The triplet is complete. After the Ferrari LaFerrari and the McLaren P1, the Porsche 918 Spyder is the third car in this list of supercars. Since the Geneva Motor Show in 2010, we wrote about the Porsche 918 Spyder. All speculations are now over, because the Porsche 918 Spyder is officially announced today. It this car a competitor of the crazy LaFerrari and P1?
The car has enough power to keep up with the other two. The 4.6 liters V8 produces 608 hp and a has a maximum of 9,150 rpm. As we all know, the 918 Spyder is a hybrid sports car so we also find two electric engines inside the car. One powers the front axle while the other powers the rear axle. When you combine the power of all three engines you’ll reach a total of 887 hp and more than 800 Nm of torque. This is a close call with the Ferrari and McLaren!
The performance of this car is great. Thanks to four wheel drive, it’s possible to sprint to 100 kph in just 2.8 seconds. You’ll reach 200 kph in 5.1 seconds, eventually you can even reach 300 kph in 23 seconds which is way slower than the McLaren P1 which does it in only seventeen seconds. You can only accelerate this fast when the Hot-Lap mode is on, which focuses all the systems for a fast sprint. The Hot-Lap mode is one of the five modes on the 918 Spyder. The first one is E-power mode, which only powers the electric engines. The V8 does nothing so in fact you’re driving around emission-free.
Weight reduction is the codeword of a successful sports car so Porsche made the chassis out of plastic strengthened by carbon fiber. The batteries make the car quite heavy and in total it weighs 1680 kilograms. The weight reduction is 43:57 which means that most of the weight is placed on the rear wheels, just like all the other sports models from Porsche. The Porsche 918 Spyder also has steering rear wheels, just like the new Porsche Turbo to make sure that you will be the fastest in corners. Last year, the men from Porsche did a lap on the Nordschleife in 7 minutes and 14 seconds, more than twenty seconds faster than the Porsche Carrera GT.
On the outside, we see all sorts of active aerodynamics. In the E-power mode, the flaps and spoilers make sure that you’ll have minimal air resistance, while the Hot-Lap mode makes sure that the car creates extra downforce. The exterior of the car can be made a bit more extreme with the Weissach package. The roof, rear spoiler and mirrors are then made out of carbon fiber and Porsche uses as less isolation as they can to reduce the weight of the car. They will also mount some special magnesium wheels underneath the car for a lower weight. They managed to reduce the weight with 35 kilograms and this package can be recognized by its special livery like we know from the racing teams from Porsche.
Only 918 copies will be made and that’s even more than the LaFerrari and McLaren P1 together. The price will be lower but will still be very high. A copy will cost almost 800,000 Euros.
