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.

[Chris Stott]

A simply beautiful car.

[big_rob_sydney]

I'm not normally a porsche fan, but there is something appealing about a lightweight, mechanically simple car.

With technology the way it is today, I'm thinking maybe Lotus is the old porsche?

[kambites]

Lovely thing.

[dinkel]

There's something fantastic and wonderful about these 50s and 60s Porsches:




904 GTS

The 70s were wild and crazy and gave us the 930 Turbo and the 917. But how pure and elegant were these early racers?

[BVB]

Eloquent article, great car, and beautiful circuit. Thankyou.

[Kawasicki]

Only 4 cyl, so not a proper Porsche. (!)

[Spydaman]

Wish I still had my replica. I guess I'll just have to finish the next one.

[dinkel]

Spydaman said:

Wish I still had my replica. I guess I'll just have to finish the next one.

Old Skoda underpinnings?

[J4CKO]

And people say the new Boxster sounds crap ?

Sure its a lovely old thing but doesn't grab me much, looks like the offspring of an Elise and an upended tin bath, sacrilegious, yep but just because its old doesn't mean I have to eulogise about it

[unsprung]

Lovely film. The story of the 718 is only partially about engineering, isn't it.

It's also about a deep respect for physics and the use case. The people at Porsche went with notably less power than other teams. But they were certain to give that power every advantage... via small mass, aerodynamics, and agility.

[Esceptico]

J4CKO said:

And people say the new Boxster sounds crap ?

Sure its a lovely old thing but doesn't grab me much, looks like the offspring of an Elise and an upended tin bath, sacrilegious, yep but just because its old doesn't mean I have to eulogise about it

Each to his own. I think it looks lovely and sounds great too. I suspect it is brilliant fun on the road too.

[torchy6]

Thanks for that, beautiful piece of history with an icon of a car and living legend Derek Bell, just loved it!

[Dusty964]

J4CKO said:

And people say the new Boxster sounds crap ?

Sure its a lovely old thing but doesn't grab me much, looks like the offspring of an Elise and an upended tin bath, sacrilegious, yep but just because its old doesn't mean I have to eulogise about it

Despite being around years before the Elise.....

[Spydaman]

dinkel said:

Spydaman said:

Wish I still had my replica. I guess I'll just have to finish the next one.

Old Skoda underpinnings?

Close, old Beetle.

[stephen300o]

An odd ad, where the product being sold is totally put in the shade, nay made to look utterly ridiculous by its ancient ancestor.

[kambites]

Seeing them together does make the Boxster look comically fat and ungainly.

[kambites]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Skip to the last 30 seconds or so.

[RemyMartin]

Not sure why Porsche made a video to show how fat and gash the new boxster is.

Odd. Very odd.

[J4CKO]

Dusty964 said:

J4CKO said:

And people say the new Boxster sounds crap ?

Sure its a lovely old thing but doesn't grab me much, looks like the offspring of an Elise and an upended tin bath, sacrilegious, yep but just because its old doesn't mean I have to eulogise about it

Despite being around years before the Elise.....

Really, I did not know that !