Dreamscape

The Gotthard Pass, A New 911 Gt3— And That’s Just Scratching The Surface

- Ben Barry

THE RAINHAS stopped, but headlights still glimmer on the road’s slick surface, and fog swirls over the mountainside like lace curtains whipping in the breeze. Immediately ahead, there’s a Ferrari 812 Superfast and a Dodge Viper ACR. Beyond them, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1 road cars queue side by side, homologation specials from 25-unit production runs. In the rearview mirror, a Ferrari FZ93 and Aston Martin Zagato Shooting Brake stand out in the line of exotics that coils down the Tarmac, coach-built rarities normally found in museums. Soon we’ll run with this incredible pack up the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland, closed specially for the occasion. No oncoming traffic, no speed limit.

The event’s organizers claim that the Gotthard Pass has never before been closed for fun, nor has any other street in Switzerland. The road climbs to 6,909 feet over the Saint-Gotthard Massif in the Alps, tying German-speaking Andermatt in the north to Italian-speaking Airolo in the south, a vital link that just so happens to be awesome to drive.

In fact, there are three ways of making it from Andermatt to Airolo. You can drive the original cobblestone route or take the Gotthard Strassentunnel, constructed in 1980 to bypass the altitude and the wiggly bits in an arrow-straight line. The third option is the newer mountain road, built alongside the original cobblestones. What this road lacks in history, it makes up for in driver appeal, geography you’d normally require a parachute to appreciate, and the majestic engineering of its vast tunnels and precipices panning bridges. Guess which road we’re taking?