Porsche Boxster Relives the Targa Florio! - Epic Drives Episode 11
On this episode of Epic Drives
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 How cool is this? I'm driving the new Porsche Boxster on a volcano.
00:05 And if you think that sounds like a recipe for an epic drive, you're right.
00:10 But we've only just begun.
00:12 We're in Sicily, a land of spectacular scenery, amazing history and great food.
00:19 Sicily also has some of the best driver's roads on the planet.
00:23 This is sports car country, and we're going to make the most of it.
00:27 [MUSIC]
00:33 Just getting to Sicily is an epic drive.
00:36 We picked the Boxster up from Porsche headquarters in Zuffenhausen a couple of days ago
00:40 and slogged 1,200 miles south, heading past Munich and over the Alps to Rome and beyond.
00:47 Sicily is the island kicked by the Toa of Italy, and it's probably best known as the home of the Mafia.
00:53 There is a real-life village of Corleone here, just 30 miles from the island's major city, Palermo.
01:00 But Sicily's more than just a Hollywood stereotype.
01:04 It's the largest island in the Mediterranean and has been settled for thousands of years.
01:09 Here you'll find Greek and Roman ruins, bustling seaports, picturesque villages, acres of vineyards.
01:17 Oh, and that volcano.
01:19 [MUSIC]
01:24 At nearly 11,000 feet, Etna is Italy's tallest mountain south of the Alps.
01:29 And we're a long way south of the Alps.
01:32 The coast of Africa is much closer to here than the Italian alpine ski fields of Cortina and Sestriere.
01:39 Libya, just 350 miles that way.
01:43 Etna is also Europe's most active volcano.
01:46 It's erupted seven times so far this year, the last time less than three months ago.
01:52 Etna's not so much asleep as having a short nap.
01:56 It's probably best we moved on.
01:58 [MUSIC]
02:13 Here's the thing about Sicily.
02:15 It's an island about the size of Vermont, with an 11,000-foot mountain at one end and rugged hills pretty much everywhere else.
02:23 There's a freeway that runs around the eastern and northern coastlines and a couple of other major highways.
02:29 But that's about it.
02:32 The hundreds of roads that link the thousands of villages and farms scattered throughout the island's interior
02:38 follow the convoluted contours of the landscape like spilled spaghetti.
02:43 And that's why we're here in a Porsche Boxster.
02:47 [MUSIC]
02:51 The 2013 model is the first all-new Boxster since the mid-engine roadster was added to the Porsche lineup in 1996.
02:59 It rides longer, wider and lower than the old car, which sounds like an old Detroit cliche.
03:04 But it's also lighter and more efficient, which are the non-cliche bits old Detroit never managed to achieve.
03:11 But while the wheelbase has been stretched 2.4 inches, overall length has only increased one-tenth of an inch.
03:17 Similarly, the front and rear tracks have been increased 1.6 and seven-tenths of an inch, respectively,
03:24 while overall width is unchanged.
03:27 So with the wheels pushed out to the corner and fresh sheet metal, the new Boxster is a much more masculine-looking car.
03:34 Under the skin, there's new McPherson-struck front suspension, a new electric power steering rack
03:40 and five more horsepower from the mid-mounted 3.4-litre flat-six engine.
03:46 That doesn't sound much, but with 77 fuel pounds to haul around and the lightning-fast seven-speed PDK transmission,
03:53 the new Boxster S will now hit 60 miles an hour in 4.2 seconds
03:58 and cover the quarter mile in 14 seconds at 1127 miles per hour.
04:06 You never know what or who you might find in Sicily.
04:10 We're high up in the hills behind Mount Etna, where few tourists ever go.
04:15 And this is the farm that belongs to the family of Los Angeles restaurateur Giacomino Drago.
04:21 Giacomino and his brother Tonino own several restaurants in Los Angeles,
04:25 including Il Posto in Beverly Hills and Tonino in Westwood.
04:29 Their Via Alloro restaurant is named after the street in which the boys grew up in Gallati Mamatino,
04:35 which is just over that hill.
04:38 The youngest of eight, Giacomino grew up in a family which grew or made most of its food,
04:44 including the olive oil, the cheese and the wine.
04:48 And as we're about to find out, food is more than just a passion for Giacomino.
04:53 It's a way of life.
04:56 I remember as I was growing up that our home was more like the hangout of all of our friends.
05:06 But I thought that that was normal, in any house it would be like that.
05:11 Sicily is a unique part of Italy, isn't it?
05:15 It's spectacular. I mean, it's a big garden.
05:20 They call it the garden of Europe.
05:23 So even our cooking has a lot to do with, you see a lot of vegetables that we use.
05:32 You don't see, you know, olive oil.
05:36 We don't use a lot of butter because we have more land just by going to the center of Sicily.
05:44 And at the bottom, it's, I don't know, it's a paradise.
05:50 I just took my mom and dad for a tour for three days.
05:55 It was just unbelievable.
05:57 One of the reasons that I come is to come back to a world that is still real.
06:04 That is still not that materialistic as much as the big cities.
06:12 I mean, it is, but not as big.
06:15 There's still certain values because, I mean, there are not a lot of jobs.
06:23 So people tend to be more, to stay close together.
06:28 There is much more social life.
06:30 And so the traditions are more in there.
06:36 I mean, to really, for you really to believe it, you have to come and experience.
06:42 You grew up driving on these roads. You must be a hell of a driver.
06:45 I mean, these roads are unbelievable.
06:47 Let me tell you, oh, I mean, these roads are, look, I mean, if you see around, it's just unbelievable.
06:58 It's a little bit scary, but here you feel like you're driving.
07:02 You're not just on a freeway like this.
07:04 You feel a car. You have like a connection with it.
07:08 [Music]
07:23 There's another reason we brought a Porsche Boxster to Sicily, and it started literally right here.
07:30 From 1906 to 1977, Sicily hosted one of the world's greatest sports car races.
07:37 These old structures marked the start/finish line of the iconic Targa Florio course.
07:43 Each lap was 45 miles with hundreds and hundreds of corners.
07:49 It made the Nürburgring Nordschleife look like child's play.
07:53 When the Italians went road racing, they used real roads.
07:57 The Mille Miglia, run 24 times between 1927 and 1957,
08:02 was a thousand-mile lap around the top half of Italy, from Brescia to Rome and back.
08:07 The Targa Florio made the most of Sicily's torturous roads,
08:11 with some early races comprising a single 671-mile lap of the island.
08:16 But from 1932 to 1977, the race was held over the 45-mile-long course we're driving today.
08:24 From the start line close to Sicily's northern coast, the Targa races headed inland,
08:29 passing through the village of Sera and winding through the hills to the village of Calta Votturo,
08:34 2,000 feet above sea level.
08:37 There they turned north, sweeping down into a deep valley
08:40 through which the modern A19 highway from Catania now runs,
08:44 before climbing back up to the village of Colosano.
08:47 From there, it was a winding downhill run to the coast,
08:50 where a long straight gave a welcome break from the constant twists and turns.
08:56 In 1955, the Targa Florio became part of the World Sports Car Championship,
09:01 along with Le Mans and the Mille Miglia.
09:04 British driver Sterling Moss won the race that year in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR,
09:09 shortly before his epic victory in the 1955 Mille Miglia.
09:13 Moss says the Mille Miglia made him nervous because he couldn't learn the thousand-mile course.
09:19 The Targa Florio, he says, was different.
09:22 The Targa was a totally different problem because I learnt the circuit,
09:27 it was only 42 miles on, and that makes it quite different
09:31 because your driving style when you know the circuit is obviously quite different
09:35 to when you don't know the circuit because you have to take emergency sort of back-offs and discern the other.
09:42 By the 1960s and 70s, the Targa was being contested with full-on Le Mans prototypes
09:47 from Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Porsche.
09:50 Pure racing cars with up to 600 horsepower.
09:54 Incredibly, the road was only closed on race day,
09:57 which meant racers' practice, trying to learn the track and get a feel for their cars,
10:01 while dodging the locals going about their daily business.
10:05 And on race day, the almost total absence of trackside safety equipment,
10:09 apart from a few strategically placed hay bales,
10:12 gave the Targa Florio a fearsome reputation.
10:16 Red Bull Formula One team advisor Helmut Macher,
10:19 who set the lap record in the 1972 race in his Alfa Romeo 33 TT3,
10:24 called the Targa "totally insane".
10:27 Although Italian brands like Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati
10:41 were obviously Targa Florio regulars,
10:44 Porsche won this race a record 11 times.
10:48 A 911 Carrera RSR won in 1973,
10:52 but most of Porsche's victories came using racers like the 550 RSK and the RS60.
10:59 And the 908 Spyder, which won twice in 1969 and 1970,
11:05 is widely regarded as the most iconic Targa Florio Porsche of them all.
11:10 If you're sensing a theme developing here, you're right.
11:14 Open-top mid-engine Porsches were often the cars to beat
11:18 on these narrow, winding Sicilian roads.
11:21 So what better car to retrace the Targa Florio routine
11:25 than Porsche's newest open-top mid-engine sports car?
11:29 Let's go.
11:32 [Music]
11:36 [Music]
11:39 [Music]
12:04 [Music]
12:07 This is incredible.
12:10 There's a three-mile straight back down near the coast,
12:13 but for the rest of this 45-mile lap,
12:16 both car and driver are working hard.
12:19 And we're not even travelling at racing speeds.
12:22 Earthquakes and landslides have not been kind to the old Targa Florio route.
12:28 It's so rough in places, you almost need a Baja pre-runner.
12:32 The road constantly twists and turns
12:35 as it climbs up into the mountains and dives back down into deep valleys.
12:40 And with houses and trees and hungry-looking rock walls
12:44 right at the edge of the bitumen,
12:46 there is absolutely no margin for error.
12:49 Put a wheel wrong here, and the Targa Florio will take no prisoners.
12:59 Having done a couple of laps of the course in the Boxster,
13:02 I think I understand now why Porsches were so successful in the Targa Florio.
13:07 They weren't necessarily the fastest or most powerful cars in the race,
13:11 but they were light, and they were quick and agile on these narrow, winding roads.
13:16 Most of all, they were tough.
13:18 They could handle the punishing Targa terrain for the 450 miles the race typically ran.
13:23 And you can sense that heritage in the new Boxster.
13:26 It feels light, agile, nimble.
13:29 The lightning-quick PDK transmission allows you to make the most of the available power,
13:33 and the brakes have the dependability you'd expect of a company that has raced all its life.
13:38 The chassis is delightful, sweet and predictable,
13:42 so confidence-inspiring, in fact, that you can happily turn off the stability control
13:46 and enjoy it to the full, even on these unforgiving roads.
13:50 I've driven the Nürburgring Nordschleife several times, and I love it.
13:55 But as fast, as majestic, as fearsome as the Nordschleife is,
14:00 it's nothing like the Targa Florio.
14:03 I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like to drive a Le Mans Sport prototype on these roads.
14:10 No doubt about it, the Targa Florio was one hell of a race.
14:16 Though less deadly than either the Mille Miglia or the Carrera Panamera,
14:20 by the 1970s it was clear it was only a matter of time before tragedy struck on these wild and winding roads.
14:28 The 1973 Targa Florio was the last to be part of the World Sports Car Championship,
14:34 and in 1977 police stopped the race after a crash that killed two spectators and injured five more.
14:42 The last survivor of a road racing tradition that dated back to the very beginning of the automobile had finally run its course.
14:50 This is Palermo, capital of Sicily, and a city that traces its origins back 2,700 years.
15:04 Vincenzo Florio was born here, so it's perhaps appropriate we finish our Sicilian adventure in his hometown.
15:12 We've covered almost 600 miles over the past couple of days,
15:16 we've seen some great scenery, learned some fascinating history and tasted some wonderful food.
15:23 But most of all, we've driven some truly epic roads.
15:27 Vincenzo Florio was right all those years ago, Sicily is sports car country.
15:34 (car engine)
15:38 (music)
15:44 (music)
15:48 (music)
15:52 (music)
15:56 (music)
16:00 (music)
16:04 (music)