Even in it’s smallest form, the Piccolo circuit, the Targa Floria road race held in Italy was a monster that would render the often-worshipped Nurburgring Nordschliefe a laughing stock. The ‘Ring sports a 13-mile track that holds about 180 corners. The Piccolo circuit holds upwards of 800 corners, many of them hairpins, and covers 45 miles of the Italian countryside around Sicily and Palermo…in one lap. Last ran under any official setting since 1977 due to safety issues and concerns, FIA rules, and a notable fatal incident during the 1977 race that saw police stopping the race on the fourth lap (remember, that’s 135 miles of solid racing), the Targa Floria was a monster, and this was the age long before electronics, before aerodynamics, even before relatively decent brakes. It was a driver, four wheels, an engine and a pair of brass ones that had better not get in the way of the task at hand, and it was all done on public roads – that’s right, Floria was a road rally.
Being blunt, this Petrolicious film is, effectively, a plug for Porsche’s Boxter…erm, the renamed 718 Boxter. Whatever. What you get for most of the film is the original 718, the racing development of the Porsche 550, being pushed through the kinks and bends of the Targa Floria course by racing legend Derek Bell. Bell, 74, has a gold-plated history of racing, complete with five LeMans wins under his belt, among plenty others. One thing he has never done until now is run the Floria…when he started racing in 1964, cars like the 718 and the drivers who ran them, like Jean Behra, Edger Barth and Wolfgang Seidel would have been who he looked up to as he worked his way through Formula racing. It’s almost bittersweet: an accomplished racer, a race car from what feels like forever ago, running a race course that would never be able to exist today in the form that it was in during it’s heyday.
Awesome!