Just in case that wasn’t already on your 2022 automotive bingo card
In this episode of “What in the World will Porsche do Today?” we find the skunkworks team racing a 911 up a literal volcano. Why? Who knows. It’s damn sure cool. While SEMA is in full swing, Porsche has taken to the slopes of Chile in order to test out their own unique backroom project. Running the car game must’ve been so boring they have to resort to trying to be Edmund Hillary for Halloween.
Like something straight out of Forza Horizon, this decked out 911 seems to have all sorts of off-road goodies tacked onto it, probably because a base GT3 RS couldn’t take a curb if it tried. The vehicle in question? A heavily modified 911 Carrera 4S with its stock engine and transmission.
The test car kept its 442 horses of pure poot who’s turbocharged flat-6 powerplant would presumably get more efficient at the high altitudes due to the thinner air. The 911 scaled 19,708 ft up Ojos del Salado, the highest volcano from sea level on the globe. Captained by the Pikes Peak record holder Romain Dumas who set the benchmark in a Volkswagen ID.R, the project was in good hands from the start. “This was a truly memorable and special moment in a place that’s both beautiful and brutal at the same time”, Romain says.
Just in case the Porsche faltered somewhere along its dash to the sky, two identical copies were made. The vehicles were fitted with differential locks in both the front and rear, a wide body kit to squeeze its meaty off-road tires (Pilot Sports probably couldn’t have gotten this done), as well as roll cages paired with carbon fiber bucket seats in the interior.
Installed also was a device dubbed the Porsche Warp-Connector. It seems like a sci-fi weapon snatched from Star Wars but instead Porsche states that “it forms a mechanical link between all four wheels to allow constant wheel load even when the chassis is enduring extreme articulation – contributing to maximum traction.”
Quite obviously, the suspension was raised and altered in order to accommodate the unforgiving terrain on the side of a volcano. It reminds us of the Porsche 911 Safari with all of its barren path trinkets. Dumas says they dumped the car in the deep end from the get-go, citing snow and ice covering the car sides to the point where they thought they couldn’t advance any further. For reference, Ojos del Salado spans 22,615 ft into the heavens.
Time to Go Off the Beaten Path
Interestingly enough, the off-road factory modifications of supercars seem to be an ever-so quickly growing trend in the automotive industry. Lamborghini’s Huracan Sterrato is set to go into consumer production in the coming months. Porsche themselves have created various peculiar specimens such as the aforementioned 911 Safari, setting a precedent when the company won Paris-Dakar Rally in 1984.
While it’s no Jeremy Clarkson’s MFB Bentley from The Grand Tour, Porsche has created something special. While it may be a two-off example that most of us will never even get to touch, the company is proving its versatility and the extents of what we consistently rank as our Best Sports Car can do. We couldn’t argue a better vehicle than the 911 for being the underpinning of such a daunting project.
