023 - Boxster arrival in Leipzig
A small point of note before getting into the real business of June: continuing on from the late May build process, we saw indications that Luke's Boxster has indeed arrived in Leipzig. It was now in position to participate in the July 20 delivery ceremony.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 1, 2023, 1:11 PM
your Boxster has arrived in Leipzig
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 1, 2023, 1:13 PM
Hopefully they parked it next to mine so the cars can start getting familiar with each other
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 1, 2023, 1:20 PM
June 1 and all the equipment is in the right place. Not bad. They should have given us late June delivery date. Oh well.
Last look at M2
June 2, 2023 - Sale of the M2
I had finally finished navigating the many steps of the Trade-through sale process for my used 2018 BMW M2, included coordinating with my buyer and agreeing to personally transport the car to him in the Newmarket area (about a four hour drive from Ottawa). That day was June 2, and Luke graciously offered his time, driving down about an hour or two behind me, so that when I completed the sale process and left my M2 with its buyer, he would be able to drive me back to Ottawa.
I had a very clear step-by-step process outlined in an email - which I had shared in advance - and everything went like clockwork. Soon we were at a local UPS store, putting the paperwork and the official bank draft for the $52,000 for my M2 into a tracked, expedited envelope to Porsche Centre London. And then I rode with Luke back to Ottawa, slightly sad to have seen the last of my beautiful Long Beach Blue M2 - but also looking forward to the exciting Porsche 718 GTS days to come.
Week of June 5, 2023 - Last batch of gear ordered
The first week of June saw our final order of gear items - things we had identified during our months of testing: 12V battery chargers, camera mount bars, ball joint heads, neutral density filters, polarizers, memory cards, mount plates. And a few other minor things. Then, once all that arrived, Luke and I were planning to do one final massive run-through everything - ev*er*y*thing, to make sure nothing got missed.
Happily, the order was processed quickly and arrived a few days later. Conveniently, a batch of our GTS Chronicles crew shirts also arrived. Hopefully this would be the last of the ordering we would need to do before our trip.
(Note: we actually did order 1 more batch of t-shirts when we realized a few sizing problems - that batch was ordered June 11 11:24pm and arrived near the end of June)
GTS Chronicles Crew Shirts
June 7 - Staking out an Itinerary
A bunch of logistics had come together by the beginning of June. Luke and I, and indeed most of the crewmembers, had booked flights, trains, made tentative arrangements with friends, booked necessary time off of work. And because the nature of The GTS Chronicles meant that we generally intended to have one crewmember with us at a time, that meant that everyone needed to be a part of an elaborately choreographed dance of arrivals and departures and handoffs. To anchor that dance, we needed something concrete: an itinerary, preferably with a map, that would allow everyone to precisely coordinate where and when they needed to be.
I thought long and hard about all of the variables involved: our total number, the general - and the specific - locations we wanted to visit on our road trip, the total mileage (essentially, something not too close to our 6000km "limit"), and also - whatever special requirements our crew had. Some of them were logically planning to incorporate their crew activities into a larger trip in Europe (why not, since they were already going to be in Europe). All of this had to be digested and thought about. And from that, compile an itinerary that satisfied everyone's requirements.
On June 7, after working back and forth with input from Luke, I completed a rough itinerary and sent out an email to everyone:
From: Andrew Lavigne
Subject: [very] rough driving itinerary for The GTS Chronicles
Hi, All.
I've thought about and put together a very rough map / segment / timeline of our drive with the cars through Europe, starting on July 20 in Leipzig and ending in Sindelfingen (a suburb of Stuttgart) on August 9.
The dashed line indicates the route. The dashed line itself is very approximate, and does not include twisties and turnies or any sort of real detail. The distance measurements, however, do include the twisties. I mapped out segments explicitly with choosing winding roads and longer options (although the map does not show the specifics of those mapped-out segments). The bottom line is, however, that the distances indicated are not under-estimates. I think they are pretty close to the real-world driving distances for our type of driving.
Hopefully this gives some rough idea of what areas we will be in on what days. Bits and pieces of this are of course subject to change, but I think the broad strokes are pretty accurate.
Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
...Andrew
The basic intended itinerary for the GTS Chronicles Euro Delivery road trip.
A flurry of emails came after this, back and forth between myself, Luke, and all of the crewmembers. In general people were pretty good with this flow and these dates, and by the end of the month, many specifics had been hammered out. Generally, the itinerary (with a focus on crew rotations) was looking like this:
- Prior to July 18, Brian, Chris and Andrew would be vacationing in the mountains of the Dolomites in Northern Italy
- On July 18, Jenn and Luke would fly to Paris and take the train east towards Stuttgart. Brian and I (being already in Europe on our Dolomite trip) would drive to Stuttgart.
- On July 18/19, Brian and Jenn would accompany Luke and Andrew for the pre-delivery activities in Stuttgart (visiting, factory tours, museums), then train to Leipzig to position for delivery day.
- July 20 - delivery day in Leipzig. Andrew, Luke with Jenn and Brian as crewmembers to record the special day.
- July 21 - Roadtrip start. Brian would depart to do some travelling on his own for a period of time; Jenn would stay as crewmember for the first segment of our road trip
- On the 27th of July, we would drop Jenn off in Venice, Italy and pick up Andy. Andy would then be our crewmember for the next few days.
- On the 31st of July, we would drop off Andy at a train station near Genoa, Italy, and Brian would arrive at that train station at the same time. Brian would then take over crewmember duties.
- On the 4th of August, we would drop Brian off (probably somewhere in Switzerland), and Chris would fly in from Poland (from spending time vacationing with his family). Chris would then join us as crewmember. Brian would then depart, continuing his own personal vacationing.
- Chris would stay with us for the remainder of our "mountain twisties" driving in Switzerland, and stay with us as we drove north to Nürburg to spend some time at the Nordschleife track
- Chris would stay with us during our visit to the Nordschleife, then accompany us to Stuttgart and to the dropoff point for the cars
- Luke, Brian and Andrew would re-convene in Paris for the final flight home to Ottawa. Chris would return to his family vacationing in Poland. Other crewmembers would either continue their vacationing or make their own way back to Canada
June 4 & 10, 2023 - Mount Testing
On the photography and videography front, we had thus far covered camera training and operation with our crew members. But there was one aspect of the whole media capture process we had neglected: in the cases where we wanted photography
from a viewpoint
on the cars, how would we do it? Of course, we had long seen videos of fender-mounted go-pros and shots from the bumpers of cars, and various other cool angles, or of neat car-to-car shots (which were now a possibility, given we were going to have two vehicles). And of course we did have some experience from the work we did during the
2018 BMW M2 Euro Delivery trip. But we had fancier ideas: super-low road shots; shots with bigger, better cameras mounted; even use our fancy new gimbal mounted outside the car. But all of that was big, heavy, expensive gear. We had to be very very confident that this gear would stay properly mounted and provide a stable platform. And of course not fly off down a cliff or into another car. That would be horrible.
Arriving for mount work
We had thus far been asking Luke's friend Winston for test time in his GT Silver Cayman S. But Winston wasn't always available and we had already taken up a lot of his time. We had been keeping various Ottawa members of the 718forum.com community appraised of our journey, and one of them - @OttawaSteve (in fact, one of the moderators of the forum) - had generously offered up his 2020 Guards Red Cayman GTS 4.0 as a test bed. Steve lived closer to us anyway, so this worked out nicely. We booked two dates with him in early June.
Roughing things together
The first bit of mount testing, which we conducted in his driveway at his house, we simply attempted to construct mount solutions for imagined photo scenarios, like: "we want a chase camera from one car to follow the next", or "we want a view from above looking down over the hood while driving on a twisty road", or "we want a view looking back in to the driver from a point a foot or two *outside* of the car". How would one construct a solid mount solution for each of these?
Mounts need to be bomber
We set about trying to construct mounts for our various scenarios. It was a bit like lego crossed with meccano: arms, connectors, bolts, suction cups, ball joints. One had to account for angled surfaces, curved surfaces, and the expected forces the camera will experience if we needed to run the scenario with some amount of speed or cornering. I was very concerned about failure, too, so I generally favored an over-engineered, super solid setup. When we are talking about mounting a three-thousand dollar camera with a thousand-dollar lens atop a six-hundred dollar gimbal, all of which together constitute about six or seven pounds of heavy angle-edged metal that you do not want flying through the air at speed, well ... in my books, you go for overkill.
Drone repurpose
We also experimented with ways to re-purpose the "resurrected" drone. It was, in effect, a mini-gimbal itself - one that could fly, mind you, but it was still a remote-controlled camera on a gimbal. Maybe in certain situations, it might be more suitable to use it to get a shot or a video clip. It was much smaller and lighter than a full pro camera + gimbal combo. Easier to set up, less inertial mass. And it still had a pretty decent camera - in fact, a better camera than the one in our GoPros (which would otherwise be the other logical choice in these light-and-fast situations). So yeah ... the drone-on-a-mount might be perfect - in the right situation.
Armed with a general idea of how to construct various mounting scenarios, we headed out "into the field" (our handy dandy Palladium parking lot in west Ottawa) the following week. Here we took our learnings from the week before and set up a number of scenarios where we actually drove around with the camera (or camera/gimbal) and captured some footage. Some of the setups looked pretty crazy, with long-legged multi-jointed arms rigged up to give the multi-directional support that was required. It was like a metallic alien robot spider was attacking Steve's Cayman!
I got Steve to drive his car around in loops and ovals, and I sat in the passenger seat, viewing and/or controlling the camera feed and the gimbal, seeing how everything reacted and what my level of control actually was. And then afterwards, reviewed the footage to see if it actually was properly stabilized and usable.
I also did some real-world testing of the 3D-generated Cayman Bar Mount solution. I had test-fitted the mount and lens support in Winston's Cayman, but I hadn't yet actually fired up the camera and recorded footage with a car on the move.
And that was about it for mount testing. For sure we had not exhaustively tested every possible configuration out, but now we did have a much better idea of how to generally cobble things together - hopefully with less time and more solidity when we were out on a shoot location in the mountains of Europe. It had been a very useful exercise.
June 13 & 15, 2023 - The Mega-Layout
As we were accumulating our last few bits of required gear, we felt we needed to do one final grand inventory of everything. Go over everything one more time, make sure all items were accounted for, ensure that for anything that had a dependency, that we had that dependency (e.g. a particular bit of electronics needing a particular power brick: did we have that required power brick? did we have the cable that had the right end-plugs to connect that bit of electronics to that power brick? etc. that sort of thing)
In the laying out of items during the Cayman luggage fit test back in May, I found some of the captured images and video to be very evocative. I thought, while doing this final inventory, why don't we do a variation of that? Lay out everything, maybe in some cool pattern, and capture it. At the very least it would be a record for posterity.
Final Gear Reconciliation
On the 13th of June, Luke and I got together to run through our entire "to bring" inventory. We made it a bit of an occasion and ordered pizza, chatted about various aspects of our upcoming car adventure, about the travails of Luke and I trying to get all of the administrative stuff with Porsche Centre London out of the way. We completely cleared an area on my living room floor and started creating piles of stuff in various categories: photo stuff, clothing stuff, electronics (radios, chargers, laptop, etc). We managed to inventory everything and then we just left it all on the living room floor and called it a night.
Gimbal and mounting
Two days later, we came back and did the second half of this activity - the "performative" part. We artfully laid every single thing we had into a full-floor mosaic. We arranged everything in a sort of grand spiral, with the "official GTS Chronicles" laptop in the center, surrounded by radios, memory cards, mounts, bolting hardware, camera and lenses and filters, car accessories, camping gear, clothing. It was pretty impressive, all laid out in neat and tidy rows and columns and patterns. It was perfect for our next corny-and-cool GTS Chronicles Instagram post.
Photography, tools, computers
By the end of June, I had found enough time to create the Instagram post to document our "Gear Mosaic". Check it out
here, or, watch it inline below. Note that the clip talks about "will it all fit?" at the end, which is a reference to the luggage fit test. In strictly chronological terms we had done that luggage test before this gear layout, so we did know it would fit, but in the timeline on the Instagram feed I only posted the luggage fit test *after* this one (trying to build up some anticipation and connection between the posts, basically).
The GTS Chronicles IG Post 075 - "Gear Layout"
June 18 & 25 - Gimbal Training
Actually, now that I think of it, we did do one other bit of camera-related training in June. I spent some time explaining about and getting our crew to practice with the gimbal we had purchased (for those of you who don't know, this is a device that stabilizes a camera so that you can get smooth, un-shaky footage). There was/is a bit of an art to setting it up and understanding some basic concepts. I felt it was important to give everyone a bit of time to get a feel for it before the trip or else I was sure we would have a crewmember helplessly fumbling with gimbal balancing or some similar thing instead of getting a needed shot and moving on.
We first had a "classroom" session in my living room, which really helped establish a baseline of understanding. Gimbals are pretty cool tech and seeing and playing with one in action - especially a more upscale unit like this one, is pretty fun. From there, we did another session at crewmember Brian's cottage about a week later, where we took what we learned in my living room and applied it, walking around and tracking subjects that were also in motion.
Throughout June 2023 - Drone Matters
A background activity that I undertook throughout the month of June concerned my drones. Not the drones themselves, but the ability to fly them in Europe. The countries of Europe have a common Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and have developed a set of regulations and licensing tiers for UAS (Unnamed Aerial Vehicles). In order to legally fly a drone in the countries in which we would be driving, I needed that licensing.
Fortunately, there were a series of online courses - available at moderate cost - that I could take to achieve the required certifications and licenses. Because my drone (or, rather, drones) are/were above 250 grams in weight, they fell into a higher, more stringent category of licensing. Additionally, that higher level of licensing permitted operation closer to people - something we needed.
The courses were not overly difficult but they were not blind cake-walks either. And the higher level certification required a proctored online exam, which further ensured that I really was absorbing the course material. It took time and effort, and I spent several nights working through everything. Fortunately, I passed the online exams on the first tries and by the end of June, I had my licenses. Note: the agency and website were in the netherlands, and as a result my licensing documents were in dutch. But they were good for all participating European countries nevertheless.
In taking these drone courses, I also realized I needed liability insurance. This was a little trickier to get worked out, being a Canadian resident visiting in Europe. Eventually I found a company that offered 1-year liability insurance policies for drone flying in Europe for Canadian residents (https://coverdrone.com), and at a reasonable price (I think around $150).
So, by the end of June, I had completed my drone licensing, obtained the necessary insurance, and was fully prepared for aerial GTS Chronicles photography and videography, while we were on our European Delivery trip.
Throughout June 2023 - Boxster Interior Mount
You may recall that I had spent some time back in April and May developing a beefier mount for the interior bar of the Cayman. I wanted to try and come up with some sort of similar solution for the Boxster. But, if you know anything about Boxster interiors, you know that there is no similar bar. So, we had to come up something else.
I envisioned something with a large surface area, and that could be stuck to the sloping bit of interior moulding between the Boxster's seats (maybe with double-sided tape). I worked again with my work colleague Alex and we came up with a 3D design. One major requirement was that it had to fit over any existing stuck-on GoPro mount that might already be present at that location. This meant that we had to ensure that the underside of the mount had an appropriate cutout.
The other challenge with this mount was that it had to conform exactly to the curving surface of the interior molding, or there was no way we were going to be able to securely stick it into place. I used one of those handy Contour Gauges to get an exact trace of the curve, and then we digitized that and used it as a guide in the 3D modelling tool we were using.
Boxster Cam Mount v3 or v4
Fortunately, we had a local 718forum.com user (@tinycerebellum) that had a Boxster, who had come to the occasional "Porsche Pints" night, and who was ok with us coming over and test-fitting the mount. And so we did, and ... yeah, it fit! A square of double-sided tape should in theory hold it in place and we would have a way to mount a heavier camera at that all-important "over-the-shoulder" filming location.
Early to Mid-June 2023 - The [In]Convenient sale of the S2000
We thought Luke's Trade-through sale of his S2000 - something that he had to get done if he wanted to realize tax savings against his new Boxster - would go smoothly, given the fact that I had recently gone through the process myself and had compiled a
comprehensive record of the required steps. But even so, things were dragging out for him, for a variety of reasons: organizing with his buyer, and - once again - much more difficulty than expected coordinating with Porsche Centre London.
Around the beginning of June, Luke tried (and failed) to get Christina to send a required initial contact email to Luke's S2000 buyer. After some repeated trying, I suggested that Luke perhaps contact their used Sales Manager Bernie directly, since that had seemed to help in my case. Luke was starting to get a little spooked that he was running out of time to get everything in place; You can read the worried tone in this email that he wrote to them (on June 5):
Hi Christina/Bernie,
In the interests of perhaps helping move my convenience sale along quickly, I have gotten things arranged with my buyer on my end. I've introduced her to Christina via email and she is getting her insurance and drivers license details ready. I'm nervous about ensuring that my buyer gets engaged by you guys ASAP. Getting her a bill of sale so that she can arrange for trade-through payment is something that needs to happens as soon as possible, so that I can then get MY bill of sale in place so that I can arrange for the payment for my Porsche. As we know, all this takes time when we are out-of-city, and the clock is ticking towards our July ED and I would really like to get all of this sorted out quickly. Christina mentioned that you guys have been having email troubles, so I really want to make sure that nothing has fallen through the cracks. My buyer IS expecting to hear from Porsche Centre London, and is ready to provide the details needed in order to proceed. Can we get things moving along?
Thanks, Luke
This particular email seemed to have worked. By the end of the evening, Luke's buyer had received the required contact email. But Luke was still trying to receive an official new Bill-of-sale and was still having no luck.
A few days later, on June 9, I inquired with Luke about the status of his trade-through sale:
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 9:08 AM
what's the word on the s2000 sale?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 9:09 AM
Don't know. Hope to find out shortly.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 9:09 AM
would be nice at least to have the two bills of sale in hand by the end of this week
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 9:10 AM
Agreed. I believe that the handshake has happened and it is just the insurance information that is outstanding. But I will be confirming that this morning
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 10:58 AM
So I feel that everyone is now properly engaged
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 11:01 AM
Presumably, we have our 2 o'clock Zoom call with Christina where I will also mention the trade-through sale.
=====
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 1:05 PM
I'm guessing it's not looking good for a Zoom call this afternoon?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 1:56 PM
Nothing from Christina so no
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 2:25 PM
Still nothing?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:33 PM
No, I texted her to say let's schedule something.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 2:33 PM
Ok thanks
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:36 PM
If this is how other Porsche dealerships handle stuff, it's no wonder there's a bad rap out there.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 2:45 PM
In the back of your mind have you thought about putting the S2000 up for sale at roughly the same deal you are giving your current buyer in order to start working on a backup plan in case they can't get things wrapped up before Christina requires payment (I realize that is a worst case scenario)?
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 2:45 PM
or are we past the point of no return on that front
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:46 PM
Yes. Have prepped sale info document and ad.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:48 PM
Selling to another buyer may be slower or faster. Who knows.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:52 PM
Anyway. It's highly stressful and I am trying my best to stay calm.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 2:53 PM
Yes - all of this is a bit anxiety-inducing
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 2:56 PM
Christina's not-being-on-top of things and being a brutal communicator just adds to the stress.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 3:08 PM
If I have to physically drive to Porsche Centre London to handover and receive documents, and then I will do that. Obviously. At this point, I am not feeling like I am trusting anything and I am thinking, that that is going to have to happen. I want to sit in front of Christina, hand her the bank draft for the [sale of the] S2000, the safety certificate, the ownership, and have her hand me the bills of sale. Like just do it right there in front of me instead of all this back-and-forth bullshit with her lack of proper basic business responsiveness..
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 9, 2023, 3:33 PM
any response from Christina on a Zoom meeting?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 9, 2023, 3:33 PM
No. Sweet #$%^ all from Christina.
Luke was feeling under-the-gun timewise, and exposed. And frustrated. You can clearly see that in his words. The conversation petered out at that point and we turned our attention to other things; we were coordinating a camera gear mount session for the following day.
The June 10 mount activity (a Saturday morning) went well (see the section on "Mount Testing"); afterwards Luke texted me to confirm that Christina had in fact sent him the bill of sale he needed.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 9:33 PM
Sent my signed BoS back to Christina.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 10, 2023, 11:06 PM
Excellent
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 10, 2023, 11:06 PM
I'm assuming your buyer did the same?
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 10, 2023, 11:06 PM
Also assuming all of the numbers were good?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 11:07 PM
My s2000 buyer won't get a BoS until they get the insurance number on Tuesday I'm guessing.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 11:07 PM
All numbers were good. I did as you did and added all the extras onto the BoS.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 11:08 PM
I am gonna get my financial institution to make up my bank draft.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 11:10 PM
We are getting there.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 10, 2023, 11:10 PM
Drip by frickin drip
I imagine the weekend passed very slowly for Luke, stressed as he was about getting this paperwork all wrapped up and the sale of his used car out of the way.
Late Sunday night, we start exchanging messages again to see if we can fully get this all out of the way:
From: Luke Ward - Jun 11, 2023, 11:18 PM
Will you start the process to get your bank draft tomorrow? [bank draft to pay for the new Porsche, he means]
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 11, 2023, 11:19 PM
that should be a 5 minute process at the bank
From: Luke Ward - Jun 11, 2023, 11:19 PM
Ah ok good
From: Luke Ward - Jun 11, 2023, 11:19 PM
I have drafted an email to my financial guy.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 11, 2023, 11:19 PM
it's the certified cheques I wonder about [Porsche Centre London keeps referring to "certified cheques"]
From: Luke Ward - Jun 12, 2023, 10:53 PM
Bank draft hopefully tomorrow. I will be including the safety and ownership (signed over apparently according to Christina today).
From: Luke Ward - Jun 12, 2023, 10:53 PM
Weird that you didn't need it signed over for your trade-through sale but I needed it signed over for mine.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 12, 2023, 10:53 PM
But whatever.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 12, 2023, 10:54 PM
F--k me this nightmare is almost over.
We held a call with Christina at Porsche Centre London on the following Monday and got the remaining questions and forms out of the way. Luke worked with his s2000 buyer a day or two later, and, finally, by the end of the week, Luke was in a UPS store texting me that all of the money and paperwork for his used car sale was now sent off.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 14, 2023, 5:59 PM
Have received confirmation email that the package is now with UPS in their system for delivery Friday [to Porsche Centre London].
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 14, 2023, 6:19 PM
Congratulations
From: Luke Ward - Jun 14, 2023, 6:20 PM
(My load feels suddenly lighter)
From: Luke Ward - Jun 14, 2023, 6:21 PM
Congrats to the GTS Chronicles duo
Luke's Thoughts
[on being a month away from delivery...]
30 days from now and we will be sitting in our new cars. Likely grinning from ear to ear as we sample them, perhaps tentatively at first, almost reverentially I think. And then, as the kilometres flow by, the confidence will increase, the smiles will continue, and this long, long journey will have reached an epic point.
I'm fizzing inside, everything on a slow boil as we tie up the last few loose ends before heading out. I want everything sorted here so I can just go and enjoy. Free from the day-to-day rat race, with only the cars and the connections to family and best friends back home who eagerly await our return, full of memories and thrills and stories to tell.
Can hardly wait.
(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this moment, check out his
blog post)
Luke's relief was palpable, even over text. And with this step now behind us, we were at an important point. This used car trade-through process was effectively the last thing that was holding us up from actually paying for our new cars, and (as we understood it) the "permission" we needed to start coordinating again with Michael Maternicki at Porsche European Delivery. Time really was starting to tick past quickly now - we were already halfway through the month of June and I would be departing for my pre-delivery mountain trip in only three weeks. In his thoughts at the time, you can see that he was finally able to fully turn his attention to the grand goal, now only about thirty days away: the in-person delivery in Leipzig of our two cars.
June 2023 - Euro Delivery Next Steps
Finally finished with all of that used-car trade-through stuff, we could turn our attention to dealing with the final bits of Euro Delivery pre-trip requirements. We had already held a preliminary meeting with our salesperson Christina about Euro Delivery on June 5, where she had gone over a few basic details:
- We had to pay for the cars in full before leaving on our trip (understood)
- We had to pay an extra amount equal to 19% of the value of the car to cover a requirement by Germany to collect VAT (Value Added Tax) for cars that are purchased and which remain in Germany. If our cars leave Germany after the Euro Delivery trip and are actually sent to Canada, then we get this VAT amount back at that time. I guess this is to prevent some sort of fraud where someone does Euro Delivery and then sells their car to a German resident for a profit.
- Christina made mention also of the standard German rule that new cars received in Germany that exceed 6000km *also* would need to forfeit that same 19% of the sale amount (even if they later left Germany for foreign shores). I knew from past experience (with my M2 and from others) that this rule was not really (or rarely) enforced. The German government's real goal here was to ensure that foreign-sale cars actually get to their respective countries, and do not pollute the local market. Christina however seemed to want to stress this item, mentioning it multiple times (to our possible future detriment, as you'll eventually read).
We were also provided with a form to print, sign, and scan/email back to Porsche Centre London before we could proceed to next steps (see form pages in subsequent pictures).
Euro Delivery Agreement 1
Euro Delivery Agreement 2
Euro Delivery Agreement 3
Euro Delivery Agreement 4
It was also during this meeting or perhaps soon afterwards where the subject of the North American return location for our two cars came up. Long ago ... Long, long ago - years ago - we had discussed that we wanted to replicate the arrival of my 2018 BMW M2 from Euro Delivery in Halifax, done via request from my local Ottawa BMW dealership at that time. Landing in Halifax meant that Luke and I could complete a powerful chapter in The GTS Chronicles story - a surprise visit to Luke's parents who lived in the Canadian Maritimes not far from Halifax, and who had long ago encouraged Luke to follow his dreams regarding getting a special sportscar like this and who Luke had been keeping in the dark for all of these years of our build-up to Euro Delivery. We wanted to do this surprise arrival via a pick-up in Halifax.
I had done my research. I knew that Porsche did offer a similar option. Porsche called it "Courtesy delivery", and it involved an administrative procedure started at one's local dealer, with a back-and-forth dialog between the local dealer and the intended destination dealer. I had even located the exact internal document that needed to be filled out. I passed it on to Luke. We mentioned the process to Christina during our June 5th Euro Delivery meeting, because the agreements we signed said at one point "All vehicles (U.S. and Canada) will be return shipped to the ordering dealership, unless otherwise specified (Courtesy Delivery). These arrangements should be made at the time the vehicle is ordered.". We were initially a bit concerned about the part about "at the time the vehicle is ordered", but a quick scan of the courtesy delivery document revealed that it could still be done, with the proviso that there will be an extra charge if the transport charges would be higher to the alternate receiving dealer (which it most definitely wouldn't be in the case of Halifax, since that was the entry port for the entire country. No place would have a lower transport cost than Halifax).
Christina had not heard about "Courtesy delivery", and we let the matter go for the moment. I emailed her the Porsche Courtesy Delivery application document for reference, and Luke promised to send another query email to her about it before the start of our Euro Delivery trip.
Mid to Late-June 2023 - Talking to Michael Again
In various conversations since the start of the year, Porsche Centre London had hinted that we were not allowed to communicate with Michael Maternicki at Porsche European Delivery until our cars were v300 produced (they hinted at this in every way other than shouting "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK TO MICHAEL" to us).
Well, that was now the case. Luke's completed car had arrived in Leipzig on June 1st. My Cayman had been sitting - complete and waiting - in Leipzig now for more than two months. And we were (presumably) days away from courier-ing in our full payments for each vehicle. There was no legitimate reason we could think of to not start contacting Michael again. Again, we were mere weeks away from the start of our trip and many small logistical trip items (ones that could only be done in coordination with an ED contact) had not been completed. Buttressing the idea of reconnecting, we got a nice little happy surprise email from Christina with a picture showing that Porsche Centre London now had our two official Euro Delivery welcome packages. That to us hammered home the fact that Porsche Centre London were definitely now on the same page: the page that said "Time for Euro Delivery Things".
I drafted up an email, consulted with Luke, and on June 14 I sent the following:
To European.Delivery@porsche.ca, cc:Luke
Subject: Hello! It's us, The GTS Chronicles guys (Luke and Andrew)
Hi, Michael
Hope you are doing well. It's been a long year's wait since we last had our interactions. As I'm pretty sure you know through your interactions with Christina, Luke and I received our allocations for our two GTSes, our cars are built, and we're a good way through the process of getting our Euro Delivery details sorted out for this coming July 20. Thank you for all of the arranging you have done for us thus far.
Luke and I would like to establish contact with you more directly again, now that we are solidly in the midst of Euro Delivery planning. Part of that contact will be to ask you some ED program specifics.
Another part of that contact will be (we hope) to re-engage you on our "The GTS Chronicles" storytelling initiative, which we've continued to evolve and develop over this last year and upon which we still plan to execute when we are over in Europe. We were very heartened by your words of support to us last year, and we're hoping that that is still the case now. Know that there wouldn't be a GTS Chronicles Instagram channel right now (https://instagram.com/gtschronicles) if it hadn't been for you, and we think it has developed into a quirky and cool way for us to tell our story in real-time.
We still think there may be some interest and/or part for Porsche itself to play in that storytelling, and we certainly feel there is real brand-enhancing value in it. Our grassroots-enthusiast slant might make for a charming 75th-anniversary side-story, for example. Anyway, if you are interested in reconnecting on that, let us know. If you are swamped with too many things and you don't have time, or if for whatever reason Porsche has already indicated they've no interest in supporting our idea, then no worries. We just feel strongly about the opportunity here and want to make sure we do everything possible to maximize the quality of what we make. One way or another, however, we're going to create an amazing and very detailed accounting of this adventure.
We hope to hear from you soon,
Luke and Andrew
https://gtschronicles.com
https://instagram.com/gtschronicles
You will notice, of course, that I put another advocacy plug in for media collaboration, mentioning the now flourishing
GTS Chronicles Instagram feed (which was in fact initiated based on Michael's own suggestion back in May of 2022). It was a super long shot at this point, being so close to the delivery date and all, but I felt it was worth a final try.
Happily, Michael responded the very next day. He seemed cheerful and said that he would be at our disposal for handling any questions or concerns. And ... he even said that he would pass along the request regarding media collaboration to his PR and marketing colleagues. Promising.
We started right away with the questions, asking about some timing details of the events of the delivery day on July 20 in Leipzig. We also asked about a more important question on the subject of the factory tour. We explained our problem about how our delivery date was butting up against the summer factory shutdown for the 718/911 line, and how that might negatively play out with our dates. We really wanted to see our kinds of cars getting built, rather than some SUVs and sedans at the factory in Leipzig. So, I asked:
One of our most fervent hopes about the whole delivery experience in Stuttgart/Leipzig (as you probably know, we're planning to spend a day or two (the 18th and 19th) in Zuffenhausen before taking a train to Leipzig), was to get some sort of glimpse of the magical place that our 718s were built. As in, take the factory tour in Zuffenhausen. Back in January, I discussed this with Christina and Tim and noted that the Porsche website says that tourist visits to the Factory are paused for a period starting on July 17th. Christina repeatedly intimated that she didn't think that would be a problem for us (maybe for ED customers there's a special dispensation for tours?), but we've never really got clarification about this and we've been worrying about missing the 718/911 factory tour. Do you have any extra insight into how we might take a factory tour in Zuffenhausen either on the 18th or the 19th of July?
Michael promptly wrote back the following morning (really was liking the snappy back and forth here), giving us a detailed timeline of our delivery and and saying he would ping folks in Zuffenhausen to see if anything could be done to slot us in for a last minute factory tour during a time period after Luke's arrival flight.
We then had a question about insurance coverage over in Europe, which again Michael answered quickly. A few days later, he got back to us regarding the Zuffenhausen 718/911 factory tour, and it was both good - and bad - news. He *had indeed* been able to arrange for us to attend a special (not the usual public) tour, but - and here was the catch - the only slot was on the morning of the 18th, which was going to be impossible for Luke to make, given his flight and train schedule. There was excellent and detailed back-and-forth emailing on Michael's attempt to get a slightly later timeslot, but ultimately he came up empty. It would have to be the early morning slot on the 18th or nothing. That meant that myself and crewmember Brian (who would already be in the Stuttgart area) could make it, but Luke (and crewmember Jenn) would miss out. Sad, but unfortunately, a reality. (of course if we had been able to negotiate even a tiny bit earlier Euro Delivery date, or if we had had the ability to talk with Michael BEFORE booking our plane tickets, this would not have been a problem. But calm, calm ... no anger here).
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 27, 2023, 8:26 AM
Good news and bad news. Michael managed to get a zuffenhausen tour [for us]. bad news is I think that time (10am on the 18th) is not possible for you and Jenn to make. Is that correct?
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 27, 2023, 8:28 AM
when does your train from Paris arrive again? I think it was 1pm on the 18th, right?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 27, 2023, 8:40 AM
1:12 pm yes.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 27, 2023, 8:40 AM
You and Brian will have to go [without us]
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 27, 2023, 8:53 AM
I sent a reply to Michael - we'll see if there are alternatives
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 27, 2023, 8:54 AM
anytime on the 19th would be fine
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 27, 2023, 8:54 AM
nice to hear that there are still exclusive-to-ED tours happening though
[......]
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 28, 2023, 2:05 PM
Unfortunately other times for zuffenhausen factory tours are on the 17th and 21st - so you won't be able to make that tour. I've told Michael that Brian and I will attend. Sad that I won't be able to tour it with you.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 28, 2023, 3:18 PM
Sucks about the tour.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 28, 2023, 3:19 PM
Too bad they couldn't get their sh-t together earlier.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 28, 2023, 3:21 PM
I will put the blame squarely on Porsche Centre London and their processes that don't allow you to get in touch with European Delivery until such stupid late moments.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 28, 2023, 4:57 PM
Yes I can understand the frustration
Mid to Late-June 2023 - Big-Dollar Time
On June 16, Luke and I prepared to make the ultimate final plunge: actually paying for these two (quite expensive) passion projects. We were making sure to follow protocol, however. We wanted to wait until all of the payment information for Luke's S2000 trade-through sale had made it officially into Porsche Centre London's hands (which was important, so that Luke was guaranteed to have the S2000's sale price taken off the sale price of his Boxster, and therefore realize tax savings).
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 16, 2023, 8:29 AM
Good morning
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 16, 2023, 8:30 AM
for the next email to Christina, do you want to wait until confirmation of receipt of your envelope?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 16, 2023, 8:34 AM
Yes, they said delivery would be around lunchtime. It was in Mount Hope at 6:10 this morning.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 16, 2023, 8:51 AM
Great. do you think we should wait until it is delivered?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 16, 2023, 8:52 AM
Yes I think that would be a natural conversation starter.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 16, 2023, 9:59 AM
let me know when your s2000 payment shows as delivered and then I will create an email to Christina. My understanding is that we'll ask her to initiate the interaction with this Susan person (and that we are ready to complete all required payments related to our cars and that we want to get that wrapped up by the end of next week)
Finally, early in the afternoon, we get confirmation from Porsche Centre London:
From: Luke Ward - Jun 16, 2023, 2:05 PM
Confirmation from Bernie. They have received the paperwork and draft and sent my buyer's stuff off to the MTO for processing. With luck, she will get the plates on Monday.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 16, 2023, 2:23 PM
stuck in a meeting right now so can't draft email to Christina yet.
And so I draft and send the "let's initiate the next steps" email off to Christina. No time to waste.
June 16, 3:47pm
Hi, Christina
I understand from Luke that the information and the payment to complete his S2000 pass-through sale has arrived at Porsche Centre London and is in Bernie's [the used car sales manager] hands.
Now that that is out of the way, Luke and I would very much like to start the process to complete the payments of our cars and to give you the VAT amounts that you are requiring to be held while our cars are still in Europe.
I recall that in our meeting earlier this week, you said that there was someone else at Porsche Centre London that handles the business around that sort of thing (I believe her name was Susan), and that a conversation/interaction needed to be initiated. Can you talk to Susan to initiate this and/or send the email introducing us all to each other? We'd really like to try and get all of the money stuff out of the way by the end of next week (i.e. by Friday, June 23).
Thanks in advance,
...Andrew
Nicely, Christina responded right away and said that she would be talking with the business person (Susan) imminently, and moments later, Luke and I both got personalized "Hi, I'd like to introduce you to Susan" emails. Ok, so good - things were moving smartly. The next business day, like coordinated ballerinas, Luke and I both introduced ourselves to Susan, and once again, we inserted a small touch of urgency into our email to help hopefully speed things along. Here was my email:
Mon, Jun 19, 2023, 2:12 PM
Hi Susan,
I'm the other half of the Luke-Andrew combo doing Euro Delivery. Would also like to initiate with you to start the process to complete the payment of my 2023 Cayman GTS 4.0 and to confirm the details and amounts with respect to the returnable VAT deposits. I am going to be leaving 10 days earlier than Luke to do a bit of outdoor travel before our delivery, and am hoping to have all of the financial stuff finished up by the end of this week (June 23).
Let me know when is best to meet,
Thanks,
...Andrew Lavigne
And then ... and then we ran into some sort of hiccup. When we had not heard from Susan by the afternoon of the following day, I emailed Christina to inquire, to which she responded
You need to be in touch with her. My office and department are totally separate. Please also know today is her day off.
Ok, but I *had* been in touch with her. I told Christina as much and then she soon came back with a "she already responded to you via email".
Email? what email? I checked with Luke. No email sent to him either. We both check our spam and junk folders. No email. Christina then suggests we re-send our self-introductions to Susan, copying her (not sure what difference that would make - I guess to prove to her that we did send an email...?). Anyway, we did that. Hm, we wondered ... Was this yet another example of that email system misconfiguration that had been plaguing Porsche Centre London?
Time rolled over to the next day. Unfortunately, now it was Christina's off day. So now she was not reachable. We were starting to tire of all of this, so I suggested that we just call the main desk of the dealership and find out who will talk to us.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 21, 2023, 8:48 AM
how is it that so many people are off mid-week at a car dealership that is processing customer requests?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 21, 2023, 8:55 AM
I really don't understand how they function. If it was a high volume dealership like Toyota or something I can't see them staying in business.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 21, 2023, 8:57 AM
I texted Christina. She doesn't have Susan's direct line. But she said if we don't get her through the desk, that we can call Steve [the general manager]
Finally, by Thursday, we managed to establish contact with Susan, verify the necessary numbers, and we were at last ready to send payment. The next day, on a beautiful sunny summer day, Luke and I went to our banks, picked up the required bank drafts (for Luke, one for the payment for his Boxster, and for me, one for the Cayman and two more for the VAT refundable deposits). We then went together to a courier and expressed mailed everything to Susan at Porsche Centre London, along with this email:
From: Andrew Lavigne
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2023 3:10 PM
To: Susan Miletic-Mizzi
Cc: Luke Ward
Subject: Car payments and VAT deposits sent
Hello, Susan
Luke and I are pleased to inform you that a courier envelope containing our four bank drafts have been sent to you at Porsche Centre London, attention yourself. The scheduled delivery time is for sometime in the morning (before noon). The envelope will require a signature and is marked attention to yourself.
Please note that both of the VAT deposit bank drafts are in my name. Rest assured that one of them is for Luke's VAT deposit.
In order to ensure absolute clarity / disambiguation, there is an explanatory letter accompanying the four bank drafts.
If you could let us know when you've processed them, that would be great. If we don't hear from you by Friday EOD, we'll give you a ring.
Kind Regards,
...Andrew (cc'ing Luke)
We then celebrated with a burger and fries lunch at an A & W. Another step done.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 22, 2023, 2:19 PM
Good progress today. Thank you.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 22, 2023, 2:56 PM
Feels good yep. Thank you too.
We had originally envisioned us physically driving down to Porsche Centre London to ceremoniously pick up our Euro Delivery welcome packages, but with the end of June rapidly approaching, we were not going to be able to fit that in. We explained this to Christina in an email and instead asked if she could courier up the packages to us, at our expense. Christina was cool with that, and had them sent up, and did so free of charge.
We're not quite done on the payment process front yet. Susan called me, asking about why my name was on both VAT deposits (I guess she must have only skimmed the email I sent). I re-explained, and all was good.
Then on the following Monday there was another unforeseen task. Apparently Porsche Centre London wanted the VAT deposits to physically be written into our Bills of Sale, and so Susan needed us to read and sign new ones which they had prepared and had sent to us. So, another round of back and forth (made a bit more difficult for Luke as he was away on a quick visit to his parents in the province of NB, who were actively being kept unaware of our project).
On June 26, at 2:30pm, we thought (and were praying) that we had now done everything they wanted us to do.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:37 PM
Okay, good. All done. Forms signed, initialled and sent. Awaiting Susan's confirmation.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:37 PM
very good
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:38 PM
hopefully this is the very last of the required tasks with PL before leaving
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:38 PM
things need to get wrapped up, as time is running short
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:38 PM
Yep
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:40 PM
Had to use a little subterfuge with the folks :)
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:43 PM
what - you didn't tell them you had to quickly duck out to confirm your 125k spend on a car?
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:45 PM
Lol... that may cause some palpitations... plus totally, spoil the awesome surprise that we are hoping to engineer. Provided Christina gets her act together.
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:46 PM
Susan just confirmed that she received everything of mine fine. So all good.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:47 PM
good
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:47 PM
congratulations on owning a new Porsche 718 Boxster GTS 4.0.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:47 PM
I guess this makes it kinda official
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:48 PM
Same to you good sir. Many many congratulations. Looking a forward to further sharing this adventure with you. For years to come!
From: Luke Ward - Jun 26, 2023, 2:50 PM
Pretty much exactly 3 years since the idea was first conceived
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:53 PM
more or less
From: Andrew Lavigne - Jun 26, 2023, 2:54 PM
It has been well over 1,000 days
Indeed. Well over one thousand days since I first floated this two-porsche idea to Luke. Hard to believe all of the ups and downs and ins and outs that had gotten us to this point.
It was indeed wise that we had started pressing harder on Porsche Centre London with the various tasks needed to complete Luke's S2000 trade-through sale and get the payments for the cars in order. We were literally days away from the first of July, and only a couple of weeks (less than that for me) before leaving for Europe. I shudder to think what backflips we would have had to go through if we had run out of time. But why had this all taken so long? - it clearly wasn't all because of the out-of-town angle (although surely that exacerbated things); there seemed to be a lot of inefficiency, maybe even ... unfamiliarity, with the required processes.
But let's end this section on a happy note: the two official Euro Delivery welcome packages arrived later that afternoon. We planned to have an "official" opening ceremony for them upon Luke's return from New Brunswick.
Official Euro Delivery Packages
June 2023 - Dave's Whirlwind June
Our Porsche champion - Dave Renner - was again running team support for us throughout June. This was despite the fact that for nearly two weeks out of the month, he was on his own adventure, touring Germany, Austria and Switzerland on a whirlwind trip centered around Porsche's 75th anniversary celebrations (I outlined Dave's itinerary for this trip back in the section where I talk about stuff that happened in May).
But even while on such a trip, Dave was advocating for us. He received the swag (decals and business cards) we had mailed to him at the end of May, and was happy to pass them along on his upcoming journey:
From: Dave Renner - Monday June 5, 09:15am
Got everything
Stickers look great will get them out to Factory folks and owners of Caymans and Boxsters that I see at the event at the Hockenheim Ring.
And will pass them out at the Swiss event the following Saturday, June 17, which is said to have 800 cars.
From: Andrew Lavigne - Monday June 5, 09:16am
Great. Have a wonderful time. Maybe send a few pics when you have a moment. Would be great to follow along.
From: Dave Renner - Monday June 5, 2:15pm
Will do
Dave then proceeded to have what was truly a whirlwind trip, covering a big circle in just over the space of a week and seeing the various who's-who in the world of Porsche. Upon returning, he was right back to messaging us. We held a conference call towards the end of June, and he recounted the details of his trip. Dave had also managed to finagle a special task for us: to deliver a batch of his 75th anniversary commemorative plaques to contacts within Porsche. In addition to that, Dave had floated our name and story to several notable people in the world of Porsche, including to Alois Ruf, a storied maker of aftermarket 911 variants. He had stopped at Alois' facility in Pfaffenhausen, Germany, and suggested that we do the same, if we had the time.
We said yes, of course, to the request to bring the batch of commemorative plaques with us over to Germany. It was the least we could do, and it was an exciting errand, in any case. Dave made preparations to quickly send the package to us. Being made of pewter or lead, we hoped we'd be able to handle the weight. One way or another, though, we'd manage. It was the least we could do.
Other Random Things that happened in June 2023
I've gone on for so long about what went down in June, and I'm mostly done. What remains to be told are random little odds and ends that I will get through fairly quickly in this section:
At the beginning of the month, we re-connected with Misha Charoudin, the famous online Nürburg and Nordshleife track YouTuber. We wanted to re-confirm that his offer to meet was still on the table, and it was. His only caveat was that he couldn't "promise any dinners", since things were likely to be pretty busy for him at that time. But a quick meetup, for sure - as long as he was in town. Luke also got some possible tips from him on who we might be able to source for some videography (I mean, beyond our own self-sourced crew filming).
In the online 718forum.com forum, the story of the GTS Chronicles had become at least somewhat known. We had struck up a conversation about the trip with a fellow forum member, @PeC. He lived in the Nuremburg area, not far south of Leipzig, and had expressed an interest in meeting up with us - maybe even travelling with us for a while. That would be super cool, we thought, and we made notes to re-connect with him as we got closer to the dates when we would be passing through his area.
I make a final attempt at media collaboration with Patrick St. Pierre at Porsche Canada (Marketing). I hadn't heard anything from him, and frankly did not expect to, but I had it in my notes to give him one more contact attempt, so ... I did.
Another final attempt at media collaboration with 000 magazine. I left a voicemail with Alex Palevsky, publisher of the magazine. He declined the offer, but to his extreme credit actually said so in a text instead of ghosting us. And even gave a friendly explanation:
Hi Andrew, Sounds like a lot of fun, and certainly a subject that is ideal for your website/social media. (Also, the 718 GTS is undoubtedly the single best model in the current Porsche product line, so you couldn't have picked a better pair of cars for your European adventure.) That said, it's simply not the kind of Porsche story that we really cover in our magazine. Plus, we've featured the 718 GTS in two different contexts already (with the 718T and the Macan GTS), so it's unlikely we'll revisit it any time soon. Best, Alexander Palevsky, Executive Editor + Publisher 000 Magazine
And finally, even with all of the busy-ness of this month's schedule, we managed to fit in a final bit of virtual Nordschliefe track practice, in the simulator
Asetto Corsa. We needed to have the nearly hundred curves of the Green Hell firmly memorized!
Final Nordschleife Practice
