A mixture of photos and videos here. Recently added a superb video from Wheels in Australia on a road I drove recently (Jan 18) about 2 hours away from Melbourne in the lovely area known as 'The Grampians'.... fantastic scenery. Road from Dunkeld in the south to Horsham in the north via Halls Gap.
A unforgettable roadtrip from St. Moritz to Nice. 5 days - 25 passes - 1500 km on the best driving roads in the alps. Courtesy of Curves Magazine with Porsche. See which passes you can spot. Most are featured separately for each pass.
At the beginning of the tour, there are classic hairpin routes on maintain passes to be traversed in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, such as the Flüela, Albula and Maloja passes, before the journey takes us over the Splügen, San Bernardino, Lukmanier and Oberalp passes on our way to Andermatt.
The second day also begins with some healthy early-morning exercise: the Susten Pass, Furka Pass, Grimsel Pass, St. Gotthard Pass, Nufenen Pass – after this workout, not only are the eight-cylinder powerhouses warmed up but, thanks to the car’s recuperation mode, the lithium-ion batteries of the electric motors are also fully charged again and ready to deliver the power boost that will take the pack at lightning speed into Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc in the French Alps.
Day three gives us a slightly more intensive workout than the warm-up programme in Switzerland and has some tough classics from the Tour de France for the Spyder to master. Countless litres of sweat have been left behind on the Col de L’Iseran and the Col du Galibier in the past –but the Porsches whir their way through the tight bends as nimble and as quiet as you like and with no visible effort, so much so that you almost end up with a bad conscience, and promise one day to repeat the tour on a racing bike. Which of the 918 drivers was finally awarded the yellow jersey must remain a secret however – the Gendarmerie is probably reading this article.
On the fourth day of our out-of-the-ordinary tour of the passes, we follow the tyre marks of the legendary Monte Carlo Rally over Col de Turini on our way to the Mediterranean – it’s hard to imagine what hardships rally drivers like Vic Elford and Björn Waldegård had to put up with in their spartan racing 911s! But without the achievements of the daring drivers of Porsche‘s racing history, neither a 959, nor a 918 would ultimately have been possible. Slipping by Monaco, Nice and Cannes, the stage ends in Tourrettes, where the next day’s programme includes the awards and to round it all off an excursion on the curves and bends around the Grand Canyon du Verdon.
At the end of this Alpine tour, we stand even more in awe of the Porsche 918 Spyder than we had been anyway when we climbed in on the first day. It’s quite amazing really that the North Loop record-breaker at the Nürburgring at a speed of no less than 345 km/h can handle a journey of over 2,000 kilometres, crossing mountains and valleys, and negotiating countless curves and climatic zones, if need be, with absolutely no problems whatsoever – and that, after five days behind the wheel, we didn’t have to be taken by the mountain rescue to the sanatorium in Davos for physiological conditioning. This Porsche can do it all – even the High Alps!
918 Spyder