P-Car Talk Podcast

Pcar Talk
  • 4.7 (160)
  • Automotive
  • Updated Weekly

P-car Talk is a passion project created by two Porschephiles about anything and everything Porsche. We want this to be for the community who love the crest from Stuttgart as much as we do. Along with all the events we attend together, we turn on the microphones to bring the latest happenings, experiences with our own cars, and make new P-car friends along the way. Join us for the ride of a lifetime!

  1. Jun 18

    Boom Goes the Engine: Motor Swaps, Factory Failures, and Toy Story Liveries

    Thank You to Our CrewThank You to Our Crew Before we get into it this week, a big thank you to everyone who keeps this show going — the listeners, the community, and everyone flying the P-car flag out there. You know who you are. We appreciate you. Another Rough Weekend for Porsche Motorsport There is no sugarcoating it — another race weekend, another result that hurts to watch. One car out with steering rack issues, the other limping home in 12th. For a factory program with the pedigree Porsche carries, this is not where anyone expected to be at this point in the season. The year opened with real promise, and now we are sitting here trying to figure out what went sideways. The thing that makes it sting more is context: this is the last year of the current factory effort, which means every result carries extra weight. Is this a program that ran out of steam at the end? Is the talent still there but the development cycle just dried up knowing the curtain is coming down? The crew has thoughts, and none of them are particularly optimistic. We are not here to pile on, but we are also not going to pretend a 12th and a DNF is anything other than what it is. Porsche x Toy Story — Buzz Lightyear and the Clone Army Porsche teamed up with Toy Story for a charity livery and honestly, as a one-off it is kind of hard to hate. It is silly, it is colorful, it is for a good cause — fine. But here is where the fun starts. How long before the clout-chasing segment of the community starts dropping their own Buzz Lightyear wraps? Because you know it is coming. We are officially starting the counter. Every time one of these shows up on Instagram over the next few months, we want to know about it. Send them to us at @pcartalk, we will keep a running tally, and we will report back. Play along at home. The over/under on copycat liveries by end of year — place your bets now. To infinity and beyond, apparently. The Big One: When Your 996 or 997 Engine Goes Boom — What Do You Actually Do? IMS failure. Bore scoring. If you own a 996 or 997, these are not hypotheticals — they are scenarios you have thought about, probably more than once. So let us say it actually happens. The engine is cooked, damage is too severe to rebuild sensibly, and you are staring at a bill. A proper factory-spec engine replacement is going to run you somewhere around $50,000 depending on who does the work and what parts are needed. That is a real number, and for a lot of people owning these cars, it reframes the entire ownership conversation. So what do you actually do? You have options, and none of them are comfortable. You pay the freight, source a replacement engine, and keep the car correct — which is the defensible move if you have a clean example and plan to keep it. You find a used engine and gamble on its history. Or you go a completely different direction. And this is where the conversation gets interesting, because people have gone different directions. LS swaps in 911s exist. K-swapped 996s with a turbo bolted on — we have seen it with our own eyes. It runs. It is fast. It is also deeply confusing to look at under the hood of a 911. The question is not just mechanical, it is philosophical. A 911 is defined by the engine in the back. That flat-six, that specific architecture, is what makes the car what it is. When you pull it and replace it with something that was never meant to be there, are you still driving a 911 or are you driving something else that happens to have a 911 body? There is no wrong answer here, especially when the alternative is a $50K repair on a car that might be worth $40K. But the crew has opinions, and this one goes long. Where would you go, and why? Outro That is a wrap on this one. Thanks for riding along. Find us at pcartalk.com for events and everything P-car, support the show at Patreon.com/pcartalk, and hit us on Instagram at @pcartalk. Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Sean, and Nik.

    1h 11m

  2. Jun 4

    The Floor Keeps Rising

    Thank You to the Kimchi Crew Before we get into it, a genuine thank you to everyone who listens, supports the show, and keeps this community alive. You know who you are. We do this because we love it, and you make it worth doing. Now let's get into it. Detroit IMSA: BOP'd Into Irrelevance The Porsche GT3R at Detroit was so heavily Balance of Performance'd that it was barely a factor, and the prototype entries qualified so far back in such a short enduro format that catching up was a near-impossible ask before the green flag even dropped. But let's be honest with ourselves here: IMSA was on GM's side from the jump. The race is in Detroit, GM's backyard, and anyone paying attention could feel the gravitational pull toward keeping the home team looking good. This isn't new. The frustration with series organizers placating to manufacturers based on geography or politics is real, and it's a recurring stain on what should be a pure competition. When the racing result feels predetermined by the city it's held in, that's a problem worth calling out. The 911 Market Is Not Coming Back Down We touched the surface of this last episode when we talked about Mezger-engine GT3s drying up and the 993 price surge, but it's time to go deeper because the numbers are getting genuinely hard to rationalize. 997 Carrera S's: a green manual with 35k miles is asking $108k. Midnight blue, 55k miles, manual, asking $90k. For a Carrera S. Let that sit. 996 Turbos, which we've covered before, are now seeing 95k-mile manual cars asking $90k. The market logic here is that against the backdrop of new Porsche prices, these feel like deals to people entering the hobby. And look, we get it, but that doesn't make the numbers any less wild. The broader picture is this: if you are chasing a manual 911 of any generation, any configuration, the era of stumbling into a good deal is over. Base 991.1s with 50 to 80k miles are moving at $65k to $80k. Base Carrera, not an S, not a GTS. And before anyone says you can still find a reasonable 996 base 911 for $35k to $40k with 90k miles -- we'd push back hard on that. That is not a bargain. That is a lot of money for a car that will demand attention and investment. The "affordable 911" narrative needs to be retired. Here's the thing we want to be transparent about: there is zero financial incentive for us to tell you to go buy a car. We don't get a cut. But if you want a manual 911 and you're sitting on the fence, today is genuinely the better bet than tomorrow, because every data point we're seeing says the floor keeps rising regardless of generation. This is not a bubble in the traditional sense. These are driver's cars with a finite supply of desirable manual configurations in a world that stopped producing them. Why do you think this keeps going up? We'd love to hear from the community on that. What makes this genuinely upsetting, not just analytically frustrating, is that the price appreciation is pricing out exactly the people who should be owning these cars. The passionate ones. The ones who would drive them, maintain them right, and actually care. Instead they end up with people for whom it's a flex or a garage sculpture. That's a gut punch for anyone who's been in this community long enough to remember when that wasn't the case. JC9 Carrera GT: A Solution Looking for a Problem The JC9 is essentially a reimagined Carrera GT body with visual cues borrowed from the 917. On paper that sounds compelling, but sitting with it longer brings up some real questions. The Carrera GT doesn't need to be fixed. It is one of the most celebrated analog driver's cars ever made. Slapping a new body on the concept and marketing it to ultra-wealthy buyers who want something exclusive feels like the automotive equivalent of a solution looking for a problem. KISS. Keep it simple. The military drilled that into some of us for good reason, and it applies here. The original formula was right. The more the car world chases bespoke reinventions of icons for nine-figure clientele, the further it drifts from what made those icons matter in the first place. Thoughts on this one? We have mixed feelings and we're not hiding it. Indecent 911 Hatchback Wagon: Cool Idea or Vaporware? The renders coming out of Indecent for a custom 911 hatchback/wagon are genuinely striking. They look cool. Full stop. But the question that always follows something like this is whether this is another "put your money where your mouth is" moment, where the concept gets traction on the internet and then quietly disappears when build deposits don't materialize. The 911 community has seen this cycle before. People love the idea of something unconventional until they have to actually commit to it. Is there a real market for a coachbuilt 911 wagon? Maybe. Is the execution going to live up to renders that were made to generate buzz? That's always the harder question. What do you think -- cool and you'd want one, or a stunt? Outro That's a wrap on this one. Catch us at pcartalk.com for upcoming events, support the show over at Patreon.com/pcartalk, and find us on social at @pcartalk. As always -- Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik.

    1h 27m

  3. May 14

    Cold Roads, Missing GT3s, and Porsche's Quiet Exit

    Ruckus Debrief Ruckus is in the rearview and the roads delivered. Cold weather, beautiful scenery, and rock chips that serve as a reminder you actually drove the thing. This is what it's for. No complaints from anyone in the crew — the kind of event you start planning to return to before you've even unpacked. The Headlines: Porsche Jobs, Nurburgring, and Luft Atlanta Porsche is cutting 500 jobs tied to ongoing revenue pressure and nobody here is happy about it. We never like to see people lose their jobs — full stop. On the racing side, the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring is right around the corner, which means a lot of sleepless nights ahead for the right reasons. And for the enthusiast crowd, Luft is headed to Atlanta this October. Last year it was North Carolina, so the southeast is getting some real love on the calendar right now. Vanthoor to McLaren — And What Porsche Isn't Saying Laurens Vanthoor is joining McLaren's hypercar program on loan from Porsche for 2027. No official announcement about what this means for Porsche's factory team presence, but the crew has seen this movie before. When Porsche starts farming out factory drivers and running every livery they can on the factory car, it's usually a preview of an exit — the same pattern played out before they stepped back from the RSR program. Nothing confirmed, but the read here is that Porsche is pulling back from that factory hypercar effort whether they've said so or not. 997 GT3s Are Gone — And the Price Is Whatever the Seller Wants The 997 GT3 market has reached a point that only a handful of models ever hit: the cars aren't listed because the owners aren't selling. When they do transact, it's a phone call, not a listing. Word of mouth, private deals, specialty dealers with one car every few months. A 997.1 GT3 with a minor Carfax note and 60,000 miles is moving at $175,000, and the crew doesn't think that's anywhere near the ceiling. The reason this happens isn't complicated — as more people enter the Porsche world and chase a real driving experience, demand for the cars that actually deliver it concentrates. Supply doesn't move. Price does. The only honest answer a seller can give a buyer right now is: find me another one. Thank you for the support — it genuinely means everything. Follow us at pcartalk.com for events, Patreon.com/pcartalk for the P-car Club, and @pcartalk everywhere else. Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik.

    1h 25m

  4. Apr 16

    Porsche Built a GT3 Convertible and We Have Thoughts

    The GT3 S/C Hot off the press, literally revealed yesterday, Porsche unveiled the 911 GT3 S/C, and we had a lot to say. Let's start with what it actually is, because the name does some heavy lifting. S/C stands for Sport Cabriolet, though Porsche being Porsche, they let you sit with that for a second before confirming it. The badge itself is a callback to the 911 SC from the late 1970s, where SC meant Super Carrera, a car that basically defined what the usable everyday 911 looked like before the GT program existed. Using it here is either a brilliant wink at the obsessives in the room or the kind of marketing move that makes you think someone in Zuffenhausen has been deep on Rennlist. Either way, it works. So what did they actually build? Porsche took the lightweight bones of the 911 S/T and dropped in the naturally aspirated 4.0 liter flat six from the GT3. 510 horsepower, 9,000 rpm. And the result is the first ever open top GT3 in production history. Not a limited run. Not 1,948 units. You can actually order one, which is either the most exciting or most controversial sentence in this episode depending on who you ask. The Weight Question This is where the internet was ready to roast Porsche, and they came prepared. The GT3 S/C weighs 1,497 kilograms. That is just 18 kilos more than the standard GT3 coupe and about 30 kilos more than the 991 generation Speedster. For a convertible that number is almost offensive in how good it is. Carbon fiber on the hood, fenders, doors, and rear anti roll bar. Magnesium wheels standard. Carbon ceramics. They even swapped the battery to a lithium ion unit to kill another four kilos. At some point it stops being engineering and starts being a personality disorder, but we respect it. The Roof Here is the thing that split the room a little. This is the first GT3 with a fully automated power top. Twelve seconds. Electric. Works at up to 37 miles per hour. The purists who are already composing their forum posts about how the Speedster had a manual tonneau cover and that was the whole point, we hear you. But if you have ever been caught in a South Florida rain shower at a Cars and Coffee in your suede seat 911, you understand why this exists. Porsche also threw in a heated rigid glass rear window and an integrated electric wind deflector. This is not a race car you bought to trailer. It is a road car they actually want you to live with. Manual Only. No Debate. No PDK option. Not available. The GT3 S/C comes exclusively with the short ratio six speed manual and that is the entire spec sheet on transmission. At $273,000, Porsche is making a pretty clear statement about who this car is for. The chassis is tuned closer to the GT3 Touring than the full winged GT3, which makes sense because you are not taking this to a track day, you are on a mountain road with the roof down and the flat six screaming toward nine thousand rpm with nothing between you and that sound. That is the pitch. That is the whole pitch, and it is a genuinely good one. What It Actually Means The S/C picks up the spiritual thread the Speedster left, but Porsche is clear it is not a direct successor. The Speedster was a numbered tribute. This is a catalog car, which is either democratizing access to the GT3 experience or softening what made the Speedster special. We landed somewhere in the middle on that one. What is not debatable is that the cylinder heads are revised from the previous generation GT3 and the camshafts are the sharper units from the GT3 RS, so the engine is genuinely better. You get more top end character. You get it with the sky above you. At this price, with this spec, Porsche is not asking you to compromise. They are asking you to decide what kind of driver you are. Outro That is the GT3 S/C. Drop your thoughts in the comments, are you buying it, are you waiting for the inevitable RS version, or are you holding out for something that says Mezger on the cam covers. Find us at pcartalk.com for events, support the show at Patreon.com/pcartalk, and follow along at @pcartalk. Big love to the Kimchi Crew, Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik. We will see you next week.

    1h 9m

  5. Apr 1

    The New Dakar and the Death of the Real Manual

    The Dakar Gets an Upgrade — And Maybe a Second Chance The next-generation Porsche Dakar is coming, and this time it's arriving with the full 992.2 treatment plus hybrid technology baked in. Expected ordering windows open late this year with a starting price somewhere around $250k before you even look at the options list. The big question the guys tackle here isn't whether the new Dakar is desirable — it obviously is — it's whether Porsche finally lets people actually buy one. The first-gen Dakar's limited production run was classic Porsche scarcity playbook, and it worked, but it also meant a lot of genuine enthusiasts who wanted one to drive got shut out. No "limited" label has surfaced yet for this new version, and the guys are cautiously optimistic that if you want one, you might actually be able to order one. That's how it should be. Transmission by Wire: The Future of the Manual or the End of It? Porsche is reportedly developing a transmission-by-wire system, and the concept is worth unpacking. Picture a traditional H-pattern shifter with the weight and feel of a real mechanical gearbox — but underneath, it's all sensors and software. Shift when you want to, feel like you're rowing gears, and when you don't want to deal with it, let the computer take over. The guys dig into whether this is genuinely cool engineering or just another layer of abstraction between the driver and the car. There's a real argument that this keeps the manual alive in an era where packaging and electrification are slowly killing it — but there's also the uncomfortable truth that a simulated shift feel is still simulated. Is this the future of the enthusiast car, or just a very expensive compromise? Outro For upcoming events and everything P-car Talk, head to pcartalk.com. Support the show at Patreon.com/pcartalk and follow us at @pcartalk.  The Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Sean, and Nik.

    53 min

  6. Mar 26

    Porsche 1-2 at Sebring, Factory Team Beef, and the 911 Joyride That Ended in Handcuffs

    A shop burned down. There's beef inside Porsche's factory team. And a transporter got arrested for joyriding someone's brand new 911. This week on P-car Talk, Mike and Aaron open with some real news from the South Florida car community — Arnage Motorsports, owned by their close friends Cory and George, lost their entire shop in a fire. GoFundMe link is in the description. These are good people and the community needs to show up for them. Then they break down Porsche's Sebring sweep — first, second in GTP, Manthey wins its class. Great weekend on paper. But there's post-race drama between the number 6 and number 7 cars that makes the press conference worth watching. Team orders, a lead change that wasn't authorized, and two teammates who are very publicly not on the same page. And then the one you'll be talking about: a Florida transporter decided a new customer's 911 was his personal weekend car. He got caught. He got arrested. But it opens up the entire conversation about how broken the car shipping industry really is — and whether driving the car home yourself is always the right call. GoFundMe for Arnage Motorsports: https://gofund.me/d87d9f93a Follow us: @pcartalk | pcartalk.com | Patreon.com/pcartalk Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Sean, and Nik

    51 min

  7. Mar 12

    Which Porsche Do You Actually Buy? — Part Two

    Which Porsche Do You Actually Buy? — Part Two Right where we left off. You've got the spec sheet in front of you, the price ranges are real, and the question the crew has been circling the whole episode finally lands on the table: if you had to write the check today — daily driver, PDK only, traffic more often than mountain roads — which one do you actually buy? Thank You to the Kimchi Crew and Our Listeners Before we get into it, a quick thank you to everyone who's been riding with us. The messages, the DMs, the comments — you guys keep this thing going and we genuinely appreciate it. This community is something else, and we don't take that for granted. Now. Back to the cars. So What Would You Actually Daily? The ground rules are simple: PDK only, because this thing is going to sit in traffic far more often than it sees a sweeper at elevation. Fun matters, mountain roads matter, but they're the exception. The question is what works best when the exception isn't happening. The crew goes around the table — 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 at 394 horsepower and 309 torque, ranging $75k to $90k. 718 Cayman GTS 4.0, same numbers, slightly more money at $80k to $95k. The turbocharged 718 variants — S at 350 horsepower and 309 torque, GTS at 365 and 317 — with Boxster money starting in the $40k range and Cayman topping out around $75k. Then the 991 world: the 991.1 Carrera with the 3.4L naturally aspirated flat six, 350 horsepower, 287 torque, $50k to $70k. The 991.1 Carrera S stepping up to the 3.8L, 400 horsepower, 325 torque, $60k to $85k. And then the 991.2 — 3.0L twin-turbo making 370 in the base and 420 in the S, with pricing from $75k all the way to $110k depending on how deep you want to go. Which One Wins and Why The goal isn't a one-day car. It's a ten-year car — longer if possible. Daily, fun, occasionally on a real road, and something you don't want to get rid of. That framing changes the calculus immediately. This isn't poverty spec shopping, but it also isn't money-is-no-object territory. You want to save where saving makes sense without ending up in the wrong car. For the crew, the 991.1 Carrera S keeps rising to the top. The 3.8L naturally aspirated flat six is the engine you'll still be talking about in year eight. Four hundred horsepower, 325 torque, the sound is unreplicated, and the maintenance story on a well-sourced example is manageable in a way the 991.2's turbo system eventually isn't. The 718 GTS 4.0 is an emotional argument that holds up — but it's a smaller, louder, lower car that earns its keep on roads, not commutes. The 991 wraps the same soul in something you can actually live in. And the 991.2, for all its numbers, takes you out of naturally aspirated territory in a way that matters over ten years of ownership. Get on the Road — Fahren 2026 If all this has you thinking about what it actually feels like to drive one of these cars on a real road with real corners, Fahren 2026 is the answer. October 13 through 16, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina — 27 spots, and the kind of driving you'll be talking about for years. Head to pcartalk.com for details and get your name in before it fills up. Outro That's the show. Thanks for listening. If you want more, join the Pcar Club at Patreon.com/pcartalk. Follow us on Instagram @pcartalk. Until next time, drive it, race it and never save it. Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik

    44 min

  8. Mar 5

    Which Porsche Would You Actually Daily? 718 vs 991 — Part 1

    div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown"> Which Porsche Do You Actually Buy? — Part One The question sounds simple until you actually start answering it: if you're shopping PDK because this car is going to sit in traffic more days than it sees a mountain road, which Porsche makes the most sense? The lineup starts with the 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 and Cayman GTS 4.0 — both making 394 horsepower and 309 torque, with the Boxster ranging $75k to $90k and the Cayman $80k to $95k. Step down to the turbocharged variants and you're at 350 horsepower in the S and 365 in the GTS, torque actually matching the 4.0 at 309 and 317 respectively, with Boxster money starting in the $40k range and Cayman topping out around $75k. The 4.0 is the easy emotional answer. The turbo variants are the practical one. The hosts work through both. The 991 Enters the Conversation Just as the 718 debate starts to settle, the 991 world opens up and complicates everything. The 991.1 Carrera with the 3.4L naturally aspirated flat six makes 350 horsepower and 287 torque and can be found in the $50k to $70k range — the 991.1 Carrera S bumps that to 400 horsepower with a 3.8L and asks $60k to $85k. Then the 991.2 comes in with the 3.0L twin-turbo making 370 horsepower in the base car and 420 in the S, and suddenly you're looking at a very different ownership proposition from a very different price bracket. We're just getting into it — Part Two picks up right here. Outro That's the show. Thanks for listening. If you want more, join the Pcar Club at Patreon.com/pcartalk. Follow us on Instagram @pcartalk. Until next time, drive it, race it and never save it. Kimchi Crew: Steve, Leslie, Chris, Ken, Aaron, Matthew, Sean, and Nik

    43 min
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4.7
out of 5
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About

P-car Talk is a passion project created by two Porschephiles about anything and everything Porsche. We want this to be for the community who love the crest from Stuttgart as much as we do. Along with all the events we attend together, we turn on the microphones to bring the latest happenings, experiences with our own cars, and make new P-car friends along the way. Join us for the ride of a lifetime!

Information

  • Creator
    Pcar Talk
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    102
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    P-Car Talk Podcast

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