Röhrl’s one-off drive in the 911 SC in the 1981 San Remo Rally, in Italy, is regarded by many enthusiasts as one of the greatest drives in the history of the sport. Röhrl and Geistdörfer were simply not meant to win in their rear wheel-drive 911 SC against the more powerful crop of all-wheel drive cars of the era. On twisty, tricky and slippery roads, the combination were within sight of scoring an against-all-odds victory over Michele Mouton in her Audi Quattro before a broken driveshaft forced retirement.

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

Röhrl and Geistdörfer are renowned as one of the world’s top rally driver/co-driver pairings, and together won the 1982 World Rally Championship after previously winning the crown in 1980.

“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,” added Röhrl. “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 Röhrl. “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.”

Röhrl’s famous 911 SC had not raced for 25 years before it was comprehensively restored by the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, and 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 other iconic sports cars competing alongside 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.

The historic trio of Porsche sports cars will be among more than 40 examples of the marque entered in this year’s event, a five-day lap of Tasmania which includes 38 competitive stages totalling over 500 kms.

If you would like to follow the progress of Röhrl/Geistdörfer and their fellow Targa Tasmania competitors, then you can do so on-line via the Porsche Origin website http://origin.porsche.com/uk where there will be daily updates and films reporting all the action from the stages and also taking you behind the scenes.

The features have begun with a short film of Walter and Christian reminiscing about their exploits on the 1981 San Remo Rally with the 911 SC. Next up will be an introduction to the 2011 Targa Tasmania from the official ‘Prologue’ to the event, before the teams and drivers begin winding their way through the north of the island.

This year’s Targa Tasmania will be the 20th anniversary of the famous ‘lap of Tassie’ rally. It starts with a Prologue near Launceston April 5 and finishes in Hobart on April 10.

Gallery

Most road-going competition cars require a myriad of costly upgrades to make them fully competitive. The super-light, ultra-tough Skeltas on the other hand leave the factory with all the power, handling and braking they require to win out of the box.

Lightness
The chrome molybdenum steel spaceframe is reinforced with a centre tunnel and sidepods made of carbonfibre/aluminium sandwich, while the body is crafted entirely from carbonfibre composite. This extensive use of strong but lightweight materials results in a dry weight of just 720kg.

Power
Power comes from either a supercharged 2.0-litre 4-cylinder Honda unit producing 340bhp or the 3.0-litre V8 Hartley engine kicking out 460bhp – both engines drive through a Honda six-speed manual transmission. The suspension comprises rose-jointed double wishbones front and rear, linked to inboard MCA Proflex spring and damper units – the set-up is fully adjustable for track, camber, caster and toe. Powerful braking emanates from ventilated discs and four-pot callipers front and rear.

Aerodynamics
The heavily finned front air intakes, sizeable rear wing and diffuser are a clue to the aerodynamic package designed for the Skelat, combined they exert 200kg of downforce at 90mph. Small wonder it is so competitive on the track.

The Skelta is available in two styles:

- Spyder: a wide-bodied, open-topped two-seater
- G-Force: a two-seater with detachable gull-wing targa top

The Skelta was born out of one man’s obsession to win the 2000km Targa Tasmania road rally. A former Australian rally champion, Ray Vandersee began his determined assault on the Targa with a re-engineered Westfield. His ingenious modifications brought it closer to the Porsches, Nissan GTRs etc that were dominating such events, but it was clear that something fresh was needed to ensure him of outright victory. Starting with a clean sheet of paper, and incorporating all the attributes his extensive competition career told him were required, he designed his own creation from scratch – the Skelta.

Thanks to Skelta, Vandersee and his customers have now won countless events throughout Australia and New Zealand and Vandersee himself has come agonisingly close to realising his dream of wining Targa Tasmania outright. With a string of class wins and quickest stage times to his credit, plus the fastest Skelta yet under constant development, 2010 can’t come soon enough for him. Skelta Racecars Europe has been formed to give UK and European drivers the chance of similar success and enjoyment.

If you’d like to see the Skelta for yourself then both body styles will be on display at the Autosport International Show at the NEC, January 14-17. In the meantime, further details of the cars are available at www.skeltaracecars.com.