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From the showroom to track competition and then back home again…

Disabled but not unable, Guy Davies made history at the Simola Hillclimb in his daily-driven 911 Carrera.

Avon Middleton
June 3, 2025
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Disabled but not unable, Guy Davies made history at the Simola Hillclimb in 2025, claiming third place in his category in his own, daily driven Porsche 911 Carrera.

In the mid 1900’s, car manufacturers began to realise a trick. Motor racing with all its competition, glitz and glory seemed to work a charm at helping them sell more road cars. The old motorsport phrase, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was coined and that adage remains true today. It’s the reason that names like Porsche, Bentley, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and more remain steeped in racing heritage and lore. But for one Guy Davies, self-professed, lived-it, breathed-it petrolhead, that adage was turned on its head earlier this year when he drove his own car from Paarl to Knysna, raced the Simola Hillclimb, claimed third in his category and then drove it back home. How’s that for a successful road trip?  

It really is as simple as that. Except that it isn’t. What makes this story far more remarkable is that Guy Davies, podium placer at Simola 2025, is in fact, a paraplegic who completed the famed Knysna Hillclimb in a specially modified 991 Carrera S. It’s a story that, as with all petrolheads, starts at birth, serendipitously, for Guy was 1963, a year in which a certain Porsche 911 broke cover for the first time. A South African resident of UK descent, Guy was thrown into a world of engines, motorcyles and racing from the day he was born. Guy recalls, “my father collected old cars and motorbikes and enjoyed tinkering with them. He was an absolute car nut!” The bug bit from a young age and Guy grew up behind the wheel of anything he could get his hands on.

In 1995, Guy and his family moved to South Africa and made a living doing farming exports of Rooibos tea and all manner of indigenous herbs like Buchu. It was during this venture, whilst loading some bags onto a vehicle that Guy’s back was severely. Having broken his back playing rugby as a teenager, the wires used for the fusion around his ribs snapped and punctured his spinal cord. At 38 years old and with two young children, Guy’s life was changed forever. He had to discover and adjust to a new life as a paraplegic. His life and business as he knew it, took a different turn. He used his situation to go from farming to building access consulting, spending months learning and researching about what sort of architectural considerations were needed for wheelchair-bound people to move around freely and easily in buildings. It’s a career that saw Guy working on a number of large-scale projects preceding the FIFA 2010 World Cup, including the Nelson Mandela Bay and Cape Town Stadiums.

Through it all, his passion to drive never really abated. Instead, Guy simply drove modified cars instead. As he put it, “as soon as I got into a car, the playing field was level again.” There was a sense of personal freedom in the mobility that driving gave him. He didn’t want to have to wait or rely on others to get to where he was going and adamantly continued to drive, albeit with slightly different controls.

In 2018, Guy’s childhood dream of owning a Porsche was realized. It was a dream he carried with him throughout but after eyeing it for a few months, playing with the specification that he wanted, he bought a brand new 991.2-series, Lugano Blue Porsche 911 Carrera S. After seven years of ownership, Guy has notched up over 200 000kms. The mileage is evidence of his love of driving, using his car as a daily driver but also calling on it to entertain him through spirited drives across a number of incredible roads that surround his home. From Bainskloof to Sir Lowry’s Pass, Guy has ensured that his very own Carerra S has lived up to its sportscar name.

Guy's personal pride & joy, a 2018 911 Carrera S.

A few thousand of those clocked up miles include Guy Davies making his way to Knysna and back for the 2025 Hillclimb, not to attend and spectate but to fully participate. It was never the original plan, but it’s a plan that materialised as a simple course of destiny when a friend and fellow petrol-heart convinced Guy to enter the race, as a driving force of advocacy for people with disabilities. The original pitch was for Guy to race a modified version of Subaru’s legendary Impreza 2000 GT. “You didn’t need to convince me,” he says. “I jumped at it!” The man behind the idea was none other than Aivars Priede (pronounced Ivor), Subaru George dealership owner. Aivars’ motivation to do this was in honour of his grandson, who was also disabled and sadly had passed away in 2024.

Aivars was building the car. Guy was to race it and Simola had accepted the entry. All the lights were green…until they weren’t. It was becoming clear as the months drew on, that the Subaru was not going to be ready in time. Guy and Aivars were forced to make a decision – forfeit the 2025 race entry and wait another year for the Subaru to be ready – OR – race on in a different set of wheels. A Carrera S perhaps? That was the solution, and his change on the application was duly and quickly accepted. Guy made headlines at the 2025 Simola race, making it to the start line as the only disabled entry racing in a stock standard 2018, Porsche 911 Carrera S with road standard Michelin Pilot Cup Sport 2’s fitted. At this point, many had caught wind of Guy’s entry and additional support flooded in from the likes of lubricant OEM Liqui-Moly as well as a few other supporters that came on board to assist Guy in some way. GT Wraps, a Cape Town based vinyl application outfit designed and applied the wraps transforming Guy’s car into something that almost resembled a heritage Porsche racecar replete with their own helmet-wearing disabled icon. His arrival at the start line was testament to sheer determination, community support, a willing Simola Hillclimb team and of course, a certain flat-six sportscar that was roped in at the last minute to carry the weight of it all. Starting the race was all important, but as another old motorsport saying that goes, “if you want to finish first, first you have to finish.” It’s a statement that highlights the crucial importance of reliability, physical and mechanical endurance, and of course, consistency.

On race day, Guy Davies rolled up in car #62 as the only disabled entrant, driving his stock standard 2018 Porsche 911 Carrera S, riding on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s. His presence alone was a victory, but he didn’t stop there. Simola is about using the weekend to build confidence in the surface, to allow the grip levels to slowly build and to consistently find more performance as the hours and sessions roll on. Guy did this as if he was a master racer. In numbers, it looked like this. From Practice 1 to Practice 2, Guy found 2,44-seconds. From P2 to P3, he found a further 0,77-seconds finish the day on a best time of 55:178-seconds.

From practice to qualifying, Guy did the unthinkable. His second qualifying run saw his stop the clock at 53:872 seconds, another 1,3-seconds faster. But he saved the best for last, as many do at the Simola Hillclimb. His final run during the King of the Hill shootout on Sunday afternoon was spectacular. A mega 51,125-seconds was enough to win Guy Davies 3rd place in the A3 category sharing the podium with BMW M2 Cup European Champion Leyton Fourie, and Paul Munro in a Toyota Supra.

Behind the scenes, Guy’s son acted as his remote race engineer, analysing data and providing feedback session by session. Over 7 seconds of improvement on a sub-60 second track is no small feat.

Guy’s biggest thanks go to his wife, who supported him through his back injury and her own health battles—having beaten leukemia twice. This podium finish was his tribute to her strength: “This was a celebration of my wife who has beaten cancer, not once but twice.”



These life challenges have only deepened Guy’s mission to raise awareness around health, wellness, and disability inclusion. He plans to return to Simola in 2026 in the completed Subaru 2000 GT — but beyond that, he’s now part of broader motorsport development, including the opening of a new skidpan at Killarney Race Circuit and participation in regularity rallies.

Of course, one more star deserves praise: his Porsche 911 Carrera S. Built in Zuffenhausen, driven daily, raced competitively — and still dependable enough to drive home in time to take his daughter to work the next day.

As Guy put it in a note to Porsche South Africa:

“Thank you for selling me this incredible car... It has done 200,000 km, and I drove it to the event, competed against cars that were trailered to the event, and then drove it home in time to give my daughter a lift to work the next day!”

And that, truly, is what a real sportscar is all about.

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