Since its beginning the Porsche Club of America has annually put on the Porsche Parade as their main event for the year. What began as a small tradition of a group of enthusiasts caravaning together creating a mini ‘parade’ has now grown into one of the biggest Porsche events in North America. For 2016 the Parade came to Jay, Vermont which is located just an hour jaunt from our location in Milton, VT. It was the perfect opportunity to invite Porsche Parade participants to our facility to see the inner workings of Rennline!
Here at Rennline we are somewhat unique in that we do almost everything in-house, from concept to design, engineering, to manufacturing, testing, and finally sales. This all encompassing approach allows us to keep the fit and finish of our parts, customer service and technical support at the standard of quality that our customers have come to expect. It also means that there is quite a bit to see at the Rennline facility!
We spent the week getting ready to play host to a crowd of Porsche enthusiasts and this meant giving the shop a quick cleaning, getting some tents together, and just a lot of general logistical organization to make sure we were ready for a capacity crowd!
You can’t have an open house without some serious grub, luckily full-time Rennline painter and part-time grill master Charles came in to man the custom built Rennline grill, complete with “R-Curve” logo branding iron.
We made sure to have plenty of parts on display, from our world famous tow hooks to our perforated floorboards and billet aluminum valve covers, the open house gave current and potential customers a chance to get their hands on our products. Most Rennline parts were right there so that people could pick them up, play with them, and see if it was something that would fit their aesthetic and performance needs, and we had a number of cars from the Rennline fleet on display to highlight the parts in their natural habitat.
No open house, or any kind of party for that matter, would be complete without beverages. To that end our Vice President Tom brought out his Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback on air ride suspension with a custom Beetle front suspension conversion and plenty of other trick bits. It isn’t a Porsche, but it is still aircooled and got plenty of attention.
And we had a great turnout. From the first car to stop by, a 991 GT3 RS, to the last car to leave, we had all manner of cool cars from pristine, stock cars to heavily modified Turbos, to cars built for cross country road rallies, it was a very diverse crowd which made it all the more fun. We even had a few 500+whp VW’s and Audis show up; it was great being able to share the experience with locals and out of towners alike.
As visitors arrived, we had a number of Rennline employees on hand to give tours around the place and our machinist and welder were on hand to demonstrate their crafts. Our warehouse manager, Dan, spent much of the day among his rows of parts helping customers pick out the bits and pieces they were looking for. Attendees were treated to a number of Rennline parts in the works including some that haven’t even made their public debut yet. Additionally they got to see just how much time and effort goes into everything we make, from our battery mount kits to our CNC billet valve covers.
Some Rennline Lightweight Battery mount kits all bent up and ready for anodize on display
Waterjet operator John getting some parts ready to run
One of our most impressive projects: a 5in thick piece of inconel being cut by our 87,000psi waterjet
Rennline Machinist Jake kept parts flowing through the mills so everyone could see big chunks of aluminum turn into finished Rennline parts
A sneak peak for customer and now for our readers: our new, tubular engine carrier for the 964/993 chassis
All in all it was an amazing time with some truly amazing people. The breadth of knowledge, whit and experience of Porsche Parade attendees was astounding, and the interest in what we do here was an experience unto itself. We hope that everyone in the Porsche world realizes what a truly wonderful and unique community they are a part of and how much it has to offer. Due to the success of the event, we are currently looking into the potential of doing a regular show we are considering dubbing “Cars and Coronas,” although that title is subject to change. Are you interested in what Rennline does? Would you be willing to come out for a ‘cars and coffee’ style event where you could roam the workshop and see what we do up close and in person? If send us an email Orders@Rennline.com and tell us what you think would help make a great event!
The car started off as a 1980 Porsche 911, and has been backdated and painted slate gray, Steve McQueen’s favorite Porsche color. Bisimoto built a 3.6 liter naturally aspirated engine with independent throttle bodies and Bisimoto bespoke engine management. Equipped with plenty of lightweight Rennline goodies and a set of Fifteen52 Outlaw 001 wheels, this car should boogie!
