A HIGHER POWER

They're the gnarliest, toughest Porsche 911s of modern times - and they're called Doris and Edith. Altitude does funny things to your brain...

- GREG POTTS

A COMBINATION OF DESERT DUST COATING THE DASH, A HUGE INCLINE AND BRIGHT MIDDAY SUNSHINE HAS RESULTED IN PRETTY MUCH TOTAL BLINDNESS APPROACHING THE BROW OF THIS PARTICULAR HILL.

I’m not actually in the desert, but Porsche hasn’t washed the 911 that I’m driving. Just can’t get the staff these days, can you? Although in fact, this particular car won’t be washed ever again, because in December 2023 it climbed the west summit of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile and set a new world record for the highest altitude driven by a wheeled vehicle. And that’s ‘wheeled vehicle’ rather than ‘car’ because Porsche nicked the record off two Mercedes Unimogs. Impressive.

So, the volcanic rock stuck in the wheel arches is now officially known as patina and the blinding sun is courtesy of California, because before this gap yah 911 heads off to spend the rest of its life in a museum, Porsche has handed TG the keys for a play on some off-road tracks in the Santa Monica mountains. We won’t be troubling the new record height of 6,734 metres above sea level, but we should be able to get a decent feel for the 911 Dakar’s rock-crawling cousin.

Although frankly, there are two slightly different cars here to get to grips with, and it’d be fair to say that both have been fairly heavily modified to allow them to get the better of a Unimog. And nature itself.