Simply Abu Dhabi Magazine XXV

1 9 5 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I F or decades Porsche was known exclusively as a sports car manufacturer which, by the turn of the millennium, had painted it into a corner, unable to tap into new buyers who wanted a sports vehicle but also the extra space of rear seats and doors. So it introduced the Cayenne SUV and the Panamera saloon which have since carved out their own niches. But with the introduction of the second generation Panamera, it was time to refocus on its sports car credentials – and what better way to do that than take it to the place which gave it its name, as well as one of Porsche greatest motorsport victories. The Carrera Panamericana Rally is Mexico’s answer to the famed Mille Miglia of northern Italy and the equally treacherous Targa Florio that ran through the streets of Sicily until the mid-1970s. It is 3114kms of open road where competitors once raced from Tuxtla to Juarez, but it also added a touch of the German Nurburgring and the Le Mans 24-Hour races to it. The race began in a tropical climate where the temperature was high and humid, and it extended along a road that goes from the sea level to 3000m with temperatures ranging from 34 degrees down to zero. Run from 1950 to 1954, the border-to-border race started as a five-day enduro by the government to celebrate the completion of the Pan-American Highway, but much like the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio it was dangerous, claiming the lives of competitors and spectators alike. While Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz were among the front- runners during its time, Porsche adopted the race as its own, and in 1953 and 1954 when it was part of the World Sportscar Championship, it won its class with its then-new 356 Roadster. Given that it was arguably Porsche’s highest profile win to date, it later named its 356 and then the iconic 911 as the Carrera after the race and continued the homage with the 2009 launch of the Panamera. With the global launch of the 2017 Panamera occurring at a relatively bland race track somewhere in dreary Europe, we decided to do something a little different and with the help of Porsche Middle East and Porsche Latin America, Simply Abu Dhabi flew toMexico to recreate a competition stage of the famous road race behind the wheel of the new Panamera Turbo. Much like the Mille Miglia, after the original race took its final chequered flag, the Carrera Panamericana was resurrected in 1988 as an amateur event and now runs as a seven-day, 3,200km challenge duplicating some of the original course through central Mexico. This means the roads are maintained and the local police were only too eager to put the same logistics into place and close off a section or two of the mountain pass for us to race on. The drive programme itself was a 400km round loop fromMexico City, but the competitive stage was no more than 9km of winding mountain road that was all ours with no risk of oncoming traffic or speed limits. At our disposal was the flagship 550bhp, 4-litre, twin-turbo V8 that thumps out 770Nm of torque, gets to 100kph in 3.6 seconds and tops out at 306kmh. While those figures look brilliant for a competition car, it also carries two tonnes of weight before you add occupants, so I was praying that Porsche’s renowned reputation for providing the finest brakes in the business was still valid with this heaviest model in the range.