The Geneva Motor Show is the place on the auto show circuit for manufacturers to launch their heaviest ordinance, to unveil their most anticipated vehicles, to uncover their most evocative concepts.
We’ve just finished two thousand miles in the 2011 Porsche GT3 RS 4.0. They were two thousand mind-searingly memorable miles, in part because they were on some of our great western roads, including Rt. 4 in New Mexico, Rt. 145 in Colorado, and Rts. 95 and 24 in Utah, to name a few. And memorable, in no small part, because this is the last of the 997-generation Porsches, and when Porsche gives a going-away present to its owners, they do it in style.
The “performance truck” is in keeping with the general drift of pickup trucks sold in the US in the Swiss Army Knife direction. There is a definite appeal to the idea of a vehicle that can do many things: take the kids to school, haul kitchen cabinets home, pick up a plasma TV, and go on an off-road expedition in a national park. That list of consumer needs has led to the popularity of full-size crew cab pickups. Change up the list to: commute comfortably to work, pick up a plasma TV from Best Buy, haul kitchen cabinets home, and deliver some semblance of quickness and responsiveness while doing it all and you get various sport trucks like the Toyota X-Runner, the Ford Raptor and this week’s Quick Drive, the Dodge Ram 1500 R/T.