Shaken and stirred behind the wheel of Targa Florio-winning Martini Porsche

Growing up, I was never really someone excited by supercars or GT cars, apart from a Ferrari F40. My world revolved around Formula 1 and while the Indy 500 and Le Mans were on my radar, it was impossible to follow it living in India in the late 1980s or early 1990s. If I’m honest, I was also never a Porsche fan growing up and always thought the Ferraris had a magic that tugged at your soul in a way that a perfectly engineered German machine never could.

However, all this changed when three years ago I drove a 911 GT2 RS, GT3 RS and a Turbo S within three weeks at three different tracks. I suddenly was angry with myself for missing out and my mission has now been to try and experience more 911s from history and make up for lost time!

The team from Goodwood was kind enough to ask if I would like to drive a 911 RSR at this year’s Members’ Meeting. I obviously said yes but only later realised it was the 911 RSR – known to enthusiasts simply as ‘R6’. This car won the last ever world championship Targa Florio in 1973 and the sister car won the Daytona 24 Hours earlier in the year against the prototypes. Imagine if a   current road car went to a round of the World Endurance Championship and beat all the prototypes outright. We would never imagine that happening, but that’s exactly what happened at Daytona in ’73.