Ever felt the need to escape from the summer traffic and break out for a drive with a difference? In June 1990, Peter Robinson did.
It was that impulse that led him to climb the Stelvio Pass, once the highest road in the world. On his way up he found 48 narrow, slippery hairpins, heavy, driving snow - even al Mercedes 250 which, wrote Peter, "showed every sign of being totally out of control at 5mph." Just as well our man had the security of four-wheel drive, courtesy of the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet he was driving.
Peter's story, and photographer Stan Papior's pictures, are below, and they make an enthralling, inspiring diversion.
STORMING THE STELVIO, by Peter Robinson
Contents: part one - the set-up; part two - the approach; part three - the climb; part four - the descent.
Part one - the set-up
If you love driving, long and hard, there are few better places to indulge yourself than the Italian Alps. Especially if you enjoy a challenge, a motoring adventure of the kind that's increasingly rare today when our driving too often seems concentrated either on tedious motorways or crawling commuter traffic. The antidote to this is the famous Stelvio pass.
Here, where the air is clean and exhilarating, there are proper roads – demanding, difficult and even dangerous roads – that wind sinuously across the great mountain passes. Here, driving is a priceless pleasure.
You will not travel quickly on these roads, not if quickly means an intercontinental fifth-gear blast across the roof of Europe.
Time equals money for most people (particularly freelance journalists) so when not tempted by an aeroplane I use autostrada. For any journey capable of being covered in five or six hours by fast car, four-wheeled transport is more dependable than a 'plane.
But on my journeys north of the San Bernardino, St Gotthard and Brenner Passes – linking Northern Italy with eventually, Germany – I've always regretted not having enough time to forsake the ease of the four-lane black-top and strike out, high above the modern roads, on the original Alpine passes.
Before Europe was blanketed by a network of motorways, these and other even more difficult routes were the only roads linking between north and south of the Alps. I'd read about them 30 years ago when grand prix reporters actually used to drive to the races and wrote enthralling accounts of their journeys.
I remembered photographs from the Alpine Rally, and the infamous Liege-Rome-Liege, of a zig-zagging road with hairpin after hairpin. My original idle thought to find that road soon became a passion – and I resolved to drive the toughest pass of them all, and to do it in a suitable set of wheels.
Stelvio, they call it – unless you're Austrian, when it goes under the name Stilsfer Joch, which doesn't have the same ring to Anglo-Saxon ears – and it rises to a height of 9045ft. Built between 1820 and 1829 to create the shortest route between the Tyrol and what was then Austria, the Stelvio Pass was the highest road in the world until 1836. Even today there are only two higher passes in all of Europe.
My memory had been jogged, first by Pirellis' Marathon that sets out to recreate the famous rallies of the '50s and uses the Stelvio as part of its route, and by the showing of the Nissan Autech Zagato Stelvio at the Geneva motor show last year (1989).
What could be more fitting, I mused, than to drive the Stelvio pass in a car which proudly bears its name? But since neither Nissan nor Autech replied to any of my sundry phone calls and faxes detailing my idea, I can only assume they don't want their curious car seriously tested in rugged conditions. Maybe Nissan's Stelvio is only really composed on the Ginza?
While I was muttering darkly about Nissan's ill-mannered behaviour in not bothering even to reply to my faxes, Porsche rang and suggested I take a Carrera 4 Cabriolet. Truly. The pieces were beginning to fall into place. By combining a visit to Weissach to interview Dr Bez with collecting the car, and with photographer Stan Papior along, I could justify returning to Italy via the Stelvio. The stage was set.
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Part two: the approach
After a fascinating lunch with Dr Bez and Porsche designer Harm Lagaay, Stan and I headed our ubiquitous silver Carrera 4 south-east towards Munich, before turning South near Ulm on the A7 autobahn that runs almost to Garmisch. But not quite. The Porsche was caught in a seemingly endless traffic jam of Austrian, German and Dutch tourists on the lovely country roads near Fussen. After contentedly cruising the Porsche at 125mph, this wasn't the style of motoring I'd promised Stan. Detours and poorly signposted intersections added to the frustration.
Both car and occupants gave signs of needing refuelling as we arrived at the spot where Italy, Switzerland and Austria meet, just south of Pfunds. The garages were closed and so were most hotels; those that were open either didn't have any rooms or lacked warm food. Our theory had been to get as close to Italy as possible, in order to make an early start the next day, but this was stupid. Our discussion began to revolve around previous sleeping in the car episodes. We pressed on, fuel light glowing ominously as we climbed along the Adige River valley. Finally, at close to 9pm in Malles, 15 miles into Italy, we found a hotel and trattoria. The petrol could wait for morning.
Spooky looking cloud shrouded the mountains when we set off the next day, though now and then a patch of blue sky kept Stan optimistic. We saw the first signs for the Stelvio as we entered Spondinig/Spondigna (towns and road signs in this part of Italy carry both German and Italian spellings). At an altitude of 2910ft we turned right from the S40 to join the S38, crossed the Adige River for the last time and headed up the valley towards Gomagoi – height 3280ft – passing the little villages of Prato alle Stelvio and Stelvio.
Ahead of us the cloud grew ever more shroudy; Stan still contended that we could stop to take some photographs, and the one-touch, 20secs electrically operated roof was lowered for the purpose. And down it stayed, for now, despite the threat of rain.
Officially the Stelvio Pass begins just south of Gomagoi where you find the first of the famous Stelvio signs numbering the hairpin bends. Number 48 is at 1360m (4462ft). So there are 47 more corners to before you reach the summit. Car traffic is light on this first section, as the pass climbs gradually up through a conifer forest, but there are huge dump-trucks that are forced to make three-pint turns to get around the spiral bends.
Nothing fazed the Porsche, though we cursed the noise and inefficiency of the windscreen wipers when the rain began. Small, powerful and agile, the Carrera 4 treated the hills and tight corners with equal disdain. The ride, so stiff on the autobahn your jiggling kidneys have you thinking something is out of balance, is merely firm on these undulating surfaces where spring and damper travel is extended. All the controls become lighter the faster you drive. Steering feel improves and with it comes greater sensitivity, the chassis responsiveness amplified by the constant changes in direction. This is not a road for a Testarossa or Diablo, their excessive width enough to rule them out.
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Part three - the climb
Beyond the tiny hamlet of Trafoi the road narrows and the serious corners begin. With every hairpin we ascend at least another 150ft. Drizzle turned to light snow at 5900ft – yes, in June – and visibility fell to a couple of hundred yards. Stan was depressed at our slim chances of getting the classic Stelvio shot of the endless hairpins stretched out across a mountainside below the car. I was merely grateful we were driving a Carrera 4.
Creeping forward on light throttle openings, I began exploring the handling and road holding in driving snow while Stan reminded me of my desire to find a motoring adventure.
Hairpin after hairpin, always up and up. First gear through the switchback corners, second along the short elevating straights, sometimes third if it was a reasonable distance, but always changing up at no more than 3500rpm. Back to second, a glance above us to see if there was any approaching traffic, down to first for the hairpin, out wide to make the turn in one tight sweep.
Repeated maybe 30 times in the space of the last five miles to the peak of the pass, we were climbing at the rate of one in eight to a height of 9045ft. That's a difference of 6135ft in the space of little more than 15 miles.
What we were able to see of the road surface under the increasingly heavy snow was good. This is well-engineered road with a decent surface, but because it is only 13ft wide, vehicles longer than 30ft are banned. Traffic remained light and we passed one superfit cyclist, knapsack on his back. One way of spending your holidays.
The snow grew more abundant, the summit a motley collection of hotels and ski lodges. Few cars were moving. We decided to turn around and go back down the pass to take some more photographs. I pushed the Porsche a little harder and it responded perfectly. As if it were created for these very conditions. It was almost noon when we regained the summit, the snow heavier than ever, and I was concerned the road could be closed at any time, at least to cars without chains, even to a four-wheel drive Porsche. The authorities were not to know that the Carrera's conventional tyres had remained glued to the road all morning.
We pointed the nose of the Porsche south. Through the snow and down the pass towards Bormio, hoping the weather would improve during the afternoon so that we could return and capture this grandiose pass on film. For some unknown reason the hairpins are not numbered on the south side of the pass. According to my count there are somewhere between 35 and 40, with almost as many less-winding bends. No wonder so many European car makers regard this road as the ultimate test of brakes.
The road becomes more open here, the serpentine corners not as continuous, the straights longer and so speeds can be higher. But the snow still limited our visibility and the Porsche had to be driven circumspectly. Five miles below the summit, the road disappears into a series of unlit, single-lane tunnels, some of which include corners. Care is obviously essential.
Over lunch in Bormio we debated the need to return to the pass. Our sense of adventure encouraged by a bowl of soup, we headed north just as the rain stopped. But not the snow. Above 600ft the road was visible only as two black tracks through snow 6ins deep, the edges of the road marked by depth indicator poles.
The Porsche's traction was brilliant. We stormed up the pass, enjoying the priceless security of four-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes. But concentration and a sensitive touch to throttle were critical.
Soon there was a small queue of cars in front of the Porsche. All, including a red Subaru estate were scrabbling for adhesion. An Audi 80 slid off the road, a VW Golf struggled for grip and finally ground to a halt, front wheels spinning furiously. An old Opel Record slithered from right lock to left as it snaked up the road. A Volvo 740 estate pirouetted wildly in the snow.
Even without the benefit of the M&S winter tyres, the Porsche moved relentlessly forward, but we were not so sure of the car or the conditions to stop and help. On-coming traffic meant moving over for a Renault 5, VW Passat and a Mercedes 250, which gave every impression of being totally out of control at 5mph.
Given the Porsche's advantages I moved off the black lines. The Renault and Passat crawled past and the Porsche continued to move forward, even on the fresh snow. But the Mercedes was wider and needed more room, and we met it on a gentle corner where the camber of the road was greater. The 250 was just past us when the Carrera's tail lost all trace of adhesion and slid off the camber. We were pointing at 45 degrees to the road, front wheels on full opposite lock and all four wheels felt as if they were spinning. Any forwards movement only exaggerated our sideways stance, so steep was the camber.
The Porsche was stuck, one rear wheel hard up against the stone kerb. With the diffs locked via the small knob on the central console, Stan pushing and the clutch gently eased out, forward (if sideways) motion began again.
Slowly, to the smell of frying clutch, the Carrera pulled itself up towards the crown of the road but then started to slide from one extreme to the other, the steering wheel spinning from left lock to right to left in a futile attempt to straighten the car.
I tried switching off the diff lock and immediately the Porsche was easier to keep in drive, although Stan had to be momentarily forgotten if I was to keep the Porsche moving. I had to drive almost to the summit before I could turn back.
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Part four: the descent
The snow stopped, the cloud cleared and a vista of endless rows of beautiful mountains greeted my return down the pass to collect Stan. The light was ideal for photography.
Down the hill we flew. Visibility was perfect with the roof down and there was not a car in sight – only this marvellous serpentine road stretching out down the valley. At last the lovely 3.6-litre flat six could be given its head, but it was still first gear through the worst hairpins, followed by an unremitting rush of acceleration to the 6800rpm red line, a swift change to second and the glorious wail of the engine echoing off the mountains.
When I pushed hard I reached the cut-out – 70mph in second – before most corners. First and third gears were almost forgotten in this elated thrash down the pass. Even under hard braking, through streams of water spreading across the road on the entry to corners, the Porsche maintained its chosen line, with the warm, smelly brakes never once locking up the front wheels. I was even braver on the return run up the mountain, extending the Carrera's roadholding, compelling the engine's sheer energy to even greater heights in first and second gears.
This road was everything I ever imagined, the Porsche a near-perfect partner in a day's fantastic drive. It confirmed every fantasy I'd ever had about the ecstasy that real motoring can still bring… if you choose your weapon and your location wisely.
Photography over, we turned south again, Stan at the wheel and relishing the crisp air and superb scenery.
Go try the Stelvio Pass in summer. One of motoring's great adventures awaits you.
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