THE FULL MONTE! EXPLORING LEGENDARY ROADS IN A PORSCHE 911 WE BOUGHT OURSELVES
► Piers buys himself a 997.1 911 ► Road tripping to the south of France ► On roads made legendary buy Romain Dumas
‘When I was a kid, I saw a 911 on a rally. I saw a 911 at Le Mans. I saw a 911 even in a rally cross and a 911 in a hill climb. This kind of car was capable of everything and could perform everywhere.’
Not my words, Carol, the words of Romain Dumas, Le Mans winner and the man who has driven, raced, rallied and hill climbed the 911 in more places than probably anyone else on earth. GT3 on the ice of the Monte Carlo rally? Tick. Driving one to 6734m above sea level? Tick. Le Mans, Nürburgring, Spa, Pikes Peak. He’s been everywhere and done everything.
Over his 20+ year career, it’s always the 911 that he keeps coming back to. For Romain, read Piers Ward: less French, definitely less talented but just as in love with this weird, rear-engined paradox of a sports car. On any sensible level, it’s not a car you should covet but still it gets into your soul; Dumas talks of it being ‘authentic’.
This is why I found myself in a Porsche centre in Newport on a wet January day, staring down the barrel of blowing the vast majority of our family savings on a meteor grey 997.1 Carrera 4S. What would Romain do?
It’s a car I’ve wanted for decades, apart from a momentary blip around the 1997 British Motor Show when TVR unveiled the Speed 12. Blame teenage hormones. But the Porsche 911 has been the consistent theme of ‘Piers’ dream car’ for years: when my children pipe up with ‘I want x or y’, my standard response has always been ‘well I want a 911 but that’s not going to happen.’
Bang goes that argument. The dealer hovers, anxious to seal the deal before the weekend while I pretend to be distracted by a Cayman GT4. He shuffles closer, to the point where I can no longer ignore him. Crunch time. Without phoning my wife, we shake hands and I nervously totter off: keen to call mates and brag; less keen to call home and explain my man maths.
Or to tell the long-haired general that, within a month, I’ll be taking my 911 (that still sounds weird, even now) down to the South of France to experience the roads that forged the legend. In my head, it’s the perfect excuse: if you’re going to buy your dream car, you might as well make the first trip one to remember.
The Monte Carlo rally: legendary stages like the Col de Turini or the historic casino backdrop; YouTube footage of cars slithering on ice, fog lights pointing in all directions like search lights scouring for escaped prisoners. Dumas notched up a class win in a GT3 in 2017 (his takeaway: ‘to do the Monte Carlo in a 911 is about staying on the road and trying not to crash’) but it’s to 1965 that we must first turn, as that’s when a 911 first entered.
It only took a couple of years before people worked out that the 911s combination of excellent traction and decent power should make a winning combination on the switchbacks of the Monte Carlo rally. Herbert Linge and Peter Falk managed to finish fifth in 1965 but 1968 was the landmark year, when the 911 T of Vic Elford and David Stone secured the overall win thanks to a rule change that ditched the previous handicap system that penalised bigger engines. In 1968, it was all about the fastest car outright and no-one was going to stop Quick Vic.
It was Elford’s year, the Monte win setting him on an unprecedented run of further wins at Daytona and Targa Florio, the sort of jack-of-all-trades disciplines that Dumas can relate to. The details of Elford’s Monte run defy belief: locked in a duel with the Renault-Alpine of Gerard Larousse, he not only clawed back 31 seconds over the fearsome Col de la Couillole, he also gapped Larousse by a further 21 seconds. That’s a total difference of nearly a minute on a single stage. He never looked back.
Is this what seals the legend of the 911? Over 60 years, it’s difficult to pin it down to one event but this is up there in the pantheon of great headlines. Elford and the 911 are still spoken of in hallowed terms, the victory reverberating down the ages, to the point where modern legends like Dumas or Sebastian Ogier still talk about it.
We’re stood on the Col de la Couillole now, the road dropping away on either side and snow blanketing the mountains around us. We’re at 1678m and eye-balling the clouds – distant peaks wear the whisps of moisture like mini-skirts. The road is dry but the temperature is low, the ice refusing to budge from its hideouts in the shadows. I’m grateful I’d fitted some Pirelli Sottozero II winter tyres ahead of the journey, as much for the confidence they give you as anything else.
Parked in the car park at the col, it’s a chance to take stock of the car. Personally, the 997 remains peak 911, partly because I can make the maths just about add up but also because it feels and felt like a proper moment in the history of the 911, from a time when you could combine the reliability of the modern car (hopefully…a weakness of 997’s is bore scoring but mine has been scoped) yet still maintain the essence of what made it great in the first place: small, wieldy, naturally-aspirated. A modern car without modern annoyances.
Dumas agrees, albeit on a slightly different level: ‘I have the best one, a 4.0-litre 997 [GT3 RS]. It’s the last one that was really extreme.’
Mine is a Carrera 4S and six-speed manual (I’ve never got on with the newer seven-speeder). The manual ‘box was non-negotiable when I was looking for the car: this generation also came with Tiptronic (yeuch!) and the 997.2 got the first PDK, but the manuals are rare now. It’s also got hydraulic power steering (20 years later, Porsche is just about making the electrically assisted system work as well) and the slightly smaller dimensions that remind me more of the ’63 original than the wider-hipped modern stuff.
Up on the Col, it looks special; not charming or cheeky like my old Panda, but with purposeful potential. The heat soak from our run up here makes the car tick with quiet intent and the salt-lashed sides hint at the miles we’ve done: after all the plains of France, it’s time to test the 911’s mettle.
Key inserted into barrel, twist to start; already the car is more organic than most modern stuff. Manual seats set low, vision framed by the clarity of interior design that’s been consistent across the car’s 60-year history.
Quick cough as the pistons push/pull a couple of times, then that wonderful flat-six burble. Fortunately I’ve parked near a wall so the echo reinforces the choice I made in Newport – it sounds unique, the memories of 20+ years of driving these cars flooding back; the impressions of every single variant of 911 tattooed into my memory and made real right here. My car doesn’t have an aftermarket exhaust but that doesn’t bother me; inside and out it’s got enough attitude, especially when you get above 5500rpm (it redlines at 7300rpm). Dumas talks of the commonality of the generations and he’s right – familiarity does not breed contempt in the 911.
The road drops away into a series of switchbacks that slowly reveal themselves thanks to being hidden behind the pine trees lining the route. The steering is glorious, even at the relatively slow speeds we’re doing. It makes the 997 feel alive even at 30mph, tingling with feedback over the tarmac and setting up a lovely tango with the chassis, the rear bouncing just enough to let you know about all the weight behind the rear axle.
As we plunge lower, the temperature climbs, hitting a maximum of 12 degrees. The sun has bleached the tarmac a pale grey, previous rock salt dosings leaving a dusty white powder at the edges that gets whipped up as the 911 passes. We stop for a pause and every breath is like a health spa for your lungs.
God was very generous designing this part of France. The road snakes along the midriff of the mountain, massive peaks above dwarfing the little 911 as we thread our way towards our ultimate destination of Monaco.
Every corner negotiated reveals another incredible vista; tunnel followed by searing sunlight, blackness followed by stark light and faded colours. Swallows swirl and pay chicken with the cliffs, trying to catch unseen insects loitering close to the rocks. I can see the road running into the distance and it only looks like it gets better, with less hairpins and more flow. Less hard work on the Porsche’s brakes and a chance to let the flat-six breathe a bit harder towards the 7300rpm red line.
It’s a glorious cacophony, full of peaks and troughs from 2000rpm to 7300rpm; not consistent like a modern engine as it goes through the odd flat-ish spot, but no less addictive for it.
The road is magnificent but I’m constantly wondering how Vic did it all those years ago. The 911 is only just narrow enough – a Lamborghini would be hell up here – and it requires constant concentration and adjustment of your eyes’ focal length. A neck-crane around the next corner, a glance further down the valley to see if a lorry might be slowly graunching it way towards us. There are barriers running down the side of the road but I wouldn’t want to rely on them – wooden in places, concrete blocks in others, both are a reminder in giving yourself plenty of room.
It’s fabulously quiet, like our own private race track; to think we’re only a couple of hours outside the chaos and money of Monaco and Nice. At one point we see a Renault 4, heroically being driven [i]up[i] the hill and with impressive commitment, if the levels of lean are anything to go by. He waves as he passes.
The gearbox on my car has a reassuringly short throw thanks to the one previous owner fitting an aftermarket, but official, short shift gear selector kit (£350). It’s lovely through here and able to punch through the ratios much quicker than with the standard lever. One quirk is that it hates first gear when it’s cold – you solve it by dropping into second then into first – but once up to temperature it’s possible to rush it across the gate fast enough to barely let the revs drop.
We push on towards the Col de Turini, in no danger of breaking any of Quick Vic’s records today. The day’s bleached rocks give way to moist vegetation clinging to the cliff faces as fingers of snow again start to creep up to the sides of the road, menacingly lying in wait in case I drop a tyre too close to the edge. Snow melt runs across the tarmac in places, dark tear stains mourning the fading light.
Day two dawns. It feels like an appropriate moment to fire up Good Times, Bad Times by Led Zeppelin, which is happily possible on my 911 because a previous owner had the wisdom to retrofit Apple CarPlay. Costing just over £1000, it transforms the daily ability of the 997 as Google Maps and podcasts become possible. Like all 911s, the road noise is pronounced but it’s not so loud that I couldn’t listen to the Rest is History across the 800 miles of France.
The day starts cold but the grip from the Pirellis is reassuring. From the Col de Turini, it’s another descent into another valley, the 911 in Sport mode to make the most of the sharper throttle response, but Normal for the dampers as Sport is too much even on these fine bits of tarmac (PASM was standard in the ‘S’ back then). More switchbacks – is it possible to wear out a steering rack? The Route de Sospel keeps on giving, with the 911 upping its game to match. The brakes are lovely and firm, with just the right spacing to the throttle pedal to make heel-and-toeing easy. The rev match function on the 911 S/T does make things more reliable than in the 997, but in Vic’s wheel tracks, the cheat mode on the S/T would feel odd. You get the sense that Vic would prefer it au naturel.
Up ahead looms the arch at the chapel Notre-Dame de la Menour and beyond it the iconic masterpiece of the Monte Carlo rally. The sun dapples the far mountain tops and one of the world’s finest bits of tarmac unfurls below the 997. Narrow, treacherous, glorious.
Again, we’re alone, just me and the echo of the flat-six off the far hills. It’s here that 40 years of want reaches its crescendo, as the car arcs round each corner perfectly, up and down gears, baritone bark accompanying every change. The steering is joyously organic, fluid and smooth, precise and forgiving, allied so well to that rear-end roll, lean and squirt that comes every time you exit a bend.
The road serves up one last vista, the Mediterranean glinting in the distance as we crest the hill before dropping down towards the coast. 20 minutes later, we’re stuck in traffic – how can we have gone from glorious isolation to the chaos of the coast in such a short space of time?
There is one last homage we need to pay to those pioneers of ’65 and ’68. Threading along Monaco’s grand prix loop and into the famous tunnel, we head along the harbour and drive towards Prince Albert’s palace where so many iconic photos have been taken.
Monaco is not a place to wing it – security cameras lurk on every street corner and as we approach the palace on its hill overlooking Monaco harbour, two policemen and some Japanese tourists look slightly perplexed as to why a 15-year-old 911 is trying to park in the Monegasque equivalent of Buckingham Palace’s front drive. Fortunately, we’re armed with the correct permission slip and the tourists look even more bemused as we edge closer to the palace’s front door.
It looks bizarrely incongruous and you get the sense that the tourists would have preferred a Rolls-Royce as a backdrop to their selfies. For me, it’s a series of pinch-me moments. Dream car, dream two days and now parked in the same spot that Elford transformed the brand all those years ago.
Dumas’s has one remaining wish of the 911 – to Dakar one – but I’m done. It doesn’t get better than this.
- Price: £73,005 (new), £40,000 (now)
- Powertrain: 3596cc six-cylinder, six-speed manual, all-wheel drive
- Performance: 350bhp @ 6600rpm, 295lb ft @ 4600rpm, 4.8sec 0-62mph, 179mph
- Weight: 1475kg (DIN)
- Efficiency: 24.0mpg (claimed), 24.6mpg (tested), 285g/km CO2
- On sale: 2004-2013