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Porsche working on turbo V12 for Putin limo project?

Porsche is best known for building very well-regarded sports cars and better-selling utility vehicles. Come to the company with a big enough bag of cash, though, and the Porsche Engineering division can create just about anything. The group's past projects include working with Harley-Davidson, Mercedes-Benz and corporate cousin Audi, but if rumors prove true, then its latest partner might be the last one you'd expect.
Russian website Wroom reports that Porsche Engineering is building the engine for the Project Cortege government limousine project for Russian president Vladimir Putin. The mill is supposedly a turbocharged V12 displacing between 6.0- and 6.6-liters and making around 800 horsepower. When complete, it will reportedly be built by ZMZ with Russian-sourced parts.
The limo is expected to debut in 2017, according to Wroom, but it's just the beginning of Putin's grandiose plans, which also goes by the name of the Motorcade Project. The same platform is also meant to underpin several vehicles for use by the government, including an SUV, a small bus and a sedan. All of them would reportedly have a longitudinally mounted engine and all-wheel drive.

Drive-up bank robbery perpetrated with Cayenne and WRX

Thieves carried out what appears to be a movie-script-perfect robbery of a bank in Sydney, Australia early on Friday morning, using two stolen high-performance vehicles in the process.
At around 11:15 AM local time, in near mid-day light, reports say that two men in masks smashed into the side of a Westpac bank in a confirmed-stolen black Porsche Cayenne. The perpetrators were armed with sledgehammers according to witness reports, and took only about five minutes to take what they were after inside of the bank.
The rapid getaway was executed in a Subaru WRX, also confirmed as a stolen vehicle, while witnesses snapped camera phone images of the illicit goings on. One Twitter user posted a few of the images to his social media feed; you can take a look at them in our small gallery below. Follow on down for the full video report, from The Sydney Morning Herald.

NYT profiles Blue Nelson, a reclusive and interesting CA car collector

If it weren't for his Dale Earnhardt Sr. looks, Blue Nelson could be one one of those soft-spoken, nondescript guys whom you meet briefly and never learn much more about. However, as The New York Times shows in a recent profile and video, behind closed doors, Nelson keeps a fascinatingly eclectic collection of automotive oddities and vintage bicycles.
While his main career is in the movie industry, Nelson's other job is as a car hunter. He takes on clients searching for a specific model and helps them find and restore the dream vehicle that they're after. Hiring him takes some dedication, though, because Nelson doesn't advertise his services. "If people want to find me, they know how to find me," he says in the video.
Beyond being an automotive private detective, Nelson has a fantastically varied collection of vehicles of his own. He likes to have models that people don't usually see, and his garage holds a classic Chrysler New Yorker and an extremely rare Rometsch convertible. Although, the one that means the most to him is the 1962 Porsche 356 convertible that Blue came home in as a baby. Check out the video to learn more about Nelson and his philosophy about forming a bond with a car.