Kenny takes the Porsche 911 Turbo convertible for a hoon. Once he’s avoided all the puddles.
| Driver's Log | |
|---|---|
| Date acquired: | Oct 2012 |
| Total kilometres: | 96,000 |
| Kilometres this month: | 1000 |
| Costs this month: | $0 |
| L/100km this month: | 16.0 |
For a change, this month I will not bore you with the usual trips to the garage, which occur as frequently as sunshine in Dubai. No, I will regale you with tales of a great journey in the Porsche 911 Turbo convertible, littered with incomprehensible weather, landslides, police, mud, rocks, boulders and a few puddles.
Okay, it’s not quite as exciting as the above may make out, but a commitment to have a Friday morning jaunt up through the mountains in the Porsche, with a friend in his Golf GTI, was almost cancelled due to the lashings of rain that battered the UAE on a very wet and windy Thursday night. But after rising at an ungodly hour on a Friday morning, I wasn’t about to cancel the trip because of a few puddles.
First on the agenda was the road from Ras Al Khaimah up Jebel Al Jais, the site of what I have been told is a wonderful road for a blast. However, the rain had apparently brought out of the woodwork all those people who rarely see water falling from the sky (being from Scotland I have had more than enough for one lifetime) and they all decided that this wuld be the best place from which to see it. As we approached the bottom we were greeted by a swathe of cars and a few police 4X4s. Turns out they had shut the road so bang went our blast up the mountain.
A quick look at Google Maps to formulate a new plan saw us quickly turn and head for the mountains and ultimately Fujairah, a journey not particularly inspiring thanks to kilometres of boring roads, interspersed with small towns and a multitude of puddles, which in a low slung 911 were a bit hairy. Still, the long straights did allow us to have a little fun and I’m sorry to say that as fast as the GTI is, it wasn’t really up to the task of keeping up with the Turbo. Not that either of us ever expected it to be, but the speed of the Turbo is only really evident when benchmarked against someone right next to you.
We finally found what we’d driven the long way round the country for as we headed out of Kalba through the mountains and tunnels , giving us a chance to stretch the legs of both cars. The Turbo may not have the symphony of an Italian exotic when blasting through tunnels, but it certainly sounds good to me, amplified by the fact that the roof was down. Once through the tunnels a quick left turn took us towards Hatta.
This road is one of my most favorite places in the UAE for a run. It boasts tight twists and turns, humps and bumps, and numerous different road surfaces to keep you on your toes. As much as the Turbo left the GTI in its dust earlier, once on the twisty stuff there was not as much in it as you would expect, with the Porsche never really getting the chance to exploit the power advantage and only just eking out a second here and there due to the 4 wheel drive system. Still, getting on a road like this it’s all about the fun, not worrying about tenths of a second.
A leisurely run back to Dubai allowed the cars to return to normality, and other than the odd shower it was non-eventful. So what seemed at first to be a washout of a Friday morning turned out to be a very enjoyable outing. Days like this are the very reason that I close my eyes and hand over my credit card to the garage almost weekly – to be able to use the car for the very reason it was built for in the first place.
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