Porsche And Hollywood’s Highway, The Taycan 4S Cross Turismo’s Cruise Up Mulholland Drive

On one of the world's most celebrated and cinematic roads, filmmaker and Porsche racer Jeff Zwart took the Taycan 4S Cross Turismo for an all-electric cruise up LA’s Mulholland Drive.

Opened in 1924, some say the road was built purely as a recreational route, designed for drivers with knuckle-gripping tight bends, enticing curves and challenging switchbacks.

From the Hollywood sign in the east to the twinkling Pacific Ocean in the west, Mulholland Drive runs for 80 long, snaking kilometres through the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains. 

Made famous by the movies, home to the stars, and with a secret history of outlaw racing, Mulholland also has a special place in the Californian story of Porsche.

Porsche racer and filmmaker Jeff Zwart, remarked, “It starts confined, with a lot of buildings and congestion. But then it opens up, and a car can really flow here. High-speed sweepers and first-gear hairpins, there’s every combination of turns.”

To begin with, from the 1950s to 1970s, Mulholland became a magnet for street racers and thrill chasers.

Unofficially, they called it ‘Mulholland Raceway, The Largest Amateur Road Race Course’, that has corners with names such as the Deadman’s Curve, Grandstands and Chicanes. 

Interestingly, people also created ‘Mulholland Specials’, cars built and tuned specifically for these twists and turns. 

Of course, the Porsche models, especially the 911, were always a favourite with Mulholland’s faithful until today.

However, because this was always an open, public road, the police put an end to the clandestine racing scene, but that didn’t stop people heading there for a fast blast. 

That said, over its full 80 km, in the middle, it’s interrupted by a 13 km unpaved section running along the northern ridge of the ‘Big Wild’ conservation area. 

Known to locals as Dirt Mulholland, the gravel stretch, which leads to an old Cold War missile control site, was eventually closed to traffic after landslides caused by El Niño rainstorms in the 1990s.

Exclusively for this drive, special permission has been granted to navigate a short section of fire road under the all-electric power of a four-wheel-drive Taycan 4S Cross Turismo.

As such, who better to have behind the wheel than Zwart, whose off-road racing experience includes the Pikes Peak hill climb, the Baja 1000 and the punishing TransSyberia Rally.

Before rolling onto the dirt, Zwart selects the Cross Turismo’s special Gravel mode, which raises the car’s ride height that helps to lighten the drive for the rough road ahead.

Zwart expressed, “Driving an electric car on gravel is like a dream come true, there’s such instant power. The capability of the car and the trust you can put in it is really fun to explore.”

Notably, to the west of the gravel area, Mulholland Drive becomes Mulholland Highway, from here, the road runs along the backbone of the Santa Monica mountains before winding down to Malibu. 

“Within a city as crowded as LA, to have almost 80 kilometres of winding road, that’s a pretty cool thing, and it literally stops at the Pacific Ocean. The road just ends there, it’s your final destination.

All in all, in the old days, the noise of the waves would be mixed with the tick-tick-plink of cooling engines and exhausts, but with the electric Taycan, it glides to a stop and silently powers down.