Auto News 5

Like many Porsche drivers, I've long loved 911s but felt a bit snobbish about the Boxster. Raw power was not in evidence, the original Boxsters sporting only 201 hp. And the styling? Granted, Porsches are about engineering rather than looks - they're like the smart, plain schoolgirl who wears no makeup because she knows that any boy who's going to get interested in her will have to pay closer attention than that - but even so, the early Boxsters resembled bugeye Sprites more than Carreras. The Boxster may have been Automobile Magazine's 1998 Automobile of the Year, but to me it smacked too much of the 914.

Rising from the hallowed ground of the company's Stuttgart headquarters, the new $130 million Porsche Museum deploys an imposing 60,000 square feet of stark white display space, enough to exhibit about eighty cars. The structure, expected to attract more than 200,000 visitors annually, employs more oddly angled struts than a Le Mans racer.