Page 65 - The Book For Men Spring/Summer 2024

made turning extremely light so Dumas wouldn’t get too exhausted at high altitudes. They’re incredible machines that make the special-edition 911 Dakar off-roader look timid in comparison.
Once the cars were completed, the team departed for Chile in late 2023. They set up base camp, roughly 1,000 kilometres north of Santiago, at 4,500 metres on the side of the Andean volcano. Then, for two and a half weeks, the team got acclimatized to the altitude. Dumas walked the route, up to 6,500 metres. Beyond that point, he’d be venturing into the unknown.
“I went with the car to 6,500 metres quite easily,” Dumas says, matter-of-factly. “It took from 5 a.m., and I was at 6,200 metres by 8 a.m. Then, suddenly, I arrived at this place that looked quite flat and completely icy — like a lake. I went at it quite aggressively, thinking I could power through, but I got stuck and had to wait for two guys to winch me out. I realized that it was going to be a long day.”
As Dumas drove — at a 45-degree angle — up the side of the volcano, he couldn’t see the ground. Only sky was visible through the windshield. “You can see nothing,” he says. “I could communicate with guides outside on the radio. But the problem is you have to use power to climb so you need speed. If you stop, you have to go back down and build up speed again.”
As such, it was slow going. Driving 100 metres sometimes took well over an hour — and the more time spent at these altitudes, the more dan- gerous the expedition became. Initially, the plan had been to stop short of the very top of the volcano. And, after arriving at the approximate point where the Unimogs had stopped, it looked like the terrain simply wouldn’t
allow them to travel any farther.
“It was midday,” says Dumas, “and we’d been driving for seven hours.
Your brain is not really clear anymore. It looked like we couldn’t go higher, but the guides said: ‘Hey, why not try and go up to the [volcano’s] crater?’ I said: ‘We have to try.’ I turned left and walked maybe 30 metres to see where to go. But, at this altitude, after 30 metres you’re already exhausted. So I went back into the car and drove in a big loop underneath the crater.”
As Dumas drove, the route flattened out. Instead of driving up a 45-degree slope, it was now around 20 degrees. They were close to the summit, and Dumas knew it. He drove carefully around boulders that had been thrown up by volcanic explosions — but eventually hit one of these rocks at high speed. “I knew there was a rock there,” admits Dumas. “But, because my brain was missing oxygen and we had to use lots of speed to get to the summit, we hit the rock. The car was almost on its side. I was sure we bent something or destroyed a wheel.”
To the surprise of both Dumas and his team, the car was fine. And, at 3:58 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2023 — after driving for nearly 12 hours from base camp — Dumas, his Porsche, and his two accompanying guides reached the summit. The altimeter read 6,734 metres above sea level. No car has ever driven higher. The exhausted team found time to pose for a few photographs and briefly enjoy the vista before they had to begin the long, careful drive back down the volcano.
And, with that, the Porsche 911 achieved yet another world record — at the ripe old age of 61 years old. Is there anything this car can’t do?
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