“WHERE CAN YOU DRIVE THESE CARS?”
If I had a buck for every time I’ve been asked this
question, I’d own one of the two cars here. And at least I
have an expressway and two relatively empty hill climbs
twenty minutes from where I live. Ashique Thahir lives
in Kerala where there are no expressways; not even dual
carriageways. Of hills there are plenty, in fact it is only
hills, but the roads slicing through them run from one
village into another and then another without so much
as a pause to sip coconut water. The population density is
incredible and the only time the roads are free is when a
general strike is being enforced with a zeal the Malayalis
reserve for what they call ‘bandhs’.
Yet, where there’s passion, there’s a solution. A solution
that starts at 5 in the morning, for that’s when Calicut (or
Kozhikode) alternately wakes up to the wail of a V8, the
shriek of a V10 or the thunder of a flat-six. Today Calicut
is in for a treat, there’s shrieking overlaid by thundering
— a complex overlay of sounds that I desperately lack the
talent to put into words. It is unholy. It has the devil’s horns
imprinted all over it. “You take the GT3,” says Ashique
all too aware of my personal bias for Porsche, having
warmed up what is a motorsport homologation engine. He
contorts into the Performante like a yoga guru and juices
the throttle. I assume the windows of his home are made
of bulletproof glass, there’s no way normal glass doesn’t
shatter with the pitch, fury and intensity of the V10’s
death-wail. Mothafuckka.
Hang a left out of his home, short cut through some
narrow lanes no wider than the Lambo’s ass, unnecessarily
worry about a few speedbreakers, full gas blowing the
shutters off their hinges, a fast right under an overpass and
he stops. We’re too slow. His buddy is dispatched into our
camera car, a Land Cruiser, and Ashique tells me to stick
to his wing.
And so follows the hardest and fastest chase I’ve given
on a road that doesn’t have six lanes, unbroken steel
barricading and sightlines to the horizon. Ashique is either
a very trusting man or has a very high estimation of my
driving chops; whatever, he shoots off like a bat out of hell
and expects his wingman to stick to his six. Thank God I’m
in the Porsche. This is not my first time in a GT3 but it’s not
like I drive a Porsche every day either. Everybody needs a
minute to get used to where everything is but Ashique has
no time for all that. Every drive is against the clock and I’ve
slowed him down enough already.
LAMBORGHINI HURACAN PERFORMANTE & PORSCHE 911 GT3