Wednesday, 1530h, LA show Porsche stand
Ah the motor show round table interview. Or, in other words, the price you pay for the ticket out here. Usually these things are a meeting of the minds between jet lagged hacks and bored execs trotting out the same company line for the 50th time that day.
Thankfully Porsche's Wolfgang Hatz didn't seem to have read that script. Introducing myself with my PH hat on the connection with a certain Mr Harris was made, Hatz and our German PR minder chuckling at one occasion when someone had mis-spelt his name as 'Christ Harris' on some internal paperwork. "Maybe we see him walk on water!" they chuckled.
The chat was far reaching and revealing, a bit too revealing in the case of his discussion of a Porsche driving centre at Le Mans, prompting some nervy texts and quiet words after the interview to 'clarify' the situation.
The topic came up when I asked him how, as an engineer, Porsche can make its ever more capable cars fun to drive at normal speeds. He's sympathetic to this conundrum, admitting that a recent go with an E30 M3 (a car he worked on as a young engineer) was huge fun despite the relative lack of power and grip.
Mind you, his perspective as living in a place where limit-free motorways are still a fact of life does possibly influence his thinking. "I drive at 300km/h nearly every day!" he laughed, the assembled Brits pondering the reality of doing this back home.
It was also fun hearing him talk about his 1989 930 Turbo, realisation of a dream he had back at that time when he was a manager at Weissach and only worthy of a Carrera. He recalled the awesome reputation of the Turbo's performance in an 80s context and how modest it felt in a modern one. And at a Macan dominated show it was perhaps comforting to hear he spends '95 per cent' of his time in 911s, his amazement at how the Macan had drowned out the global unveiling of the 991 Turbo Cabriolet clear to see. "We have a new 911 Turbo and nobody talks about it!"