The Porsche 918 is coming to life, on schedule, and seems to promise all that the boffins at Weissach said it would. Chris Harris on behalf of Pistonheads as been out in the car – but only as a passenger! Porsche are obviously none too keen to have anyone outside of the official loop allowed anywhere behind the wheel so he had to be content with being a passenger only – lucky chap! The Porsche 918 is a very ambitious project with the factory moving towards a supercar that offers both petrol and electric technology. There will be the obvious comparison with Ferrari’s new offering (whatever that may be) as was the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 back in the late 1980s.
To a lot of people in the position to purchase a car like this, many seem to not be able to understand what the car is about, especially as it weighs so much more than cars before it (Porsche Carrera GT for example). As the car was originally based on the Le Mans racing Spyder, would the car have been better as a 500 bhp car weighing 1,200 kgs, or what we have at 750+ bhp weighing in at 1,700+ kgs?
Time will tell on that one but the bottom line is that this car is an immense example of technological know how from Porsche which will no doubt filter down into other models at a later date. We are delighted that performance car manufacturers like Porsche are still prepared to push the boundaries of what is possible and taking the supercar into the next generation.
Obviously at Keith Michaels we would love to insure a car like this on our Porsche insurance but something tells us this may be somewhat unlikely! Very very few are going to come to these shores and most will probably be hidden away like most supercars seem to these days. For those on a more sensible budget then do have a look at our Performance car insurance schemes.