Tag Archives: Porsche

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From Scrap to Steering Wheels: Porsche’s Plan to Make Trash Sexy

You probably don’t think about what happens to a car when it dies. Not the glorious part where it smashes through its last MOT with a puff of blue smoke, but the afterlife. Most end-of-life vehicles get the same treatment: a date with a giant shredder that turns decades of German engineering into something resembling metallic muesli. The leftovers — a gory cocktail of foams, plastics, films, paint flakes and all the other bits too ugly to recycle — usually end up incinerated. Job done. Smoke in the sky. Circle of life, Simba.

But Porsche, BASF, and a bio-tech partner with a name only an engineer’s mother could love (BEST Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH), have decided that simply burning the leftovers isn’t very 21st century. Instead, they’ve taken this Frankenstein’s porridge of car junk and found a way to recycle it into something useful. And not just any something — but steering wheels. Yes, that plastic you once spilt your McDonald’s Coke on could end up guiding a 911 around the Nürburgring.

The trick? Gasification. Imagine cooking rubbish at temperatures hotter than a Nürburgring brake disc, until it turns into a pristine synthesis gas. That gas then goes back into BASF’s industrial network, gets turned into fresh polyurethane, and—voilà!—new steering wheels. No fossil fuels involved. Instead, the process is powered by automotive waste and bio-based raw materials like wood chips. Think of it as fine dining for car parts.

What makes this clever isn’t just that it works — but that it works on stuff too awkward to recycle the normal way. Chemical recycling can handle the messy, mixed plastics that mechanical recycling just waves a white flag at. According to Porsche’s Head of Sustainability, Dr. Robert Kallenberg, projects like this aren’t just about ticking the ESG box. It’s about future-proofing performance cars in a world that increasingly hates anything with a tailpipe. “We’re testing new technologies to tap into recyclate sources we couldn’t use before,” he says. Translation: Porsche wants your future Taycan steering wheel to be part tree bark, part old Cayenne bumper.

BASF, meanwhile, calls it part of the bigger puzzle. As Martin Jung, their Performance Materials boss, puts it: mechanical recycling is the bread and butter, but chemical recycling is the fancy cheese on top — crucial if we ever want to stop burning mountains of plastic waste like it’s the 1990s.

And here’s the kicker: the raw materials this process spits out are apparently as good as the real thing. High-performance plastics that meet all safety standards. Which means Porsche could, in theory, start fitting recycled components into safety-critical bits of the car without any compromise.

So next time you see a Porsche steering wheel, remember: it might have lived a previous life as a headliner, a seat foam, or a dash trim in some poor Boxster that got punted off a Bavarian B-road. Recycling, but make it Stuttgart.

Source: Porsche

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25 Years of the Porsche Carrera GT: The Last Analog Supercar

A quarter of a century ago, under the bright lights of the Paris Motor Show, Porsche rolled out a concept that would change the definition of the supercar. The year was 2000, the car was the Carrera GT, and its heart was a 5.5-liter V-10 that had been destined for Le Mans glory before corporate priorities pulled the plug. What was meant for the grid at Circuit de la Sarthe instead became the soul of one of the greatest road cars of the modern era.

From Prototype to Paris

The V-10 was born inside Porsche’s LMP 2000 prototype—a car engineered to carry Stuttgart’s endurance dominance into the new millennium. Compact, water-cooled, and weighing just 165 kilograms, the engine was capable of spinning to nearly 9,000 rpm. But the project never turned a wheel in competition; by 1999, Porsche decided to focus resources on new series-production cars, shelving the prototype.

Most carmakers would have mothballed the motor. Porsche decided to rewrite its destiny. “We had an engine that was built for the extreme—so we gave it a new challenge: everyday life,” recalls Roland Kussmaul, engineer and longtime test driver at Porsche. And with that, the Carrera GT project was born.

A Dramatic Entrance

When the study debuted in Paris in September 2000, Porsche made sure it was more than a static showpiece. Walter Röhrl, two-time World Rally Champion and Porsche’s trusted development driver, braved a rain-soaked Parisian morning, piloting the roofless prototype from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre. The message was clear: this was a race car for the street, no velvet ropes required.

Road Car, Racer’s Heart

By the time production began in 2003, the V-10 had grown to 5.7 liters and was good for 612 horsepower, 435 pound-feet of torque, and a screaming 8,400-rpm redline. The car tipped the scales at just 3,042 pounds thanks to an all-carbon-fiber monocoque, with magnesium and Kevlar sprinkled throughout. Numbers aside, the Carrera GT embodied Porsche’s obsession with putting motorsport DNA onto public roads: a race-bred six-speed manual gearbox, a carbon-ceramic clutch the size of a hockey puck, and an aerodynamics package that owed more to pit lane than the design studio.

It was fast—330 km/h (205 mph) flat out—but also deeply analog. No traction control, no stability control, no dual-clutch gearbox. Just a manual shifter topped with a beechwood knob, a nod to the 917 race cars of the 1970s. “The Carrera GT driver wants to be challenged, but not overwhelmed,” Röhrl said at the time. Thanks to his input, the car struck that rare balance: savage when pushed, but never impossible.

Ahead of Its Time

Between late 2003 and May 2006, Porsche hand-assembled just 1,270 units in Zuffenhausen and Leipzig. Each carried a numbered plaque, a piece of rolling sculpture for customers who wanted a car as demanding as it was rewarding. Looking back, the Carrera GT feels prophetic—its lightweight ethos, hybridized use of carbon and magnesium, and singular focus on driver connection anticipated an era when supercars would become ever heavier, more digital, and less personal.

Today, in an age of electrified hypercars with launch-control theatrics and driver aids that do most of the work, the Carrera GT remains something rarer: a car that makes you earn every bit of its performance. It was Porsche at its purest—race car thinking distilled into a road car body.

Legacy in Motion

To mark the 25th anniversary, Porsche collaborated with Parisian designer Arthur Kar on a capsule collection honoring the car’s legacy. “Since its launch, the Carrera GT has always been my favorite car,” Kar said. “It’s not just a machine—it’s a symbol of innovation, design, and pure emotion.”

Tony Hatter, the man who penned its exterior lines, sees it the same way: “This car is a gift to everyone who wants to know where Porsche came from—and where we want to go. We took motorsport in its purest form, and made it into a road car.”

Twenty-five years on, the Carrera GT is remembered not just as a milestone for Porsche, but as the last truly analog hypercar—a machine built to challenge, to terrify, and to thrill in equal measure. And for anyone lucky enough to turn its ignition key, the V-10’s howl remains one of the greatest sounds ever to echo through an open road.

Source: Porsche

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Porsche Marks 25 Years of the Carrera GT with a Paris Capsule Collection

Twenty-five years after the Porsche Carrera GT stunned the automotive world with its shrieking V10 and race-car-for-the-road ethos, the supercar is once again commanding attention—this time not on the autobahn, but in the heart of Paris. To mark the car’s quarter-century milestone, Porsche has teamed up with Paris-based creative and car-culture tastemaker Arthur Kar on a capsule collection that blurs the lines between motorsport heritage, streetwear fashion, and digital culture.

The collection was unveiled in proper Parisian style—a vernissage-like event staged in the city’s prestigious “Triangle d’Or” district near the Champs-Élysées. The venue, an architectural nod to the diamond-shaped layout of Porsche’s Leipzig plant (where the Carrera GT was built), hosted both the strictly limited apparel and footwear line as well as a curated display of Porsche icons. Fittingly, the Carrera GT itself—first shown to the world in Paris back in 2000—took center stage.

The Legacy of a Carbon-Bodied Rebel

Few cars have carved a deeper mark into enthusiast lore than the Carrera GT. Born from motorsport DNA, its carbon monocoque, F1-derived pushrod suspension, and naturally aspirated 5.7-liter V10 created not just performance figures, but an entirely new category of what a road-going Porsche could be. Its design remains instantly recognizable—low-slung, unapologetically functional, yet impossibly beautiful. In an era dominated by hybridization and electrification, the Carrera GT’s analogue purity feels more relevant than ever.

Arthur Kar, who began his career wrenching at a Porsche workshop in Paris, calls the project “very personal.” Launching the collection in the same city where the Carrera GT first made headlines isn’t just symbolism—it’s a return to his roots, and a nod to the emotion that fuels both design and car culture.

Fashion, but Make It Motorsport

The capsule translates the Carrera GT’s DNA into wearable form. Leading the charge is the Porsche x Puma Speedcat Trainer, offered in two colorways: a stealthy black with silver accents and a silver edition with carbon-look detailing. True to the collector spirit, production is capped at 1,270 pairs—one for every Carrera GT ever built. Porsche branding, Michelin and Bose logos, and original “Carrera GT” embroidery make the shoes as much motorsport artifacts as they are sneakers.

Outerwear takes the form of a unisex blouson jacket with racing stripes and heritage logos, available in both black and a limited silver edition. Complementing it are four 100-percent cotton T-shirts, bold in back-print design yet subtle up front with restrained Porsche branding.

The collection doesn’t stop at apparel. A Playmobil Carrera GT set adds a dose of nostalgia for younger fans (or playful adults), complete with opening roof and mini Porsche figurine. Accessories round out the lineup: a cap, leather keyrings in GT Silver and carbon-look, and a 1:1 replica Carrera GT key—limited to just 612 pieces—that’s destined to sit proudly in collectors’ cabinets.

Physical Meets Digital

The Paris pop-up, open until September 27, offers early access to the collection. Select exclusives—like the black Speedcat and silver blouson—will remain Paris-only prizes. But starting September 25, the full collection drops online and at select Porsche Centers worldwide.

For the digitally inclined, Porsche is also venturing into Zepeto, a platform where avatars can don the capsule’s signature pieces. The brand will host interactive Paris- and Leipzig-inspired booths, marking Porsche’s second major move into avatar fashion after dabbling in gaming crossovers.

More Than Merch

In typical Porsche fashion, this isn’t just merchandise—it’s mythology, packaged. By tying its most uncompromising supercar to streetwear and digital spaces, Porsche is reinforcing the Carrera GT not merely as a car, but as a cultural icon that transcends roads and racetracks.

And perhaps that’s the point. The Carrera GT was always more than a machine—it was a statement. A statement that, even 25 years later, can be worn, collected, and lived.

Source: Porsche