Seen and heard at the 2012 Porsche World Roadshow

THE PORSCHES may have actually outnumbered the pylons.

The only way you can get to drive a brand-new, state-of-the-art Porsche—if you, like me, can’t afford to buy one—is to be invited to the Porsche World Roadshow which visits 17 countries every few years.  So it was with much enthusiasm that motoring journalists accepted Porsche Center Philippines’ invitation to Stop dreaming. . . Start driving! 22 different Porsche vehicles in the 2012 Porsche World Roadshow at the Clark International Speedway last Wednesday, the day exclusively reserved for the media. The last roadshow was held in 2006, also at Clark.

Since the Philippines was the first stop of the 2012 Porsche World Roadshow, the 22 Porsche cars shipped from Porsche AG, Germany were still fresh, ranging from 911 Carreras to 911 Targas to Panameras to Caymans to Boxsters to Cayennes in naturally aspirated petrol, turbo, diesel, S, GT3 and hybrid variants.  Shod with Michelin tires and gleaming under the sun, the Porsches presented an awesome panoply of the best that cutting-edge German automotive technology has to offer in high-performance cars.

For the roadshow, which began Feb. 2 and ended Feb. 12, PGA Cars, the exclusive importer and distributor of Porsche in the Philippines, erected a large, white air-conditioned hospitality tent on the Clark International Speedway grounds with three air-conditioned Portalets outside that had running water.  The hospitality tent had a buffet table at one side and 10 or more round dining tables complete with white tablecloth, ceramic dinnerware and stainless steel cutlery.

In style

THEURER pokes fun at some drivers’ bad habits in this demo.

No tacky plastic plates and spoons here! When it comes to organizing events, expect PGA Cars president Robert Coyiuto to do everything in style.  PGA Cars is the only exhibitor at the international car shows in Manila that has a quartet and harpist playing classical music.  Mr. Coyiuto is the best-dressed gentleman in the auto industry as he prefers custom-tailored Erminigildo Zegna suits for business attire.  Running true to form, he made a grand entrance at Clark, arriving in a helicopter—literally dropping by—to greet his guests before flying off again to attend to his business empire. I forgot to ask him whether the tee shirt and slacks he was wearing were custom-tailored Zegna.

Together with the cars, five professional Porsche driving instructors were flown in from Germany to show us how to extract maximum enjoyment from driving the sports cars on the speedway in handling and slalom exercises—but always with Safety First in mind. The instructors came with impressive credentials since they had competed in various international motor sport events in Europe.

George Ramirez, son of the late Philippine motor sport legend Pocholo Ramirez and a circuit race driver himself, supervised the track and off-road events, with the Cayennes playing a starring role in the latter. In fact, there were three Ramirezes present: aside from George.  Menchie Ramirez, the widow of George’s brother Kookie and her son Stefan were on hand to see to it that things went along smoothly. Menchie, who also used to race cars, now works for PGA Cars, while young Stefan has begun competing in circuit races.  His Uncle George told me that they are grooming him to eventually take over the Ramirez family enterprise of competing in and organizing motor sport events.

5 teams

THE INTELLIGENT, and idiot-proof, Cayenne goes down and dirty on this offroad track.

The journalists were divided into five teams of eight members each supervised by the five  Porsche instructors with each team member wearing an ID with a team color: red, green, blue, yellow or magenta. Along the track, several small tents were set up where the instructors gave guidelines to their teams for the next scheduled activity, whether this be the road tour, handling, slalom or off-road.  Aside from chairs and a white board, an ice chest containing chilled water bottles, soft drinks and canned fruit juice was found in the trackside tents.

Predictably or chauvinistically enough, all four female participants (Inquirer reporter Tessa Salazar, Manila Standard contributor Riva Galvez Tan, Aileen  Gan Young of MediaVest and I) were assigned to the Blue Team together with four male journalists. I guess the organizers decided to bunch all the members of the weaker sex together, believing that women are slow and less skillful drivers compared to men. (Tessa tackles this topic in her own roadshow story.)

The Blue Team enjoyed an advantage, however, in that the instructor assigned to us was Patrick Friesacher, the youngest of the imported drivers and the one with the most extensive motor sport experience, having raced in Formula One, GP3, rally, karting, etc.  Patrick proved to be an excellent instructor, demonstrating to us all the right moves for each exercise, showing us how to improve our performance in the slalom contest (which, by the way, was won by Blue Team member and autoindustriya,com contributing editor Vince Pornelos),  how to steer and pace your car through chicanes and how to maintain a safe distance from the car in front during the fast-paced handling exercises on the speedway.

Most exciting

The most exciting roadshow activities, of course were  the Handling 1 and 2  exercises on the speedway where there was no speed limit and you drove Porsche sports cars delivering as much as 500 hp and 650 Nm max torque.  Almost equally exciting was the Demo Lap, when each of us rode tandem with an instructor while he demonstrated how hard, how fast and yet how precisely a Porsche can be driven on the speedway with the Michelin tires screeching and smoking just like in drifting.

The off-road exercise, on the other hand, manifested how the Cayenne’s Porsche Traction Management perfectly distributes drive torque to all four wheels for dynamic handling and increased traction, whether on long. uneven straights, through tight corners or steep downhill and uphill situations.

That all the cars remained intact at the end of the day was a tribute to how professionally and how safely the event was organized and managed.  One of the instructors did admit that they were alarmed and scared by the driving habits of some participants. What’s important, however, is that everyone had fun and learned a lot, no one was injured, no car was damaged and the superiority of Porsche in the high-performance luxury car market was impressively proven once more.