Stuttgart, Germany - Porsche is to replace the engines of all its 2014 model 911 GT3 supercars after two of them - one in Italy and one in Switzerland - caught fire and burned out.
The sports-car maker has confirmed that the fires were caused by con-rod bolts that worked loose, whereupon the loose end of the con rod put a hole in the crankcase, dumping the contents of the sump on to the hot exhaust system and instantly starting an engine-bay fire.
Luckily, nobody was hurt in either conflagration.
Top Gear's Richard Hammond recently said the GT3 had 'no bad points' after a road test - and bought one for himself.
Porsche has already warned the Hamster - and the owners of the other 784 GT3's that have been delivered to customers - to stop driving their cars and have them picked up by their nearest Porsche technical centre.
And rather than have the engines rebuilt with updated con rods and 'optimised' big-end bolts (Porsche's word, not ours) by a variety of technicians around the world with varying levels of expertise, it has elected to build a complete new engine for each and every one of those cars.
FOUR IN SA
That includes four more sitting brand new and unregistered in the basement of Porsche SA's headquarter in Johannesburg, plus another couple of hundred in various stages of assembly and distribution, and another 800 that have yet to be built - about 1800 cars in all.
While this is the most expensive way to fix the problem - short of replacing the entire car! - it has the advantage that each GT3 will still have a factory-built engine with a valid warranty.
Luckily, the 911 GT3 has special con rods, so no other Porsche models are affected.
Daily Mail