We get some alone time with the Porsche 918 Spyder in Dubai.
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It’s almost three years since Porsche unveiled the 918 Spyder concept at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. Since then, the world has been straining to find out what Porsche plans to bring to the latest-generation hypercar party that is also set to welcome the McLaren P1 and Ferrari F70.
And now, finally, the world is starting to find out. Porsche is taking prototypes of the hybrid 918 Spyder around the globe to show to potential customers. After all, it’s making 918 of them, and they’re looking to cost from $845,000, so the company needs to do some serious wooing of the world’s wealthy.
This week, two 918 prototypes – numbers 23 and 24 – arrive at the Dubai Autodrome, to see how supercar customers in the Emirates would react. We’ve popped along to the track before the clients arrived to get a sneaky peak at the cars and chat to the man tasked with showing the most discerning of car connoisseurs just what the latest Porsche hypercar can do.
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In a pit garage sit the cars. They’re not the finished article quite yet – the rear lights, taken from the latest 911, sit awkwardly in place of the proper items, and the front indicators are from a Volkswagen Golf. The white paint is in fact a vinyl wrap, and the interior looks a little scrappy, which is understandable considering the amount of kilometres these prototype have covered. But they still look incredibly potent. Underneath the top-mounted exhausts behind the cockpit sits a 4.6-litre V8, pushing out 580hp on its own. It’s mated to two electric motors – one on each axle – which add more than 245bhp, giving a total output approaching a monster 800hp, with 575lb ft of torque. This means it can run in electric-only E-Power mode, or in full-bore hybrid mode, with the electric motors providing instant torque from standstill.
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Matthias Hoffsuemmer is Porsche’s head instructor for the 918 Spyder worldwide, which means he travels everywhere the cars go and drives potential customers around. As they’re still at the prototype stage, only Porsche employees are allowed to drive the cars, so Matthias has to convince the public of the car’s quality while they’re in the passenger seat.
“Our major goal is that we get the customers in touch with the car,” he says, “we want to get them feeling what the car can do. We will give them a taxi ride and go out for a couple of laps, show them how the E-Power engines are working. We’ll do a whole lap just under electric power, show them the acceleration out of the pits and how it drives on the track. Then after that E-Power lap, we’ll switch to Race-Hybrid mode, with the combustion engine on, and get additional boost from the electric engines. Then we’ll do some recuperation laps to recharge the battery.”
Sounds like a treat. Taking customers out on track isn’t new for Matthias, as he’s been working for Porsche Driving Experience since 2000, training customers all over the world. He’s from a racing background, and continues to enter endurance races on the Nordschleife. So as an instructor, rather than a development driver, how did the 918 Spyder feel when he got behind the many-buttoned wheel for the first time?
“The first time I drove the car I got far more than I expected,” he recalls. “Always when you first drive a car you try to be careful, get the feeling for it. In this case, the first time I drove it was on the racetrack in Leipzig and after two or three laps I felt almost at one with the car. I had a really high trust level and felt I could push. It’s very approachable, not scary to drive at all. The balance is unbelievably good, anyone can drive this car. You don’t need to be a race driver; even on the limit the car gives you feedback as to what it’s doing.”
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