Wednesday 11th May 2016

Porsche 718 RS 60 Spyder: Time For Coffee?

Petrolicious does what it does best with a legendary Porsche

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The roads in Sicily are as iconic, if not more so, as those in northern Italy. The Targa Florio, much like the Mille Miglia, is a road rally, albeit running laps of the island rather than from city to city. The circuit was infamous for its hairpin bends, with up to 800 corners. A single lap of the original course originally comprised 92 miles of the island's roads, ballooning all the way up to one 670-mile circuit, then shortened to the 45-mile circuit that's probably best known in the early 1950s. The race officially ran until 1973 until, like so many of these events, a number of fatalities resulted in racing being stopped. The lap record is still held by Porsche driver Leo Kinnunen in a 908/3.

In 1960, Hans Hermann and Jo Bonnier won the Targa Florio in a 1,600cc Porsche 718 RS 60. Petrolicious brought five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell to Sicily to drive the winning Porsche RS 60 on Targa Florio. He's predictably stunned:  "I never imagined I'd ever drive this car, I never imagined I'd ever drive on the Targa Florio..."

Not to give too much away, but Derek Bell and Petrolicious take you back to 1960s Sicily with highlights from the race, details of the car and shots of the man himself driving along the closed circuit. Inevitably the modern equivalent has to join at some point, but try not to let that spoil things - it's a great production of a fabulous event and car.

Sit back and enjoy the video here.

 

 

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Great videomercial. Some fantastic replicas of these knocking about.
They measure the fuel in the same way I measure mine on a Frogeye .
Porsche 550 & this deffo my favourite ever car. Beautiful.
Driving in Sicily also epic, even in a rented modern 500 preferably about now before it gets dusty.
You will be competing and losing to locals though.