Screw you, Oregon Trail, for not coding Dr. Erik Brandenburg’s long-lost American relatives into the game. Let the good doctor show us all how to ford a river in something much less expected than a wagon: a Porsche 911.
[Skip ahead to 0:35 for sweet rally action, or to 2:49 for a 911 that doesn’t care about your puny water.]
Brandenburg’s codriver Stefan Preuss gets out to wade through the water and spot for him in these clips from the 2007 Transsyberia Rally, but he quickly gets back in after the car makes it across.
It also sounds like the throttle is wide open in the river’s deepest sections, which is right in line with what my mom said of the time she drove through flood waters in a Beetle. (She claimed Grandpa told her to floor it so the car’s engine wouldn’t suck in any water, all while telling me never to try that, ever.)
While I may cry every time I think about the insane amounts aircooled 911s are going for nowadays, you have to remember that many of Porsche’s earliest racing victories were in rallies. All of those poseurs paying six figures for run of the mill 911s and letting them sit are failing at Porsche.
Self-preparing a 1975 911 Carrera to tackle the Transsyberia Rally alongside factory-supported Cayennes is doing it so right, it hurts. It took Brandenburg two years to put this car together, and it’s basically all that’s right with the world, having not only participated in the Transsyberia Rally, but numerous other rallies, including the African Eco Race.
There’s a ducktail. It sports a similar Martini livery as the Porsche 911SC that ran the 1978 East African Safari Rally. More recently, he picked up a MAN transporter for the car in period-correct Rothmans Porsche livery.
It’s like everything Porsche fans nerd out to (and drive the prices up on), and here it is, blasting through rivers and passing stuck Cayennes. Bless you, kind sir. Bless you.
[H/T Phillipp, Brad and a duck]