Unleashing Porsche’s Performance

Everyone has their own reason for buying a Porsche.

“It’s a car I admired since I was a kid, and I always wanted to own one when I grew up.”
“I was drawn to its performance after test driving it.”
“I wanted to experience driving a sports car.”
“I was looking for a car to enjoy drives with my family.”

And so on.

However, no matter the reason for purchasing a Porsche, it’s quite difficult to truly unleash a Porsche’s performance and genuinely enjoy its driving on typical Japanese public roads.

Porsche is a car that can deliver incredible performance even when you take a stock production model straight to the circuit, so it’s true that “you can experience that driving on a racetrack”… but you can’t go to the circuit that often, right?

That said, I think most owners probably feel, “It’s fine to just enjoy driving normally without pushing the Porsche to its limits.”

But for people like my husband, who once said he drove 3,000 km on a single touring trip and still felt like he hadn’t driven enough, driving is a passion greater than even three meals a day. For them, enjoying Porsche’s driving on roads where its performance can be fully expressed is very important, and they are constantly on the lookout for information about public roads where they can drive comfortably and enjoyably.

My husband often says things like this:

With the 992 Cabriolet or the 964, I can drive slowly even on roads with a bit more traffic or not-so-great surfaces and still be okay… but with the Boxster GTS (981) or the GT3 I used to own, I really feel the urge to “let it run lively.”
At low speeds, the ride can be quite stiff, and if I keep the engine at low revs, the engine sounds like the car is “getting irritated,” which builds up stress.
Because I know the exhilarating, smooth engine sound at high revs, it makes me feel that way even more.
So if I go driving without checking the roads beforehand, I end up feeling like, “I went all that way but came back more stressed.”
In that case, I think I would have been better off driving a comfortable luxury sedan instead of a Porsche.

For driving enthusiasts like my husband, going for a drive isn’t about “enjoying the scenery” or “soaking in the atmosphere” — those come second. What really matters is whether the road is enjoyable and feels good to drive on.

Finding Roads Where You Can Drive Comfortably in a Porsche

My husband, who is crazy about driving, often says this:

Typical town information magazines’ “drive courses” are not helpful. If you blindly follow titles like “Selected Drive Courses in XX Area” and go out driving, it will be a disaster.

That’s because the drive courses featured in those magazines are “drive date courses,” focusing on destinations like restaurants or night views, connected by ordinary roads.

They’re not the pure “drive courses” my husband is looking for (which makes sense, haha).

And he says this:

For people who want to enjoy chatting with family or a partner while driving and visit restaurants or souvenir shops, town magazines’ drive courses are very useful.
But for someone like me, who is crazy about driving, “the destination doesn’t matter; the purpose of the drive is to enjoy driving on great roads.”
If you blindly follow town magazine drive courses, you’ll face heavy traffic and poor roads, and have a bad experience.
Those courses are no good for people like me. So to really find good roads, you have to search for them yourself, which is tough because information is scarce.

So how does my husband usually find good roads? He uses the “Touring Mapple” for bikers, which has appeared many times on this blog.

Apparently, it has been published for over 30 years and continues to receive passionate support from riders as a motorcycle touring map.

Among the touring books generally available, Touring Mapple is the only one that’s really useful. Riders purely want to enjoy riding their bikes comfortably.
They don’t ride just to visit souvenir shops or have a delicious lunch.
That’s why Touring Mapple focuses on the roads themselves, introducing many roads that are simply fun to ride on.
In that sense, I often check blogs by bikers and try the roads they introduce, and I really think, “If you want to truly enjoy Porsche driving, asking bikers is a great idea.”
Of course, some roads accessible by bike aren’t passable by car, so you have to be careful.

That’s what he says.

Among those, my husband respects and repeatedly reads the blog of wata, a Porsche Boxster owner.

Among Porsche owners my husband knows, wata is by far the most passionate driver and knows many great roads.

Sometimes when my husband watches wata’s touring videos, I watch with him and say, “Haven’t you seen this before?” and he casually replies, “Yeah, I have,” while watching from start to finish again, haha.

He really loves it (laughs).

My husband says:

Wata’s videos and blog are really helpful. And wata always carries Touring Mapple on his tours. He knows many great roads, and when I’m stuck, I just check his blog and somehow manage, haha.

On this blog, whenever my husband goes touring, I share the route on Google Maps. For driving enthusiasts like him (though probably a very small number, haha), I hope this information is even a little helpful.