This time of year while many NNJR member thoughts turn to a beautiful and relaxing ride though the New Jersey countryside in their Porsches to view the changing colors of autumn, the New Members thoughts turn to the second of the Clubs New Member Reception. With this in mind we began the planning several weeks ago. This included selecting the menu for the hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, making sure the chairs for the clubs programs are notified to be present and preparing the information packets we give to each new member. All this being accomplished prior to the event, we were confident the evening would go well.
 The evening of the event we decided to leave extra early to avoid arriving late as happened at the last event due to heavy traffic on 287. Arriving at the Villa, we set up our New Member table and were ready in plenty of time to greet the New Members. Shortly the Event Chairs arrived and we were ready for the New Members. As each arrived we greeted them, gave them there information packet and introduced them to the Event Chairs. While this was going on, the staff at the Villa put out the food. At this point for some reason most of the attendees gravitated to the end of the room where the food was. Go figure! Anyway the New Members got to meet the Event Chairs, have their questioned answered and have some great food while sharing their Porsche stories.

 Back in October we visited with the Team at Powertech to get an overview of the Mid-Engine lineup of Porsche motorcars. Mike Daino started us off with a brief and very informative history of where Porsche was in the mid 1990’s and what the thought process was that developed the Boxster. Porsche needed to sell more cars and had to change the way they built them in order to stay in the automobile business. The Boxster was a building block for the 911 platform that became known as the 996. What was important to note is that each platform is really the same from just behind the front seats to the front bumper. Mike also took us through some background on the Porsche engines. While they have dimensional similarities to the original, this current version was born out of necessity to meet emissions guidelines and cost efficiency. An interesting factoid came out here, that Porsche actually enlisted the help of Toyota to bring their manufacturing into the modern robotic era. So, for those of you with a 993 style 911, you have the last of the hand built cars.

 Oktoberfest is not only celebrated in the homeland of Porsche, but also here in New Jersey at the Deutscher Club in Clark, NJ. This year NNJR was again invited to participate in their final biergarten fest of the season on September 30. The Deutscher Club, in conjunction with NNJR, sponsored a lively dinner, complete with German food, plenty of beer, and a traditional oompah band, in combination with a people’s choice concours event. 
 After what seemed like a summer of continuous rain, we finally lucked out and had great weather for our Oktoberfest celebration – at least before 9:00pm after which, you guessed it, it started to drizzle. This in no way, however, hampered the enjoyment of the NNJR members who turned out for this fete. Once again we had an outstanding turnout of spectacular Porsches that our members put on display for all of the Deutscher Club attendees to view and enjoy.
 Jeff McFadyen took first place in the people’s choice concours with his outstanding 1957 356 outlaw. Murray and Akemi Kane took second place with their always immaculate 1994 911 coupe, and Anthony Cristello took third place with his beautiful metallic blue 1989 911 turbo.