Walter Rohrl, Christian Geistdorfer and Porsche 911 Back for Targa Tasmania

This year’s Targa Tasmania road rally event will witness the return of one of the world’s top rally driver/co-driver pairings: Walter Rohrl and Christian Geistdorfer, behind the wheel of the same Porsche 911 SC in which they nearly scored a stunning victory exactly 30 years ago in the 1981 San Remo Rally.

The trio will be reunited for five days (until April 10), on the 2,000km of roads on the island of Tasmania, off the south-east coast of Australia.

“That 1981 San Remo rally is one of the most memorable for me, for sure,” said Rohrl, who will be making his third competitive appearance in Targa Tasmania following outings in 1997 and 2000.

“We were not supposed to be competitive in the San Remo because the stages were very difficult and the all-wheel drive cars had much better grip and more power than our Porsche 911 SC,” he added. “But we pushed and pushed and pushed ... but unfortunately something broke on the car on the final stages when I thought we were going to win the rally.”

“We only entered that 911 SC in one rally, the San Remo. It was a last-minute thing. Some engineers at Porsche helped prepare this car for me because I was without a drive,” recalled Rohrl. “Then more than 25 years later, Porsche informs me this fabulous car has been found in somebody’s garage. It has been restored and now we will bring it to the Targa Tasmania in what will be a very special reunion,” says Röhrl. “I am so looking forward to it.”

The 911 SC is one of three cars from the company’s ‘Museum on Wheels’ that will be participating in the Classic section of this year’s event. The others are the famous 908/02 Spyder (1969 Targa Florio winner) driven by Museum on Wheels curator Klaus Bischof, and the 718 RS 60 Spyder (1960 Targa Florio winner) driven by journalist Bernd Ostmann.