See What it was Like at the Porsche 911's 50th Anniversary Celebration in New York

We spent most of last week in New York as a guest of Porsche at the NYIAS for the North American premier of the 2014 Porsche 911 GT3. We arrived on Tuesday and were escorted to our hotel in a new Cayenne Diesel. Similar to our recent trip to Amelia Island, upon check-in at our hotel, we were handed over a Porsche branded room key. This time it featured the new 911 GT3 we were there to see. Once again we were able to grab a handful of these to give away here on the site. Read on for details on how you can get one for your collection.

In addition to showing off the new GT3 for the first time here in the US Porsche used the event to continue their “50 Years of the Porsche 911” celebration with a party. The festivities kicked off on Tuesday night with a cocktail reception at the Standard Biergarten (part of the Standard Hotel in the Meat Packing District).

Before the party got underway Porsche rolled in a 911 Carrera 4S as well as a very special 1968 Porsche 911 Sportmatic from the collection of Prescott Kelly. Believe it or not, the ’68 911 is 100% original, including paint and interior. It was a nice reminder for those in attendance that Porsche continue to stay true to their design heritage and that the new 991 (as well as the GT3 without a manual transmission) share the same DNA for the last 50 years.

The party began at 6:00 pm and rolled along until 9:00 pm. For the next three hours we spoke with everyone from Hurley Haywood to PCNA’s CEO Detlev von Platen. While attended mostly by media types we did get a chance to speak with a number of local dealers who were in town for the show. We asked all of them the same thing, “how’s the response to the new GT3?” Everyone of them was enthusiastic in their response and suggested that while they don’t yet know their specific allocation, they’ve all taken numerous deposits and now need to allocate cars to their best customers to make sure they don’t over-promise. At face value, it doesn’t seem like the lack of a manual transmission is hurting sales (nor should it in our opinion, but more on that later).

There was no cake until the following day at the press conference, but it was worth waiting for.

Do You Want One of These Porsche Keys for Your Memorabilia Collection?

More than 100 of you asked for one of the Amelia Island Keys so chances are a few of you might want one of these GT3 keys. If so, we got stack from the front desk and we’ll give them away over the next week. You don’t need to do anything special. Simply comment on this post letting us know you’re interested and at the end of the week we’ll randomly select 15 winners and list them in the comments here and on Facebook. Don’t forget to give us a good email address so we can reach you to get your shipping address in the event your chosen. Good luck and thanks for reading!