Porsche 911 turns 60 in style
Sports car’s diamond jubilee celebrated via a special homegrown video featuring two of the most sought-after variants to dateThe Porsche 911 is turning 60 this year and to celebrate its diamond jubilee, Porsche Cars Australia has released a special celebratory video promoting the capabilities of two of the most niche 911 variants ever: the Dakar and GT3 RS.
Featuring Porsche endurance racers Mark Webber and Stéphane Ortelli, the video starts in Coober Pedy with the former collecting the latter from a remote air strip before fanging about the desert in the high-riding Porsche 911 Dakar, as per its design brief.
After playing silly buggers for long enough, Webber heads for the bitumen and – through the magic of editing – drives all the way to The Bend Motorsport Park, where he switches seats with Ortelli for a couple of hot laps in the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
Through both sequences the passenger can be seen holding a Porsche-branded cake box, the contents of which predictably get scrambled in all the fun.
“Rugged Coober Pedy provided the dramatic outback settings to showcase the all-terrain capabilities of the rally-inspired 911 Dakar,” said Porsche Cars Australia.
“This limited-edition model evokes the first overall victory by Porsche in the Paris-Dakar Rally, a 1984 racing success which coincided with the birth of all-wheel drive in the Porsche 911.”
The Bend was meantime chosen as the setting for hot laps, because it’s the world’s second-longest permanent race circuit and a fond home away from home for Porsche Cars Australia, with both the 911 and Taycan ranges claiming myriad production car lap records at the South Australian track over the years.
And yes, the new RS is the current record holder, having stopped the clock for a flying lap around the full 7.7km GT circuit in 3:15.03 – seven seconds faster than the hugely more powerful but heavier 911 Turbo and two second faster than the previous 911 GT3 RS.
Porsche Cars Australia CEO and managing director Daniel Schmollinger said the 911 was still the “definitive sports car” 60 years after it rewrote the rule book.
“It stands for more than performance and design; it is driving in its most beautiful form,” he said.
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