Targa Tour in a Toyota Supra
There is no need to stick to 100kmh and no need to stay left as we drive Toyota’s new Supra on the closed roads of Targa New Zealand, writes David Linklater.
Greg Paul is kind of a go-to Kiwi guy for global motoring and motorsport adventures. He’s a director of Overland Journeys/Rally Tours. It takes people all over the world, driving themselves or spectating toplevel motorsport in (very) interesting places.
He’s an accomplished competitor himself and, judging from our quick chat, a collector of some of my bucket-list cars: Lancia Delta Integrale and Fiat 130 V6 (you know, The Italian Job one) among them.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk about Italian cars. Or stand around talking to Greg.
We’re here to drive a JapaneseGerman one on the Targa Tour and the reason Greg is so important is that we have to follow him. He’s driving a 2000-vintage Alfa Romeo 156 Twin Spark with 300,000km on the clock, by the way.
Toyota New Zealand bravely invited media to take part in the tour this year, participants each taking half a day and several stages in the new GR Supra.
Targa New Zealand you probably know. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, it’s a competitive, timed event on some of the country’s best roads. That’s the bit for the serious people.
Targa Tour comes along behind on each stage, on the same closed roads. It’s designed for noncompetition drivers in noncompetition cars, unshackled by a 100kmh speed limit and the centre line.
Unshackled, but not unlimited. The tour groups are broken up into Open, Mid Point and Limited. Nobody gets to hop straight into the higher groups, least of all journalists getting into somebody else’s fast car completely cold.
So we’re in the Limited Group: maximum allowed speed 130kmh.
Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is when you consider the narrow, sinewy stage roads we’re on. Even the top Open Tour group only gets to do 160kmh . . . and they have to wear helmets.
So you take a look at Greg’s car and think: we have to stay behind
that? Then you spend the rest of the day trying to keep up.
‘‘It was destined for a wrecking yard so I bought it for $2000,’’ says
Greg. ‘‘I’ve had four Targas out of it. It’s just so easy, you turn the key and go.’’
And go fast. With speed capped and demanding roads, getting a good flow on a stage is all about confidence (the real kind, not the misplaced variety), being smooth and keeping the momentum up. The driver as much as the car, in other words.
Greg does all of that and if you’re lucky to be right behind him (we are, that’s our allocated spot and there’s no overtaking allowed) then you simply do your best to emulate his lines and braking points. Not that he seems to do a lot of braking.
It’s a great way to get to grips with the GR Supra, a car we haven’t really driven beyond some very slow laps of a very wet Hampton Downs.
It’s not just the swift stuff, either. You have to travel between stages under normal road rules and on the half-day where we were not driving the tour, we followed the service crews in a second Supra.
Our stint was day three of five, on the second half of the circuitous Targa route from New Plymouth to Whanganui.
So no helmets, but you kind of feel like you’re wearing one in the Supra anyway, because of the shape of that arched roof that wraps right down around you.
That’s the big difference between Supra and the sister BMW Z4 convertible (the two share a platform