1885km - 8 days – One fantastic time!
This was without a doubt one of the most fantastic holidays I have taken in ages. The opportunity to spend 10 uninterrupted days with my son, to drive some of the most iconic roads, in an iconic car, with stunning scenery, the opportunity to meet some great people, attend a great event, etc., etc.
All-in-all, experiences you can only imagine but will cherish forever. My only regret is not having done something like this much earlier in life or - more often in life. You can be sure that going forward, these are the type of holidays and trips I will plan and enjoy from now on.
However, next time it will be without a schedule, without hotel reservations but definitely with good company. Next year’s plan is to tackle the Transfagarașan Highway in Romania. Any takers?
The other trip I want to do is a loop around the whole of Europe but that will have to wait until I stop working as I will surely need 6-8 weeks to do it right.
As for this trip, it would have been good to have had more time. More time with Chris, more time to explore the alpine regions of Austria and more time in the Stelvio region of Italy. But then there is never enough time.
As for the car, it could not have performed better. It is a 1982 Targa 911SC with 132k miles on the odometer which has had a fair amount of work done to it since I purchased the car from a guy in Romania about 3 years ago.
I recently had the suspension completely reworked with new Bilsteins all around, new polypropylene bushing, new wheel bearings, discs, pads and tires. I also had the steering rack rebuilt which made a world of difference. In addition, the 915 transmission was rebuilt last year and a new clutch and pressure plate installed.
During the trip, the car never failed to start on the first turn of the key, pulled hard in every situation and only lost slightly less than 1 liter of oil over the entire 1885 km. The only complaint I had is with the Targa top and that comes more from the usual wind noise when it needs to be on. However, when it is off, the car is everything I have ever wanted it to be.
The only other issue we experienced came during our climb up the north side of Stelvio and that was a slight rubbing of the outside edge of the left front tire on the inside lip of the fender well during hard right turns under power. We never experienced the problem with the right front tire, only the left. It ended up scarring the side of the tire slightly but nothing structural.
Other than this one problem, I could not have asked more from a 30 year old car that has lived up to everything I have ever read in the numerous threads throughout this forum. I will continue to work to refine and improve the car to as close to new as I can get without throwing too much money into the pot. In the end, our cars could always be better but the primary objective is to drive them and enjoy them.
As a final note, I want to thank everyone who made this trip possible and who contributed along the way.
- Special thanks go to Karl Steiner from the Porsche Club Austria for inviting us to participate in Porsche Days – Zell am See.
- I also want to thank Zoltan Himar and his team at Mash Motors in Budapest for their professionalism in setting up my car.
- Most of all I want to thank Chris for taking the time to join his father on a memorable once in a lifetime trip and a promise of more to come.
- Of course, I cannot forget the one who made me do this in the first place, and that is Vera. She encouraged me to make the trip and enjoy myself. She also helped to encourage Chris to come to Europe. Without her, this would have never happened.
All-in-all, the best trip ever!
Hope you all enjoy this thread as much as we enjoyed the trip itself.
Thanks again,
Mike, Chris & Vera
PS: In the coming days I will load the videos from Stelvio and Gavia on YouTube and will share the links in a follow-on post to this thread.
