Our first drive in the new Porsche supercar reveals a model with amazing potential. McLaren and Ferrari should be nervous
The 918 feels natural on the road, and that's how it should be
What is it?
The 918 Spyder is, according to Porsche, the future of the sports car. It's also the spiritual successor to a whole host of Porsche's most classic hypercars from the past - from the 959 to the Carrera GT - and is a technological tour de force at the same time.
In combining 4.6-litres worth of high revving, race-bred conventional V8 engine with electric motors that power both the front and rear axles, it is, for the time being, the fastest road car on the planet, with a combined power output of 875bhp at 8500rpm and a thumping 944lb ft of torque.
And before you reply with a cynical "Yes, but its lithiom ion battery pack means it weighs far more than it should, so it's not as quick as it could be were it a pure sports car" consider this: the battery pack on its own does indeed add some 314kg to the car's kerb weight, but without its hybrid powertrain Porsche says the 918 would be more than five seconds slower around the Nürburgring.
In other words, the Spyder's combination of batteries, electric motors and conventional combustion engine power do not mean it is in anyway compromised as a design but, instead, optimised to deliver as much performance but also as much economy at the same time.
And the numbers it produces are truly extraordinary. As in sub seven minutes around the Nürburgring, 0-60mph in 2.5sec (in Weissach specification), 0-186mph in 19.9sec (again in Weissach spec) and between 25-30mpg when tootling about in the real world. Genuinely.
Forget for a moment the headline-grabbing 94.1mpg claims, they are generated with the car driving only in Hybrid mode; the reality is that the 918 will burn about the same amount of fuel as a high-ish powered saloon car during regular on-road driving.
Which is nothing short of incredible, you'll agree, but is also the 918's reason to be - because job one when the project started was to build a super-sports car that could return 3.0-litres per 100km (94.1mpg), which could also lap the Nürburgring in 7min 15sec. Which also means the car has massively over delivered on the performance front in its final showroom specification.
And the cost for all this magic? 781,155 euros (£652,849) in standard specification, or 853,155 euros (£712,088) in 41kg lighter Weissach Pack spec.
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