“Ferdinand A. Porsche, who designed the original Porsche 911, the snazzy, powerful sports car that became the lasting signature of the German automobile company founded by his grandfather and later run by his father, died on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria. He was 76.” I believe only Italians can design beautiful cars (I mean, game over, kids), but there’s no denying that the 911 is a true icon. Cars technically don’t have a place on OSNews, but Ferdinand Porsche’s passing cannot go by unmentioned.
I to really love the design of alfa romeos.
They really know how to design cars.
Must be the special sauce.
But some French ones(although sadly mostly concepts from their big three brands) stand out for me as well.
http://www.superconceptcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Renault-…
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CSw7aC56iqI/TJWiSXuQ5DI/AAAAAAAAABQ/8Mfnk…
http://shiftwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Citroen-GQ-Co…
http://www.zcars.com.au/images/peugeot-rc-concept1.jpg
http://www.zcars.com.au/images/peugeot-rc-concept1.jpg
Top Gear presenter Clarkson always called the new 911s boring and Bettle-like, but at the end of the day he always loved the 911.(May and Hammond have/had 911s, so they seem to like them.)
I think the 911 is one of the most popular sports cars because the design is so timeless and the technology is so “strange”/unique (it takes an insane amount of technology to make a car behave so well with the engine in the wrong place)
In IT there not many timeless things .. everything changes all the time(well except Emacs)
Jim Marshall died on the 5th April 2012 and has far more importance to your average programmer than Porsche. Without Marshall, no Hendrix, and most that followed: http://www.blamepro.com/mar/Famous-recording-artists-performers-gui… and that’s just scratching the surface.)
I won’t cry over a car, but you’ll have to tear my guitar from my cold dead hands.
This, without Jim Marshal there would be no rock, no punk and no metal all of which mean allot more to your average geek then a mobile penis size distraction device.
You’ve never seen an electric guitar then?
The electric guitar on it’s own is nothing, you have to plug it into something, Marshall amps where an integral part in creating several genres of music.
Take for instance the guy that commissioned the first Marshall Stack, a guy named Pete Townshend who was in a little known band called The Who… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=594WLzzb3JI The original prototype was a single monstrous unit that later made modular to make them easily transportable. The Stack is what give the guitar an incredible dirty immensity without losing fidelity.
Theres also the the Marshall 1959 made famous by Jimi Hendrix, Angus Young of AC/DC and Cream era Eric Clapton. Then theres the Marshall Bluesbreaker Another model made famous by Eric Clapton, that was THE sound of British Blues Rock.
Before the Marshall Stack there effectively was no Rock, no Punk and no Metal as it just wasn’t possible outside of the few flukes of guitarists using damaged amps like Dave Davies of The Kinks who cut slits into the speaker cone of his Elpico amp to create the sound that launched their careers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEOEPH8cHs
So like I said, the “designer” of overpriced luxury cars all of which look damn near identical is nowhere near as influential as the guy that is responsible for the sound of thousands of bands.
Perhaps but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t exist without the Marshall Stack. It’s not like gear like the Vox AC30 (used by, among others, Brian May & Ritchie Blackmoore) didn’t exist prior to Marshall’s stuff.
Oh it wasn’t just Hendrix, he was also one of the first guys to make REAL amps for bass players (instead of just building a guitar amp with bigger speakers) with the Marshall Major. While i prefer my Pre Peavey buyout Trace Elliot (tubes are too fussy and take too long to cool down and are hard to keep a clean tone unless you change them very often) I will be the first to admit there is NOTHING like the growl of a Marshall Major with a Fender P-Bass.
As for Porsche I’d say the reason why the 911 has lasted so long and is still popular is because they really aren’t as fussy as most sports cars and a good one will last for ages. i have a friend with 2 80s 911s and those babies run like the day they rolled off the showroom floor and he has never had to do anything major to them. While i always like the style of the American muscle cars better they really do become money pits if you aren’t really careful. RIP Porsche, your cars will live on.
I think I read somewhere that Porsche is the mass-produced car brand that has the highest fraction of their cars still in use. It seems kind of plausible: They’re nice and special enough that people take good care of them and pay to fix them, but they’re also meant to be driven on a daily basis, unlike some of their more exotic competition.
“…Cars technically don’t have a place on OSNews, but Ferdinand Porsche’s passing cannot go by unmentioned.”
Well cars might merit a mention with reference to anything related with the growing use of computation in cars. This ‘news’, however, has no place whatsoever.
I’m sure we all have interests outside OSnews and take note of those who have some importance when they die. Hardly expect to see them plastered over OSnews.
Actually find this really annoying, and don’t think it’d be any different if I had any interest in cars, Porche’s in particular or designers of Porche’s dead or alive.
Well, he did design a couple of hard-drive enclosures for LaCie…
and the Blackberry P9981.
Without industrial designers like F. A. Porsche (among other things) we would not have all these hordes of worshippers of the Cult of the forbidden fruit 😛
Dude, chill.
I don’t remember seeing a new post when the creator of Doritos died.
Ferdinand Porsche and his son, Ferry, created the first prototype for the so-called “people’s car†— the Volkswagen. Hitler approved the design and a factory was built, but the war intervened and production of the Volkswagen was postponed; in the meantime, Porsche built tanks and airplane engines for the Nazi military, employing forced laborers on their assembly lines.
Edited 2012-04-07 02:43 UTC
Shouldn’t this be on FHM? I’ve always thought that cars were more for posers like Clarkson than people genuinely interested in technology. Something that men talk about to prove to other men that they are men.
I kind of disagree with you there. I generally don’t care much for cars, but car technology is actually quite interesting. Take something like dynamic torque distribution and what is needed to make four wheel drive actually usable in off-road conditions. Fascinating stuff.
Car design however is just plain boring nowadays, that is true. All cars seem to be designed for 15 year old boys dreaming about what they want to buy when they’re 22. Everything looks big and cartoonesque Hollywood action movie kind of tough (Audi Q7, I’m looking at you…).
Compared to most modern cars, a 911 looks actually quite elegant, well proportioned, and with a hint a female elegance to make it a sexy understatement.
It depends. If you want to drive up and down the blocking looking pretty, yeah, poser. If you want to tune the thing and run it at the limit without winding up in a body cast, or worse, not a poser what so ever.
It takes a lot of skill and knowledge to tune a car correctly; they’re incredibly complicated machines. I’m not talking just about the engine. I’m talking about the suspension, the chassis, the aerodynamics, the tires, everything.
Then there is the art of cars. They are beautiful pieces of industrial design. 911’s are beautiful in their simplicity and compactness. Lamborghini’s are beautiful because they’re just over the top. Honda’s were beautiful for their mechanical efficiency.
Then there is actually being able to drive and control cars at the limit.
F. A. Porsche was a genius of the industrial design, like Dieter Rams or Johnny Ive, their ideas are present in almost any product that we use.
PS: I love the 911, It’s timeless classic… but I agree with Thom, Alfas are the most beautiful cars ever created. Brera, Giulia Sprint, 8C… pure sexyness.
Only problem with Alfas (and Ferraris, Ducatis and everything Italian for that matter) is that they tend to break down or burst into flames at the stoplights… and their electrics and switchgear are crap and will almost inevitably fall off.
About Mr. Porsche. Yeah, great shape, great design. Getting spanked by the new GTR didn’t do much good for his health, I assume. May he long continue putting engines in the wrong end in that racetrack in the sky.
Edited 2012-04-07 15:40 UTC
pulled out of the hat here by fellow readers, I am actually surprised this isn’t on the front page ^^. Happy holidays, holy or otherwise, all!
Since things can hardly get more off-topic than this topic on OSnews, I guess that now is the best time to ask this question to our readers who know about Indian cooking :
When you make lamb byrianis, what part of the lamb do you use ? My butcher tends to give me shoulder, which tastes good, but takes a long time to prepare and is a bit expensive due to its low meat/fat and bone ratio…
Edited 2012-04-07 12:30 UTC
never mind that
i think my nose is gly it is totally larger than the noses of most of my friends now ive been hanging out with this girl and ot wanted to ask her ot bt all of her friends are into gotics and dont know abot her thogh but she said want a hes cte bt not to me bt a person who had like a black shirt and was like totally black like even his shoes
so now ive wear nothing bt black clothes and listen to avril lavigne bt the friends of that girl call me a wannebee even though iam not becase i said that things like pop msic is so lame and police shold finds other things to do becase there atority and that is totally lame like yo know whatever too i think they call me wannabee becase of my nose i look at music stars for gotics they have small noses
i really really like to become a gotic now bt how do i do that withot beying called a wannabee???????????????????????????????????????
???
sorry my key is broken so i cant type the letter .bye
Edited 2012-04-07 16:53 UTC
It’s so hard to get lamb here (northeast USA) I can’t imagine even having a choice. Leg or chop. Where do you shop?
In Grenoble, south-east of France. Here, it is fairly common to find small butchers on the sides of large streets. You pay more there than in supermarkets, but in return you get meat of higher quality, and a much larger choice of body parts.
Due to the increasing popularity of Islam, it gets harder to find a butcher that will sell you pork though, particularly if you live in the poorer districts of a city. But there’s still plenty of good stuff to be done with beef, lamb and chicken anyway
Edited 2012-04-07 18:45 UTC
Wasn’t it Enzo Ferrari who called the Jaguar E-type “The most beautiful car ever made” when it was released? There’s plenty of beautiful cars that aren’t italian…
I’m the only person in the world who thinks the E-type if FUGLY. I’m not kidding. It’s basically a penis with wheels. I hate that thing.
Thom, you are a strange, strange man.
How about the Aston Martin DB5?
<3
Yes, you’re the only one I’ve heard say that so far, both online and in real life.
The British always have made the most beautiful sports cars, imho. They manage to mix just the right amount of panache and understatement.
Italian sports cars mostly scream “Hey, look at me. I’m Italian and I’m waving my arms while speaking flamboyantly”. Nothing wrong with liking that sorta thing, though.
Only exception is probably the F40, which says “F*ck with me and I’ll kill you!!”.
Edited 2012-04-07 22:23 UTC