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Developments within Supersede Control - from track work to publication. This includes observations gathered in practice, updates on releases, and how the framework continues to evolve over time. |
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Someone suggested I should make a list of all the memorable cars I’ve owned, driven, tested, raced, modified, coached in, or simply experienced over the years. So, I did. Honestly, it blew me away a little. Not because the list is full of exotic machinery or rare metal, but because every car instantly unlocked a memory. A person. A racetrack. A road trip. A near-disaster. A friendship. A laugh. A lesson. Some were world-class performance cars. Others were rough around the edges. Some were beautiful. Some were gloriously ugly. A few tried very hard to kill me. What started as a simple list quickly turned into something else entirely — a rolling anthology of motoring memories spanning decades of track days, racing, road cars, workshop projects, endurance events, magazine tests, and the wonderfully strange world of South African enthusiast car culture. This is very much a work in progress. As I continue adding cars to the list, I’ll also be expanding many of these entries into full stories and individual blog posts. Some will be funny. Some mildly terrifying. Some nostalgic. Some technical. Most will probably wander off sideways into unexpected territory, because that’s usually how motoring stories go once enthusiasts start talking. And yes… there are still many more cars to add.   The Road Train I’ve driven some weird and wonderful things in my life, but this was kinda strange… CLICK HERE to read the story  The White Puppy I've done so many races in this little car. Helped develop it. Won races with it. And many unforgettable experiences... CLICK HERE to read the first story  Chery QQ – 48-Hour Endurance Record I got roped into this event way before Chinese cars became a thing… CLICK HERE to read the story  Naughty Tyres A friend had this car standing under a carport. Insisted I take it off hands for free. So, I did what I always do when I didn’t know what to do with a car. Gut it and turn it into a track car… CLICK HERE to meet Naughty Tyres  Fat Bully Take a heavyweight GT cruiser. Gut it, add good brakes & suspension. Bully whoever I found in the corners… CLICK HERE to read Fat Bully's Story  Stupid Fast Mini People talk about “the good old days.” They usually leave out the part where they probably should’ve died. CLICK HERE to read the story    The White Goose The one and only car I ever regret selling… CLICK HERE to view Arthur & Martha & The White Goose  Shelby Can-Am Sports Prototype I was asked to test one of these things for a magazine writeup. The test lead to an invitation to drive one in a race. And the engine broke during my first practice session… CLICK HERE to view the Shelby Can-Am Test CLICK HERE to view the Shelby Can-Am Race More Stories To Come...250 Superkarts Still the most mental thing I’ve ever driven. Zero to 100km/h in under 3 seconds. Zero to 200km/h in under 6 seconds. Top speed north of 250km/h. No cage. No belts. No brains. Half Pint – Our Pre-‘73 Porsche 911-R My buddy Chris and I bought a butt-ugly ’83 SC. Turned it into a brutal little lightweight longhood track car… The White Lady – Dave’s ’83 Porsche 911-SC Canyon carving through the Lowveld when the roads were still topnotch… The Brown Cow – Dirk’s ’83 Porsche 911 Targa I introduced Dirk to the 911 experience. Then built this sweet little targa for him… The Yellow Bird V-I – Dave’s ’74 Porsche 911-RSR in IROC spec Started life as an ’83-SC. Dave turned it into a concourse condition race car… The Yellow Bird V-II – Dave’s 911-RSR in Grp-4 spec Then it evolved into a serious piece of kit. No expense spared… The Sperm Whale – My Cayenne GTS V8 I’ve always thought of the Cayenne as a good grocery-getter. A tow vehicle. And a very unusual Track Taxi… Customer Porsche 991-Mk1 GT3 (Street) A customer was galavanting somewhere in the Mediterranean on the Queen Mary. Asked me to take delivery and test his new 991 GT3. It was the first time I've experienced taking delivery of a brand new Porsche. Lawrence’s Porsche 991-Mk1 GT3 (Track) The kind of car that pays dividends exponentially... When you start throwing money at the right upgrades. Prevan’s Porsche 997 Turbo Modified by RACE! A beast of a thing at the time. Still is… The Bread Bin – My Ugly Duck Subaru Forester At the time I modified this thing, you could build horsepower to match 911’s for a fraction of the cost of building a 911 performance engine… Less – My Subaru Forester SG A car I named “Less”. Because there aint no such thing as a pretty Subaru. Only less ugly ones… Charles' Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 (RS) Porsche raided their parts bin and built a few of these… Albert’s Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 (G50) The thing about old air-cooled 911s is that you can do a road trip to a faraway track. Do hot-laps all day long, and then drive it back home without a hassle. Not many cars from the seventies and eighties could do that… The Green Tea – Marino’s Pre-73 Porsche 911-T The official Porsche colour is called “Irish Green”. Clearly, it looks more like British Racing Green. Is that German sarcasm? Mark’s Porsche 993 Carrera 2 Nice car, but Porsche supplied these cars with candles for headlights… Albert’s Porsche 993 Carrera 4 I spent 4 days doing an inch-by-inch paint-correction buff and polish on this car. Entered it into the local Porsche Club Show & Shine. And won a 1st Place trophy… Tefo’s Porsche 993 Carrera 4 Turbo These cars make a perfect “Doctor’s Porsche”. In stock trim they are remarkably silent. They just go woooosh, woooosh, but they are blisteringly quick. John’s Speed Yellow Porsche 993 Carrera RS If Jeremy Clarkson was a Porsche fan ... He would probably wax lyrical after a proper drive in one of these. He would probably liken it to some sexy supermodel… My Speed Yellow Porsche 996 GT3-MkII Even ordinary guys like me get lucky sometimes. I bought this car before the Porsche price boom… Neerajh’s Porsche 996 GT3-MkII I guess not many people can say I did endurance racing with my attorney in his GT3… JP’s Porsche 964-RS Racing with your attorney is one thing. Testing the taxman’s Porsche on a racetrack is quite another… The Jug-Shaker – My Porsche Cayman 718 GT4-MkI I’m no pervert, but a sportscar with stiff suspension on a slightly bumpy road does have its advantages if your female companion is nicely shaped... And you have good peripheral vision… Black – Hugh Tower’s Porsche Cayman 718 GT4-MkI I’ve probably done more miles and hot-laps in this car than my late friend Hugh did… My Ferrari 458 Italia I couldn’t afford a Ferrari in my wildest dreams... But one thing leads to another, and I won an auction bid on a 458. With mild front-end cosmetic damage… Customer 458 Spider It’s a privilege and an honour when customers and friends entrust you with driving their cars. It is also a huge responsibility… Customer Maybach Who says you can’t join the Porsche Club guys... For a spirited Sunday morning drive to the Natal Midlands. I a Maybach. Yes, a Maybach… The Donkey – My BMW540i 6-Speed People asked me - This is not a slow car. Why do you call it The Donkey? It did all my donkey work. Hands down the best car I ever owned… My Audi RS4 Avant I’ve always had a thing for performance station wagons. They make excellent tow vehicles and packhorses. Plus, you can double-duty them as track taxis when demonstrating racing lines… Gerald's Ferrari F12 Life gives you a test ever so often. But driving a 720hp front-engined Ferrari first thing in the morning on a race track with a hangover the size of Texas... Is not really what I would consider fair play, The Yellow Banana - Lynda’s Porsche Boxster Marino warned her. “If the car goes to Pierre for work, it’s gonna come back with a name…” Christo’s Porsche 718 Boxster GTS This “hairdresser’s Porsche" alerted me to how ridiculously quick these things become with the right modifications… The Red Rocket – Porsche 718 Cayman GTS These cars are the real sleepers of the Porsche world. I’ve done software & cat delete on a few. This time I turned into a real giant killer… The Bue Rocket – VW Golf 7.5-R A project. Taking a bone stock Golf 7.5-R and throwing a grocery list of aftermarket mods at it. And investing the kind of manhours you could never recover… Arshad’s McLaren 720-S What a car!!! If you ever see me roll up in one of these and I tell it’s really mine, you won’t have to guess whether I’ve hit the Powerball Jackpot. You’ll know… Formula GTi When I look at photos of this car, the tune Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas comes to mind. That’s how it was with this car. I just wanted to drive… Yasis – Adrian’s Toyota Yaris GR When you drive it normally it’s just a Yaris. When you tackle the corners in anger it quickly becomes “YASIS !”… Allan’s Porsche 930 Turbo Dropping my arse into my friend Allan’s 930 Turbo. For some hot-laps at an open track day. Felt like I was stepping back into a time capsule from 1981… Tabasco – GT40 Track Test Getting out of bed at sparrow’s fart on a cold winter’s morning is really not my thing. But on this particular day I was heading to Kyalami. To drive a very hot GT40 replica… 917 Track Test When I was a kid, I had a poster on my wall... Of Jo Siffert’s number 24 Porsche 917 in the iconic Gulf livery… Lotus Exige S - Track Test I arrived 45 minutes late for a track test of three Lotus 7 race cars and an Exige. There was no time to check out the cars beforehand. I was ushered straight into the Exige with the words “You gonna like this”… VW Challenge Track Test I’ve never been interested in hot hatches, or front wheel cars in general, for that matter. See, I was raised in the parallel universe of RWD and AWD cars… Becker’s Porsche 944 Turbo Cup I have known many Beckers. Enthusiastic. Committed. Quick enough to feel confident. Inexperienced enough not to recognize what they did not yet understand… Gabor’s 944 Turbo I remember this car. It was rough around the edges. Really rough. The windscreen was cracked. The carbon fibre doors, fender flares and hood were all warped and none of the panels lined up properly… Speads Single Seater Track Test What we have here is a car at 92% the scale of the 2007 Ferrari F1 car. It weighs 360kg with a 110hp Gixxer 1000cc power plant strapped to the back. Chain driven with the rear sprocket ingeniously crafted onto a custom Quaife limited slip diff… Speads Sports Prototype Track Test A stroked 1400cc 220hp Hayabusa motor in a car that only weighs 380kg. You don’t even have to do the math. You just know it’s going to be quick… Mark’s Porsche 924 Race Car "I guess you could always mount a small BBQ in the passenger footwell and turn the sausages on the back straight"… Mark’s Porsche 924 Carrera GT Google this car and AI will tell you - To qualify for FIA Group 4 racing (where it famously competed at Le Mans), Porsche produced just 406 road-legal examples… Lamborghini Gallardo 6-Speed Porsches have that low-pitch powerful roar like a lion. F erraris buzz like mosquitoes in the everglades. But this thing, oh hell, it growled like a tiger in mating season… Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera Kyalami. Private test day. They brought me the keys for this thing. Brand spanking new. Delivery miles on the clock. Two Lamborghini factory representatives were present. Time for me to do what I always do when presented with a strange car - pay attention and take control of the situation… Gerald’s Lamborghini Huracan When you cruise out of pitlane and the owner’s son tells you “My dad said you must take it to the limit” you just know it’s time to pay attention and take control of the situation…
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AuthorPierre Martins has spent years working within motorsport as both a driver and coach. Archives
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