Feisty 18-year-old Porsche conquers the S The Porsche is just the most rugged little car … we’ve beaten the living daylights out of it but it’s still going strongly – Tom Barr Smith
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ack in 1999, 22 years ago, two respected motoring writers – Michael Stahl and Michael Browning drove a Porsche 911 Carrera (type 996) across the Simpson desert to demonstrate the technical mastery of the vehicle. Today’s crossing by Tom Barr Smith and his contingent of six had little to do with demonstrating the mastery of his 2003 C4S Porsche and everything to do with honouring Tom’s wife Jenny and her battle with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). Though simply by completing the trip it will inadvertently demonstrate the technical mastery that can be extracted from a Porsche, even one 18 years old. After all the Simpson Desert is one of the roughest and most remote places on Earth, even in a good year it is notoriously difficult to cross and nowadays made that little bit trickier by our constantly changing border closures due to Covid. Before heading off there was some trepidation because there is no guidebook on how to get a Porsche through the challenging conditions of the trip. Afterall the car was designed for highways not byways, hence the schedule had to incorporate some fluidity.
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