The Porsche World Expedition

The initial idea was born back in 2011. But it took over 5 years to convince Stuttgart that he wasn’t stark raving mad. I mean it’s one thing to hold the record for driving Cape to Cape––a 17,000 km trip from North Cape in Norway to Cape Agulhas in South Africa in 8 days, 21 hours and 3 minutes––but another thing entirely to create a similar type of experience that you can legally and morally drag customers to. Especially since Wi-Fi is now considered a basic human right.

An expedition like that requires planning. And a lot of it. And Jan was given 2 years by Porsche to do so. We’re not only talking about finding suitable roads, but actually creating bespoke ones just for these trips. Just like the 1127 sand dunes which needed to be counted and eventually tackled while traversing the Simpson desert. Because there ain’t no app for that. Each one had to be guided by the hand of Jan. Each and every one. That means being out of the car, radio in hand, and talking each participant through. And if that seems impossible, just think, it needed to be done twice.

There’s a reason that no other manufacturer has ever tried tackling this with their customers in stock vehicles. Maybe even legal reasons. Aside from requiring balls big enough to wrap a set of all-terrain tires around, it needed a small but resourceful team comprised of a lead mechanic, a paramedic that can change tires and play the guitar during the camp fires, a guest liaison and press officer that could double up as the only source of information and link to the outside world when all communication except for a satellite phone were non existent, plus a support crew that monitored the real-time progress and situation from a climate-controlled room in Stuttgart.

Only once Porsche was convinced they wouldn’t be putting any of their customers in considerable danger did they give the green light––and even then it was still more of an amber one with intermittent flashing reds literally hours before the flag off in Queensland, Australia. In fact, it wasn’t until the last car literally got flagged off from the Brisbane dealership did the PWE crew start to believe it was really happening.

I joined up with the convoy somewhere in the middle of the earth in a place called Uluru National Park in the Northern Territory of Outback Australia. To say this place is remote is to say Manila is congested. This is a place so isolated and quiet, it is where silence comes when it needs to think. Just to put that into perspective for a car guy, let’s just say that it took me almost 1,000 kms to realise I was driving a left hand drive vehicle in a right hand drive country, because without context, there’s really no way of telling.

After enjoying cocktails at sunset by the world’s largest rock, the group were treated to dinner under the stars before being sent off with a full tank of gas, 80 litres of reserves in 4 jerry cans, two spare tires, one Our father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be and an iPad that came preloaded with a custom built map that was built just for this trip. Initially I felt humbled by the grandeur of it all until I realised that in a way, it was the last supper. They had to be as nice as possible. Because while it may have all been recon’d by Jan’s team, this was still the great outdoors at its most open. And anything could happen.

Preparing for a road trip like this conjures up feelings you may never knew you had before. Because while I have been on hundreds of international media drives before, and all of them completely awesome, being out here, where the variables cannot be controlled by corporate, it heightens all your senses. It’s how I imagine the White House feel about Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

The convoy rustled to life around 7am, although the crew had been up far, far earlier. They had to Vulcanize every spare tire they had after bursting 11 tires in 10 minutes due to a particularly harsh patch of gravel and sand the day before. How these cars still remained screwed together after that brutal jaunt across the desert remains up there with whatever happened to Amelia Earhart. If there was ever a testament to the durability of a Porsche, this would be it. Simulations are great, but there’s no better test than actually having to get somewhere and being in the only option for it. And the Cayennes delivered in shovel loads and ate up every obstacle in their way with a smirk that said, “you want fries with that?”

The Drive to Perth was separated by about 1500 kms of red dirt roads punctuated by overpriced gasoline stations that charged more per litre than Tanduay does for its award-winning rum. Seriously. Plus you need to pay $20 per vehicle for them to unlock the padlock of the cage that surrounds it. Seriously. Because fuel is precious out here. Not only for cars, but because it also competes as a drug of choice for some of the locals. Yes, I’m still being serious. Because you can’t make this stuff up.

After almost a thousand kilometres of driving through practically nothing and craving a hot shower and a nice warm bed, we arrive at the campsite where I was presented with my tent. A simple, basic tent. Not the glamping type, either. But the type you see on sale in S&R. Yet ironically, as basic as it was, it was the most amazing accommodation we had. Because at the end of the day, anyone can stay in a five star hotel; this here was a bajillion star one as the lack of any light pollution cleared the canvas for the most amazing stargazing you’ll see outside of the Oscars.

Two days and many hard-to-pronounce towns later we reached City Beach in Perth, which is where the first leg officially culminated. This is where I had spent my teen years and early adult life, so I was met by my in-laws who of course were eager to hear all the stories about what I had seen in the outback. Which got me thinking. While I was wearing a grin wider than the front grille of the Cayenne I was driving, flashing back, if I’m completely honest about it, there really was nothing much to see. There was of course Uluru Rock at the start, as well as the exhilarating sight of a pack of V6 Cayennes tearing through the landscape, but the rest was seemingly an endless supply of desert and sky that tended to meet half way on the horizon.

So I paused for a bit while I tried to attach the feeling I had to something tangible, like a view or something I could offer up as a receipt. Until I realised that I couldn’t quantify the experience by what I saw. On the contrary, it was that vastness of nothing that made it really something. Because it provides perspective. It reminds you of your place in the universe. It’s God’s way of hitting the mute button, which forces you to listen inward and allows that inner voice that has slowly been drowned out by all that adulting, to start speaking to you like an inquisitive child again. And if you listen close enough, it will eventually ask you: when was the last time you did something for the first time?