Latest / Performance Car Ownership with Gary / 3 LEGENDARY SWISS ALPINE PASSES, 1 WINNER: SUSTEN VS. GRIMSEL VS. FURKA

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3 LEGENDARY SWISS ALPINE PASSES, 1 WINNER: SUSTEN VS. GRIMSEL VS. FURKA · Performance Car Ownership with Gary

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now here's something most people don't know.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: The Forca and Grimsall Every Alps road trip list tells you to drive the big three, you know, the Seusten, Grimsall, and Forca, back to back in one day.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now nobody ever tells you which one is actually worth your time if you're short on it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Three completely different passes, three completely different characters.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tunnels and glaciers views, torquoise reservoirs, and the actual road from that most famous James Bond film, Goldfinger.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: So which of these legendary passes actually deserves the hype?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I drove all three in this 2026 911 Cabriolet.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end of this video, I'll rank them.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not on scenery, but on what actually matters from the driver's seat.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now quick orientation, because this genuinely confused me in the moment.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you're driving, it's not obvious where one pass ends and the next one starts.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's no dramatic line on the road.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, here's the chain from town to town.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: We left and climbed and crossed the sous, and then we came down uh into Harrington, and from there we climb straight into the Grimson, and then down the other side into Glenge, and then from Gletsch we climb straight into Forca finishing in rail.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Three passes, four towns, one continuous day, and one round driving.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now this chart shows you each one's length and location for easy reference.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I apologize to the Swiss for my pronunciation of all of those names.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So quick context if you're new.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a PCA national track instructor.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is a rental car, and this is part of my Alps driving tour.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: All right, the Susten.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one that was actually built for cars.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's something most people don't know.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Forca and Grimsle both started as mule tracks.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Susten was designed for cars from day one in 1945.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You feel the difference immediately.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: The sight lines are better, the hairpins are more consistent, and the 11 tunnels turn this into the most varied drive experience of all three.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Susten is the one that eases you in.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now leaving Vussen, there are no switchbacks or hair pins for surprisingly long stretch, just long flowing climbs.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then you're into tunnels.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Several short ones cut right through sections of the mountain, and a couple of them are open on one side, which is unlike anything I'd ever driven before.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're in a tunnel, but half of it just open air beside you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Part way up, we climbed straight into the clouds.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And as we kept climbing, you could watch the landscape change in real time.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there is fewer bushes, less vegetation until it's just rock.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, right about at the halfway point is the Steinglechter restaurant, and it might be the single most authentically Swiss Alps place we stopped at on the whole trip.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: The lunch was, you know what, it was genuinely incredible.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: By the time we left, the scenery had already become noticeably more barren than what we'd left behind back in Vassen.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now my take on the Susten is it's a group pass.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's wide and well engineered enough that driving with other cars around you, you know, it's genuine it's genuinely comfortable.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: The danger factor is moderate, not the road itself, but the tunnels and weekend bike and car traffic.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: But was it my favorite?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that a little bit later.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Grimsell trades hair pin drama for something none of the other passes in this trip actually offers.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Three turquoise glacier reservoirs stacked up on the mountainside.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is the pass where you stop the car more than you actually drive it hard.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you only have one amazing picture in you today, stop and take it here.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: As a road, it's wide, well engineered, and honestly a little less demanding than the Forca or the Susan.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Several sections near the top have been newly repaved.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it showed this was by a clear margin the best surface of the three.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Traffic was the lightest of the day here too.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the sight lines you know, they were genuinely excellent.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: You could see far enough ahead to know whether it was actually safe to pass, which isn't definitely something you can't say about every alpine pass.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: My take here was it was another group friendly pass, wide, busy in spots, but it was manageable.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, rather than the road itself.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now would be a great time to subscribe.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: The Forca Pass is the famous pass.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now the Forca is barren, genuinely the starkest landscape of the three, and that's exactly what makes it very exciting.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's almost nothing to look at except rock sky and that amazing road itself, which somehow makes every curve feel bigger.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what angle you approach it from, it looks absolutely incredible.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's definitely for a reason.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: A part a lot of people ask about.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was used in the movie Goldfinger.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there's an actual sign bend near the summit on the Uri side toward Rial, known as James Bond Curve.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you actually find it?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not a guess.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a small lookout and a parking area right at the bend with its own informational signage, just a short drive, like I say, from Real.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to hunt for it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: You'll know it when you see it at the pull-off.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, my take on the forca is the one that I'd call a convoy friend.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wide enough to drive comfortably as a group.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what you're after.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Midday if you want the shot, dawn or dusk if you want to dodge those post bus.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: The danger factor is moderate.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tight hair pins, and you're sharing the road with that same post bus.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to those buses, your best bet is to pull over to the right and stop and just to let it go by.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to the danger factor, a few things were consistent across all three passes.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of very fast local petrol heads who know these roads intimately.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And even faster motorcycles that will pass you close to the center line with real confidence because they've driven the exact curve a hundred times.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: You haven't.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Drive like it and let them buy.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And about those little concrete posts along the edge of the road, those ones are marking where the pavement ends and the drop begins.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: They won't do much to save you if you go off.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: They're mostly just markers, not barriers.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: On stretches where there's a real guardrail, you feel the difference immediately.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: On those stretches where it's just those little posts, you sense that difference too.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now here's the honest, slightly surprising part.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Driving all of this was far more than exciting.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I was surprisingly not fearful at all.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Part of that is the pace.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Every one of these passes is driven at genuinely low speeds, nothing like the Autobahn at all.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it, I'll credit directly to my track instructor background, reading the road, respecting blind corners, and never assuming the lane ahead is clear.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you only have one day for the big three, here's my actual ranking.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Most photogenic, by far the Grimzel.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: No contest.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Most famous, and it earns it the forka.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: But the best pure driving road of the three, for my money, is definitely the Susten.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's the one built by engineers who actually thought about the driver, not just the destination.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And all of those tunnels, you know, they're super cool.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: For me, that's number one of seven passes and one glacier road on this trip.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so far, Susten is my early leader for the best drive of the whole week.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see how long that lasts.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're enjoying this series, subscribe.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more of this trip coming, and you can check out all of the videos right here.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Be sure to comment below.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I read everyone.