The flight landed in a sleepy, snowy town, Kittila, Finland, somewhat famous for spotting northern lights, followed by ice adventures like skiing, snowmobile, husky rides and driving cars on ice. Not just any cars, but Porsche 911 Carrera and Taycan, including the insane 911 Carrera 4 GTS. Every year there is a track laid out by Porsche Global, and enthusiasts come there to learn how to drift, brake, accelerate, and have some serious fun. The spots get opened on the Porsche website, and before you know it, all get booked. This year Porsche India had booked 50 spots and, along with well-paying customers from India, invited just a few bunches of auto journos. The money is serious, with customers spending 5-6 lakhs [ approx. ] for a three-day course, bed and breakfast, flights or charter plane excluded.
Prior to this, I was in Seefeld, Austria, with Audi India doing something similar for two days with the RS e-tron GT and RS5 Sportback and had got some drift of drifting in snow and realized that it’s not only amazing fun, but you can actually sharpen your driving skill. The Porsche group was bigger with owners and enthusiasts, and some of them owned multiple Porsches in India and were deep in cars and driving. Whether it’s breakfast table, dinner table, or casually hanging out, the whole conversation hovered around cars, circuits, what to buy next and their experiences. Porsche Global has been doing this for years and has perfected its curriculum; the instructors knew how to warm the group and take them to step by step from 1st gear to 8th gear. The experience was surreal, and the cars on offer were mental with all poster colours on display. We started with the RWD through the turbo power followed by electric power, and finally, Carrera 4 GTS, which is not being sold in India, and at least from the group, 8 of them were ready to sign on a blank cheque to own one!
The courses were the same, but we repeated it each day with different makes of Porsche, so it never felt the same. Driving settings also remain the same - PSM off – Porsche Stability Management, manual and 2nd gear driving. The GT2 RS’ tail used to slide very fast, and acceleration and steering inputs were much more aggressive. This was the most challenging beast to tame and found its way to the snow bank the most. There is a term called “Rally Flick”, which is going wide open at the apex and turning in the corner with one flick to get the car on rotation, and once on rotation, managing the acceleration and going hard once you have cornered and you have it on a drift. Keeping the slide is challenging, but as the motto inscribed in bold, “Eat, sleep, drift, repeat”, says, the more we did it, the more control we got and the more adrenaline-soaked fun we experienced.
The least amount of fun would be in the Taycan – I will agree to that, and most of the folks did too, but this is comparative. If you have eaten Sushi in Nobu, you have set your benchmarks high, but that does not mean that Sushi elsewhere in other Michelin-Star restaurants is not good. The Taycan had a much larger wheelbase. The 1050 Nm of torque with 750 hp of power, paired with an AWD setup, means you get acceleration quicker and without any real engine, the throttle inputs and steering commands reach all the wheels much faster. There was no manual mode, but PSM was off, and it used to drift in corners much more confidently; even when banked in snow, it had enough muscle to drive itself out without us to yell at the walkie to come and tow us out. It happened a lot in the GT2 RS, and in the Taycan Turbo S with sports mode ON, that number would probably be 1/7th.
If a Porsche sales guy was standing with an order form outside the circuit, I would have filled it and booked myself and then maybe robbed a bank to pay for it. That’s a different story, but the Carrera 4 GTS is totally orgasmic to drive. It handles and makes you have so much fun with it that after a point, you start talking to the car as the love of your life literally.
First of all, settings remain the same, PSM off, Sports Plus Mode and 2nd gear, with minimal steering and counter steering. In any of the above, we are supposed to steer only ¼th on each side before bringing the steering and Porsche logo in the steering upright, looking straight at you. With 570 Nm of torque and 474 hp of power and with Bi-Turbo, all the wheels perform in perfect harmony and almost like the Taycan has the ability to come out of snow banks with its own muscles, most of the time. The drift is the best, the handling is the best, and you feel like a pro, but in reality, the engineering marvel of the Carrera 4 GTS is doing half of the work. It felt like great bliss, that’s why perhaps it was kept for the 3rd day like a dessert after a gala dinner.
The temperature was -10 to maybe - 15, we also went for a snowmobile tour for 60 minutes, but I will anyways prefer the Porsche on ice, Carrera 4 GTS preferred unless the guide of the snowmobile operator allows you to drive the 60 hp motorbike to its full potential. Most of the time, your speed is limited to 40km/h, and you are following a convoy that kills the adrenaline rush. Inside the Porsche, we used to come out with beads of sweat and sweets of joy. That’s why the signage is apt – Eat, Sleep, Drift, Repeat.
