I saw this at the Porsche Museum. Guy had to take a picture of his rather skankily (is that an adjective or adverb) dressed girlfriend leaning on every car. LeMans-winning 917s, one-off prototypes, fragile fiberglass racing machines... I was getting angry on Porsche’s behalf watching them. 

Watching the Indycar race from Pocono... There was a bit before the race inside Marco Andretti’s kitchen. After looking at his house, my wife said “Wow, that’s absolutely palatial for someone who probably shouldn’t have a seat...”

He was better than Willem Defoe in Clear and Present Danger...

I’ll just leave this here...  Denise and Phil Hill at the 2003 USGP.

OK, that’s a little better, but still not optimal in my mind.

Like the early versions of BMW’s iDrive, where EVERYTHING was in a menu somewhere. Just give me a volume knob, people!

I see there are a few holes in the history of it.

The wife and I have found that an E39 M5 is a good balance between fun and comfortable.  And, if you ever need to cross those big, square states out west really quickly, it’ll do that very well.  Mileage isn’t great, but the tank is large.

And you’ve got about 4 minutes to edit...

Well, it was from McLaren back to Renault to Ferrari back to McLaren.

Thanks for all the joy you brought to us over the years.  But, I can understand both the social issues with what you’ve been doing, not to mention the time obligation of being here at a particular time, every single day.

Me too (which is why I was bidding on it!).  Oh well, next time...

This car is nuts.  I’m a little shocked the bidding went as high as it did.

Well, for me, it started in 2000, monitoring other retailers (I was in Consumer Electronics) pricing. Then it was their promotions. Then, we’d look at remodels. By the time I left the company I was working for, we had reports on all sorts of retailers with financial analysis, SWOT analysis, profiles of top executives,…

I enjoy it.  It’s turned in to a great little career for me, considering I kind of fell in to it.  I’ve been doing competitive intel now since 2000.

Yeah, it’s one step removed from “Target employee sometimes shops at Walmart.”

Yep.  I’ve worked in retail competitive intelligence for quite a few years, and I make purchases from my competitors all the time.

First Gear:  This is standard competitive intelligence.  I’d actually be very disappointed if they didn’t get all the publicly available information they could.  Now, grabbing a clip board, leaving the tour, and pretending to be a Ford employee is unethical and illegal.  But, doing things open to any member of the…

No kids tips the scales in the 987's favor for me.  Race track membership tips it further.

I’ll disagree. You aren’t putting anyone you actually like in the backseat of a 911. So, it’s uncovered storage. In a Cayman you get the exact same trunk as a 911 up front. And... another trunk in back.