I've never wanted to own a Porsche 911, though they are great fun to drive. They're even wilder to ride in with a pro like Walter Rohrl flailing away at the helm. Such rides sometimes make me wonder if the "laws of physics" are open to creative interpretation like our Constitution. But two mechanical engineering degrees tell me they're not, hence, in my mind no proper racebred chassis should have its engine cantilevered off the rear axle (or the front). Yes, the 911's setup loads the rear tires for better launch acceleration and provides slightly better weight distribution under hard braking, but if this arrangement is superior, why doesn't anybody else in racing use it? I'm willing to bet that a mid-engine Cayman could spank a 911 on the Nürburgring if equipped with equivalent power, tires, and chassis optimization. So is it just pig-headed German stubbornness keeping the Cayman down?

Priced from €304,500

Porsche will unveil the next-generation 911 (991) at the Frankfurt Motor Show, but that doesn't mean the current model (997) is going away anytime soon. Case in point, the company has just announced a series of upgrades for the 2012 911 GT3 R.

First and foremost, the model gains a revised 4.0-liter six-cylinder engine with an optimized intake system. This enables it to produce 500 PS (368 kW / 493 hp) - an increase of 20 PS (15 kW / 20 hp).

First came the 911. Then the Boxster. Now the Cayman is the Porsche getting revised engines (including direct fuel injection for S models) and a new seven-speed twin-clutch transmission dubbed Porsche Doppel-Kupplungsgetriebe—or PDK, for those not inclined to German. PDK replaces the aging Tiptronic five-speed manumatic transmission. The base Cayman’s engine gets a 0.2-liter and 20-hp boost to 2.9 liters and 265 hp, and the Cayman S gains an additional 25 horses, up to 320.

The Panamera, Porsche’s fourth model line after the 911, Boxster/Cayman, and Cayenne, has arrived after years of rumor, innuendo, announcements, and buzz. A four-door fastback sedan positioned at the top of the lineup, the Panamera was officially unveiled at the Shanghai auto show in April, and Porsche chose to host the first official drive at the picturesque Schloß Elmau near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, under the shadow of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain. The ritzy castle hotel is separated from the Munich airport by two hours of twisty country roads and several stretches of unlimited autobahn, and we explored it all from behind the wheels of the entry-level, rear-wheel-drive, 400-hp Panamera S and the 500-hp, all-wheel-drive Turbo. (There’s also an all-wheel-drive Panamera 4S.)

Porsche is setting up a killer one-two punch for this year’s Frankfurt auto show. Alongside its range-topping 911 Turbo, the company will debut its most visceral offering, the snarling 2010 911 GT3 RS. Based on the already primal GT3, the RS gets another 15 hp from the 3.8-liter flat-six for a total of 450, or more than 118 hp per liter. A racing machine tamed for street use, the GT3 RS is hardly just about horsepower. It gets a wider track, it weighs less, and it produces more downforce than the GT3.

Porsche’s plans for hybrid road vehicles are nothing new—the company plans to introduce a hybrid Cayenne SUV in the truck’s next generation, as well as a hybrid version of its Panamera sedan—but at the Geneva auto show, the German sports-car king will introduce a hybrid race car based on its 911 GT3 R. It’s no mere concept, either. Following its debut, the car will head to the Nürburgring, where it will compete in the 24-hour race on May 15 and 16.

In the wake of the Porsche 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid's surprise launch at the 2010 Geneva auto show, Porsche made little secret of its plans to put the car into production. In fact, Porsche’s erstwhile R and D chief, Wolfgang Dürheimer—who now heads Bentley and Bugatti—personally handed this writer a form to sign up and register his interest in the car. I declined the offer, but others didn't, and official production plans were confirmed last summer thanks to “outstanding customer response.” Now, we have a price: a cool $845,000, not including destination and handling. (We suspect the destination charge will affect few people’s purchasing plans.)

This one falls under the heading of painfully obvious. No clairvoyance necessary. Even Fox sportscaster Joe Buck, who once said, "Wood bats continue to be made of wood," knew Porsche would plop the 3.4-liter six from the Cayman S into the Boxster S. The only question was, "When?"

Launching a car like the 2007 Porsche Cayman after introducing a high-performance model like the Cayman S presents something of a conundrum. How do you refer to it? Is the new "non-S" Cayman a base model or is it a regular edition? How does "standard," or "normal" grab you?

Our desire to be Bill Adam has nothing to do with his actor looks or house in Palm Beach. No, we want to be Bill Adam because of what he can do behind the wheel of the 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo.

We almost got through an entire week without having a run-in with a Porsche Puritan.

But on the last night, two blocks from home, there's one of them waiting for us at a stoplight. He, and unfortunately, it's always he, is behind the wheel of a garage-kept Targa, air-cooled, of course, 993 generation, white paint, fiddling with the manual shifter, enjoying the evening breeze.

The way the 911 range unfolds with each generation has become as predictable as Mission: Impossible III. First comes the "base" Carrera and Carrera S; then the AWD Carrera 4; Cabriolet versions of those; followed by the hard-core GT3; then the Turbo; maybe a Targa; and finally the loony GT2. It's all completed just in time to start the cycle all over again with the next-generation 911.

It was not by accident that Porsche chose to introduce the 2006 Cayenne Turbo S on its own world-class (assembly-line adjacent) racetrack in Leipzig, Germany, as well as in the silty, orange sand dunes outside Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Why not? Because there is simply no other production vehicle that could possibly manage to perform as well as the 520-horsepower Cayenne Turbo S does in both extreme locations.

Cobalt Blue Metallic just isn't its color. The tone's all wrong. Not light enough or dark enough. Should be brighter, too. The arching undulations of the 2006 Porsche Cayman S, although hardly offensive in the hue, are better served by black or silver. No, red. Yes: red. Every Cayman S should be red. The fact that the Cobalt Blue Metallic is a $3,070 option only makes things worse.

At the risk of alienating my Inside Line colleagues, my best friends in automotive journalism, Jerry Seinfeld, and the whole of Porsche's PR machine, I have a confession to make: I've never thought much of the Boxster.

This has been a long time coming. We almost bought a used 911 back in 2007 when we started buying fun modern classics for our long-term fleet, but a 1984 Ferrari 308 GTS caught our eye and our dollars. After that we were shopping 911s when we bought a 2002 BMW M3 (E46). And again, we were cruising for Porsches on eBay last year when we bought our 2002 Chevy Corvette Z06, which we still own.