Safari
Ferdi tells us what racing the East African Safari Classic Rally is all about.
Ferdi Porsche is the man behind FAT International, a projects and events company that combines the perennial coolness of classic cars and racing with modern car culture. FAT International puts on two editions of the Ice Race–one in the US and one in Austria, runs a karting league, and even operates a coffee shop at the top of the Großglockner called Mankei, after a rodent endemic to the Kitzbühel Alps. There’s also the streetwear side of the business–it’s all worth a follow, but it was a 911 with a FAT International livery that turned up in Kenya that had us wondering what Ferdi was up to this time.
Turns out it was his new-to-him 911 prepped for the East African Safari Classic Rally, a modern revival race inspired by the famous East African Safari Rally–or before that, the East African Coronation Safari, named in 1953 when the rally was first held to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
The event sees cars that typically raced in period–think Nissan 240Zs, Porsche 911s, and Ford Escorts–follow a course that’s reminiscent of the original 5,000km rally route. There were no official photographers following the FAT Team, so all the photos you see here Ferdi took on his cell phone. We recently caught up with him for a quick interview.
Alloy: So how’d you end up driving the East African Safari Classic Rally?
Porsche: I’ve been following the East African Safari Classic Rally from afar for the last two editions. It was certainly on my radar, but I’m not a rally driver, it’s crazy expensive, and I didn’t think it was actually something I could do. But man, it’s just so rad. Imagining old 911s ripping through this incredible landscape made it impossible to get out of my head.
Then last February I was participating in the Rally With No Name, it’s a Tuthill-backed rally in Sweden. It’s not a serious rally; it’s more for fun. Because of Ice Race I ended up doing quite well sliding these Tuthill 911s around in the snow despite rolling the car once, and at the afterparty Chris Harris starts talking about the East African Safari Classic Rally and how he’s always wanted to do it.
Riding high after placing second earlier that day I said, “I’m gonna do it!”
To which Chris replied, “I’ll be your co-driver!”
A few weeks went by and I had to actually commit to it, but all that time in my head I was already there mentally.
So I phoned Richard (Tuthill) and asked if he’d support a team with Chris and I. He said “you’re an idiot” in a friendly way, of course. He noted that it would probably be in my best interest to have someone in the seat next to me who had done it before, because otherwise I simply couldn’t be competitive. This wasn’t anything like the rally in Sweden, it was something else entirely.
I told him that’s fine and that I was going to do it with Chris anyway. Richard agreed to run the team, and then it was settled!
Alloy: So you’ve got the seat, you’ve got the co-driver, and you’ve got the can-do attitude. Now you need a car.
I ended up liking rallying way more than I thought I would. So I started thinking big. I knew Richard had a great reputation prepping rally cars; I had driven one of his up in Sweden. I’m not going to do the East African in something modern, so it kind of only left me with one choice–an old 911. It had to be a Porsche.
But it was so late in the game that all of Tuthill cars specifically prepped for this kind of racing were spoken for. Luckily Richard had a client who wanted to sell their SC RS. The only problem was that it was a totally street-focused car. It had a bigger engine, suspension tuned for GT driving, but the owner didn’t use it much. It hadn’t seen any sort of competition. So Richard and I agreed that we’d modify the SC RS to a safari spec to compete in the East African Safari Classic Rally. That made this car pretty special.
Alloy: A picture emerged of your car after a roll? What happened?
So technically I didn’t roll the car, it was more of a pirouette.
There are obstacles everywhere. The chance to eff up exists in every single meter of that rally. But at the same time, rallying just takes your brain off of real life. You can shut down and leave the world behind. You’ve in the zone.
Chris and I had a plan: take it slow, and try to climb two or three places a day. And we did just that. There were about 55 drivers and we were steadily making progress. We had a good car, I’m not a shit driver, and we had this idea just to survive the rally, so the plan was working. By the start of the second day, we were sitting at 22nd, and we steadily got even further ahead over the rest of the race…until the second to last day.
We didn’t see this hole, and that’s not really unusual, but sometimes they’ll mark things.
This one wasn’t. So we hit this hole and the car got up on two wheels and sort of airborne. Then the car went into this nosedive position and spun 180 degrees totally off the ground and then we came down on my side of the car. So it wasn’t really a roll, it was really a pirouette.
It got in the way of our plans a little bit. I got pretty annoyed when that happened because our plan was working up until that point. We were P10 when that happened, and we were totally in a position to get to P4 or P5. The crash shifted the vibe and we couldn’t really shake it off. Then the transmission broke and we just sort of never recovered and it was the last day. But still, the whole thing was just absolutely incredible. What an insane experience.
Alloy: So we’ll see some more rallying in the FAT world?
FAT’s about having fun, right? And having fun with motorsport, and I don’t think there are many things that are more fun than rallying. People are into the big motorsport platforms like F1, and somewhat into WRC, but I think there’s so much more room for rallying. FAT was created to make motorsport more accessible, like our karting league, and rally is just another pathway that’s a little more unexpected. If you’re good, we’ll find you, and we’ll put you in a seat on a forward path. Rallying is very much a part of the DNA of FAT, so there will be more of it in the future.
Alloy: We’ll see you out there!
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