GQ South Africa — May 2017

48 GQ.CO.ZA MAY 2017

WHAT’S

IN A NAME?

Bentley

Flying Spur

In a race the last

thing you want is

anything fl ying

around.

Maserati

Quattroporte

At fi rst it sounds like

a well-packed pizza;

translated it simply

means four door.

Porsche Doppel-

kupplungsgetriebe

(PDK)

If you get the

pronunciation right,

all you’ve said is

dual clutch; and the

newly developed

eight-speed PDK,

in manual and

automatic, offers

extremely fast

gear changes

with tremendous

drive force and

acceleration.

Panamera is a much

better name...

PORSCHE

PANAMERA

TURBO

porsche.co.za

0-100km/h in

3.8 seconds;

top speed 306km/h

PERFORMANCE

9.4 l/100km

CLAIMED FUEL BASE PRICE

4.0-l. V8 bi-turbo R2 491 000

(8-speed auto PDK)

404kW and 770Nm

POWER

pushing until he was running on three

cylinders at a signii cantly reduced speed.

h e Borgward was the third racer to

arrive at the i nish in Juárez. h e driver had

thought he had built up more than enough

time to win, but had forgotten about the

maximum three hours set for the 222

mile leg of the race. He had i nished

seven seconds over the limit, and was

disqualii ed. Imagine his and Borgward’s

despair. For Porsche this became one of the

biggest wins in their racing history.

Another great win two years later i rmly

established Porsche’s reputation. In 1955,

Porsche’s i rst Carrera – the 356 A – was

released. It became known as the La

Carrera Panamericana.

h e golden era of motor sport came to an

end in 1955 after the deadly crash at Le

Mans in which 83 spectators and one driver

were killed. Mexico cancelled the La

Carrera immediately, and it was only

34 years later, in 1988, that the race was

reinstated. It has run each October since.

h e course still follows those highly

abrasive roads, paved with a mixture of

volcanic ash, that cuts even the hardiest

of tyres. In the 2016 race, 18 of the 71 cars

that entered were Porsches.

And now here I am in one of them – on

the Raíces special stage, 9.4 kilometres of

the same stretch of road driven annually

in the event. h e new four-door Panamera,

like the Carrera, gets its name from the

infamous race. I am coni dent that on

these narrow, winding country roads

the mortality rate in this new Porsche

sports car will be much lower than in its

predecessors. I’ve now ticked of one more

item on my bucket list: driving La Carrera

Mexicana in a Porsche.