The V.I.S.I.T. Facebook page is an awesome place to hang out, and occasionally someone shares something truly special. Porsche is known to drive their prototypes around in trains like this, especially on the Southern California loop on which this group were spotted. In this group, though the photos the poster shared are perhaps a bit blurred, we appear to have a facelifted 981 Boxster, and perhaps a few variants of the upcoming 991 Carrera GTS. Maybe even a Targa GTS? The post on this facebook page that I’m referencing, originally placed there by Mr. Scott Kelly, also had this to say about the all-black group of P-cars.

My V.I.S.I.T. Win of the day because I am a HUGE Porsche Fanboy. I ran into a fleet of 9 or 10 Porsche Mules driving down Mulholland in Hollywood Hills, including a new 991 Targa!!! Every single one of them was black. And because the Porsche gods felt like throwing me a bone, literally about a mile and a half away and totally unrelated to the Factory Fleet, I saw a 991 GT3 in white which is absolutely gorgeous!

So what do we have here? As the resident Porsche fanatic, I’ll try my best to break it down for you. In the first image, you’ve got a Boxster leading a pair of 991 Cabriolets with the tops down. Further back, you can see a couple more Porsches, but I can’t make them out. One appears to perhaps be a cabriolet with a red convertible top. The second image above, you see a cabriolet with the top up sitting up front, and the second in the row is a 991 Targa. So why are these cars special? Well, they are Porsche test models for cars that have not yet been released. Take the Boxster, for instance. It appears to be wearing Boxster GTS wheels painted black, but that is most certainly not a Boxster GTS front bumper. A few minor differences, as well, that might just be tricks of the eye, but the headlights appear slightly different, the mirror stalk on the driver’s door looks a bit taller, and the engine air intake flanking the door looks to be a bit taller and more sharply raked up the fender. It is possible that we are looking at one of the first prototypes of the facelifted Boxster which is rumored to be coming soon, or perhaps even that four-cylinder turbocharged version of the car that has been rumored. The 911s, though, that looks to be a different story. From what I can see, all of them are the wide-body versions, at least as wide as the Carrera 4S body, though perhaps not quite as wide as the GT3. For no other reason than speculation, I’m forced to conclude that these might be an upcoming GTS variant that could bow as soon as early next year. While no coupes are present, it would stand to reason that Porsche would offer the GTS in both Coupe and Cabriolet, and both two-wheel and four-wheel drive as they did with the 997 generation. The wildcard here is the Targa. Could Porsche be plotting a Targa GTS? The Targa models, for a few years now, have only been available in 4-wheel drive variants, and that would probably continue with a Targa GTS. The GTS models have always been a little bit more powerful than the S models, and not quite as powerful as the GT3 models. Current S models produce 400 horsepower, and the GT3 is capable of 475, so that would put a GTS somewhere around 440, right? Stands to reason. Is any of this more than just somewhat educated (or not really) conjecture based on a pair of blurry cell-phone photos snapped through a windshield? Of course not. Later that same day, Mr. Kelly mentioned a 991 GT3 spotting. In the area surrounding Mulholland, this is hardly a surprise. Those following along will know that the 991 GT3 has been under scrutiny lately for a rash of engine fires in Europe. Porsche issued a full model recall and replaced every single engine for free. They never mentioned what the problem was, but it all boiled down to an oil leak somewhere that was dripping onto the hot exhausts and going all “Hunger Games part 2” on us (That’d be a book/movie called ‘catching fire’ for those not up on their popular culture). Chances are that this car has already had its engine replaced, and the owner is giving it some exercise. And since we’re sharing, I saw this factory mule Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid PHEV doing some hot-weather testing in my city of Reno, NV almost exactly one year ago. Who knew I’d be driving one later in the fall of 2013? I wouldn’t have known it was anything other than just a normal Panamera if it hadn’t been wearing Acid-Green calipers and some gaffer’s tape across the back window and the rear passenger’s windows. By this point, the S E-Hybrid had already started being delivered to dealers, so I’m not sure exactly what they were doing still testing a pre-production mule on Manufacturer’s Georgia tags. Perhaps they’d just gone for a road trip to get some In-n-Out burger?   First 3 photos: Scott Kelley Panamera photo:  ©2014 Hooniverse/Bradley C. Brownell, All Rights Reserved.