So it’s been a wild ride for car enthusiasts over the last 24 hours or so. First we get the new Ferrari 488 GTB, then we get the new Ford Focus RS and last, but not least, the new Porsche Cayman GT4. Wow, what a great time to be into true drivers cars, right?

So this morning, Dale over at Bridge to Gantry drops this Nürburgring themed ad for the GT4:

Wow! It really gets your blood flowing, right? Go book your airfare to Germany now and rent a Porsche to tackle the Green Hell! It’s great…even if the Nürburgring footage was faked. What?!? Yup, see Dale’s post which I completely agree with.

This brings me to what I’m calling The Porsche Cayman GT4 Nürburgring Paradox. On the one hand, I love that Porsche chose to use the outline of The Green Hell and other graffiti in the ad, but not once mentioned The Nürburgring and yet all of us still knew it immediately. What does that say about the brand recognition of The Ring? Also, Porsche knew that we’d get it. The people this car is targeted at will instantly get it.

I love that Porsche spent money producing this bonkers car with a manual transmission and that they spent money on an ad that so clearly speaks to it’s target audience. So, what’s the paradox? It’s right at the very end of the ad- [Rebels, race on].

Sure, this car is made for the 1% of the world like us. Maybe we even like that rebel moniker. Maybe it’s part of why the ad resonates with us. The shocked upstanding citizens, the kid looking on in awe. We don’t want that comfortable, conformist life shown as the contrast to the GT4 owner and we want to be that owner. Good marketing, Porsche. Nicely done!

It made me think of another great, car-related ad, though. Remember this gem:

This one hits REALLY close to home for me. “We are an endangered species, you and I.” This is the truth of it.

We will soon live in a world of self-driving Google “cars”. We live in a world where the future of places like The Nürburgring is in question. We live in a world where there may be no F1 race in Germany in 2015. Yet, we also live in a world where in recent hours we’ve seen some tremendous driver-focused cars get official announcements and where Porsche backed up one of those announcements with a tremendous ad that speaks to us in a very primal way.

I don’t mind being on the endangered species list as long as we can avoid extinction.