It was on the 8th of June, 1948 that Dr. Ferdinand Porsche received the road permit for his sports car that he had built. Dr. Ferry Porsche, as he was fondly called, has widely been quoted saying how he did not find the car of his dreams so he built his own. The car in the question was the iconic Porsche 356, the car that led to the birth of the iconic eponymous brand - Porsche. Since 1948, Porsche has been building sports cars with an unheard-of degree of precision and engineering, era after era. They have built itself such a reputation that it is often regarded as the undisputed segment benchmark, be it the iconic 911 or the newest cross-over - the Macan.

Come June 2018 and it was Porsche’s 70th birthday and worldwide celebrations began to ring on the 70th anniversary of an iconic brand. Porsche owners and patrons all over the globe gathered with various drives and events showing their love for the brand. This time around, India was not too far behind. A relatively nascent market, India has grown to be important for Porsche in the last couple of years. Although Porsche has been one of the earliest players in the Indian markethaving entered the market back in 2003, it had been embroiled in numerous controversies pertaining to dealer dishonesty and owing to that it didn’t really take off until Volkswagen India stepped in and took over by restructuring the entire business model and appointing new dealers. Since then, there has been no stopping for Porsche India. Over the last couple of years, Porsche India has pulled off things that nobody expected in the India market. It began with the Cayman GT4 and the 911 GT3 RS. These cars were never expected to be seen on the Indian roads but we eventually did and following these, Indian roads saw a slew of Porsche’s “upper crest” cars like the GT3 and the turbo Ss and also the super-exclusive 911R!

By now, you may have understood the growth of Porsche India so it was natural to expect a celebration of a good scale in India. On the 9th of June, Porsche Bengaluru hosted the first 70th Anniversary drive in the country. Now Porsche Centre Bengaluru has the distinction of not only selling the highest number of sports cars in the country but also the most number of Porsche’s halo GT cars. And knowing the super-passionate gentlemen who run the show at Porsche Centre Bengaluru helmed by Mr. Raghu Nayak, the expectations from this drive were high. And boy were these expectations met and surpassed! They managed to pull together almost 70 Porsches for the drive which included various models the 718, 911, Panamera, Cayenne and Macan. Sportscars themselves constituted a half of the 70 cars making for a sight which Bengaluru has never experienced before.

The event kicked off from a hotel in central Bengaluru where all the cars arrived and were stickered and lined up while their owners enjoyed mingling with like minds over breakfast and coffee. As the cars came in, there was a loud green (pun unintended) 911 GTS that showed up covered in muck and dust. Turns out that this passionate owner drove the car down from Mumbai in about 12 hours only to be a part of this drive! Your argument of supercars being impractical in India is invalid. Being a huge Porsche buff , I made it to the start grid well before anybody arrived. A little after poking around at the venue and chatting up with the persons responsible for putting together this drive, the cars began arriving. As they say, you will find the best people around a Porsche, I cannot vouch for this any stronger! It was a great time chatting up with a few friends and making a few new friends talking about everything cars. It was particularly awesome chatting up with 911PandaRS, Ashwin Mahendran and Manish Asrani all while having a look at the bright, colourful line up of cars for the day!

The cars were scheduled to drive down to Taneja Aerospace and Aviation Limited in Hosur to have some fun on the airstrip. There was a track laid and a quarter mile drag strip laid out for the customers to push their cars to the limits in controlled environments and also an off road track for the SUVs to get their wheels dirty. Also on display at the venue were few of the rarest porkers in the country, the 911 GT3 RS, 911 50th Anniversary Edition and the 911R along with SPCustom’s much loved Type 997 Mark II 911 turbo aka Lola! Despite rains, the atmosphere was high on energy and octane. And when I say high, I mean really really high! Where else would you see someone (read SPCustoms) casually do donuts around the dealer principal, Mr. Raghu Nayak, in a Cayman GT4?! If there was anything that the otherwise spirit dampening rains could do, then it was only add more drama to entire line-up as clearly seen in the images.
 

All in all, it was one heck of a drive and we were glad and honoured to be a part of it all! A huge thanks to Porsche India and Porsche Centre Bengaluru for having us and to our man Vivek Ravichandar for these wonderful images. Here’s hoping that Porsche gets bigger and better in India in the coming years and we petrolheads get to see more of their insane creations on our roads here. For now, bring the Speedster already!