A few days ago D and I
make tentative plans to have lunch. When he calls and says, “today will work,
how about The Mineshaft?” I hesitate. The Mineshaft is a dive tavern in Madrid,
about 25 miles south of town. I like the place, but driving way out there,
having lunch and then driving back will take a big chunk of time from the day,
and there are comparable burgers to be found closer to home.
When he adds, “we’ll
take the 911,” I do not hesitate. To heck with everything else. I’ve only seen
a 911-ish shape looming under a cover in the corner of D’s garage, and there is
without question something very seductive about a veil, and then… lifting it. The
opportunity to ride in a Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera 4 is not to be missed.
I get to D’s at the
appointed hour, just as he is rolling the car out of the garage. Oh my, what a beautiful
car and what beautiful sounds. There is nothing like a 911. And so I park the
GTI, eagerly hop out and get into the Porsche. Correction: you don’t so much
get into a Porsche as you put it on. Contrary to the minds eye - envisioning
the greatness of the 911 and thus the car must be big - the car is diminutive
and so is the fit.
The day is beautiful,
clear as a bell, not too hot and there’s only a light breeze. Playing hooky
with a friend and experiencing one of the greatest cars of all time, well, it
just don’t get better than this. We drive at a moderate pace until the engine is
fully warmed and the flat spots in the tires have a chance to work themselves
out. Even with things toned down, I know this piece of machinery has goods not
to be taken lightly. The Porsche is tight and quick. It all takes a while to
get used to, especially all those wonderful mechanical sounds coming from the
engine bay in the back of the car.
And then D puts his foot
in it and Holy Mother of The Gods Of Internal Combustion! My torso and head
crush into the seatback, my peripheral vision blurs and I can see D has his
work cut out for him just keeping his shifts up with the engine bouncing off
the rev limiter. I have never felt acceleration as intensely as this in a car,
and this is only the prelude to what happens in the twisties.
Between Cerrillos and
Madrid among hills and canyons the road becomes a snake and the pavement is in
good condition. The Traffic Gods smile upon us and clear the way, and it is
play time with all wheel drive and a horsepower to weight ratio of 1:8. Oh, and
the brakes, which redefine how fast and deep you go into corners before
thinking about applying them. Until I get accustomed to this, with every corner
coming up real fast, I think I’m going to die. And into the corners I discover
a flaw in the Porsche: the fully bolstered seat does not keep me in place given
the lateral forces we experience. Small potatoes, it’s more a testament to how
well this car sticks to the road. Things go by mind-blowingly quick and during
a second’s reprieve afforded by a short straight, D says, “You’ll drive us
back. That is, if you want to.”
My mind stumbles, I take
a deep breath and consider the responsibilities to life and limb and machine
and as we plunge into the next corner I grin a silly grin and say, “Sure!”
Lunch? Oh yeah. We have
lunch. And we talk about - can you guess? - cars and other important guy stuff,
and then D hands me the keys. So with some trepidation I put on the Porsche and
manage to back it out of the parking space without crunching into anything and then
get underway without stalling it. So far, so good. As we putter through the
village I comment (with no disrespect to all the Grandmothers of the world),
“I’ll probably drive like an Old Grannie.”
“Don’t worry about it…
go for it,” replies D.
And so as we make our
way back through aforementioned hills and canyons I ease into the car and
sample (a fraction of) what it has to offer.
With windows open and
the wail of the engine, we now need to raise our voices to be heard. Shouting, D
reaffirms, “you’re doing fine… go for it.”
And I smile and in-between
expletives undeleted, with hands firmly grasping the steering wheel which is
giving me tons of feedback on what’s going on up front, I shout back, “Thanks,
but… I can tell with this car… it would be easy to get in way above my head,
and way too fast and… it’s decidedly uncool
to wad up your friend’s car.” From the corner of my eye I see D swallow and
nod.
“Thanks for that,” he
says. The landscape and corners flash by and we get behind a slowpoke and when I
pull out to pass, into the spirit of things D says, and this is a direct quote,
“floor it.” My right foot follows his
directive and the car leaps forward as the turbos come on with their insane hit
of power, and momentarily stunned, I back off; the car calms a bit and D says,
“you got him…” and I get back into the gas and we positively rip. The slowpoke
fades into a time zone of history and we are gonesville. Back in our lane I say something along the
lines of, “holy shit.”
D says, “I may chip the
car… there’s amazing potential in these engines.”
And I reply, “yeah, it
feels a bit down on power.” Uh-huh, and we laugh and fly into three big
sweepers and up and over a hill and… I decide to take a break and collect my
thoughts and back off before the next curvy section. For a few moments we lope
along and I give D my impressions.
Aside from the flat six
and all the power it makes and all the music, oh, the music, I am most taken by
the precise throttle and how easy it is to work in concert with the gearbox and
shifter and clutch. Again the road tightens, and coming into the corners,
downshifting, blipping the throttle and getting on the gas… the Porsche simply responds
and puts me in a flow and it is addictive and I want to feel that rush. So I
feed it and go faster, and faster…
It’s a great privilege
to drive such a car. Many thanks, D.
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