Diego Gabathuler
Model 3.0 CARRERA SC Year 1982 Acquired JANUARY 2018 Model 997.1 TURBO Year 2008 Acquired AUGUST 2011 Model 997 GT2 Year 2008 Acquired FEBRUARY 2013 Model 997.2 GT3 RS Year 2010 Acquired MAY 2016 Model 991 GT3 TOURING Year 2018 Acquired FEBRUARY 2020 Model 992 GT3 TOURING Year 2022 Acquired MAY 2022
During springtime, all I’m waiting for is the early opening of the European Alpine passes. And now it’s 4am on a Sunday morning in June of 2022 and there are excellent reasons to get up early. The previous night, the weather forecast predicted impeccable weather with a blue sky, some friendly white clouds, 22 degrees Celsius at 6am and up to 33 degrees at noon. Perfect conditions for a few hours of spirited Alpine driving on street-legal, sticky Cup tyres.
Our plan for the day is to cross five amazing Swiss and Italian Alpine passes in one go and to be home in time for lunch. There are just the two of us: a good friend of mine who’s also a die-hard petrolhead, and myself. The five marvellous passes we have ahead of us are Splügen, Maloja, Julier, Albula and Flüela. Exactly 432km of amazing road, roughly 10,000 meters of altitude difference and more than
250 curves, of which 163 are demanding hairpins. This is going to be epic.
The sports cars of our choice are, of course, 911s. The first is a masterpiece that features a 4.0-litre, naturally aspirated engine mated to an amazingly crisp six-speed manual gearbox. It’s a 992 GT3 Touring in non-metallic Black on Neodyme wheels, with tight but comfortable bucket seats. Without those bucket seats, the G-forces would swing me left and right through those tight Alpine turns.
The second is a 991.2 GT3 RS with the Weissach package, in Carrara white and on black rims. We’re equipped with walkietalkies for comms and banter.
My smartphone wakes me up at 4am with Bob Marley’s Sun is Shining. I’m not an early riser, but the motivation is strong. A quick shower followed by three Italian espressos and then I’m ready to fire up my 911. I’ll meet my friend at an Autobahn stop towards Italy and the first 93km will be rather straight southwards. This is the only time the stereo will be on.
After a little less than an hour on the Autobahn, the real tour into the mountains starts. The engines are warm and so are the tyres. Everything’s ready. Well, almost ready – we need to reduce the tyre pressure a little. Now we’re both ready to flick through the gears and enjoy ourselves. With my manual gearbox, I may only be the second fastest today, but I’ll be the one having the most fun, shifting through the gates myself.
Both my windows are down, the AC and the radio are off, and the unique flat six engine sound is beautifully bouncing back from the steep mountain faces. I’m a music lover, but there’s no sound more magnificent than this screaming engine. The road ahead has a nice variety of wide and long straights, with out-of-town speed limits and a lot of small, narrow hairpins.
I picked up my 992 GT3 Touring only 10 weeks ago and am amazed how smooth it goes through the curves with its new double-wishbones. The manual gearbox is by far the best one I’ve ever been fortunate enough to engage with. After a little more than an hour, my friend and I have already covered 112km and mastered 72 curves. A few times the rear broke loose on purpose and required swift counter-steering. All it takes is a little step on the gas at the right time.
We agreed to stop at the top of every mountain pass to take some pictures of the cars as well as the incredible scenery. The first stop is before 6am at the scenic Lago di Montespluga, but it’s not long before we hit the road again. The engines are still warm and ready for the next set of curves. There are roughly five more hours of revving to 7, 8 and 9,000rpm, of committed shifting and sharp cornering ahead of us. We should do this every weekend from May until September.
For the rest of the morning, we drive through some of the most scenic Alpine roads in all of Europe, with four more brief stops. After a little more than six hours and more than 250 curves, we’ll be back home with our families just before lunch, with fresh, warm bread on our bucket seats for our loved ones.
The total count is roughly a thousand enjoyable gearshifts, even though in the mountains we mostly needed second for going through the corners and third between them. We agreed to do this again as soon as possible. We could do the Klausen, Susten, Grimsel, Furka and Oberalp passes. Our automotive Alpine adventures will continue.