Porsche hits reset on our supercar expectations
The Porsche 918 Spyder doesn’t do subtle. In typical
hybrids, engineers take great care to make the transition from electrical to
gas-fired operation as smooth and imperceptible as possible. But typical
hybrids don’t have flat-crank V-8s or go to the Nürburgring to break the
seven-minute barrier. When the 918’s 608-hp V-8 fires up, it opens with a
deafening bark from behind your ear. With the car humming along in electric
mode, the driver has to push past a detent in the pedal travel to light off the
engine, so he knows it’s coming. But it’s like the first time you squeeze the
trigger on a handgun; you twitch in anticipation. There’s even a show for
people outside the car, as shimmers of heat suddenly swell out of the gaping,
high-mounted exhausts. When you back off the gas and the V-8 quits, the
shimmers disappear and the silence is jarring. You didn’t expect an $847,975
Porsche hybrid to behave like a Volt, did you?
The Porsche 918
Spyder doesn’t do subtle
We endured breakfast sushi in the Frankfurt airport and a
ceaseless onslaught of cured airline ham to get to Spain, where the 918 waited
for us on the 2.5-mile Circuit de Valencia. Just weeks before, this track
hosted the MotoGP season finale. Like race bikes, cars with 887 horsepower make
a lot more sense in settings that trade traffic and speed limits for corner
workers and runoff areas.
The 918’s doors open like those of a normal car, and you
have to poke a key into the dash and turn it to get things going. But aside
from those two characteristics shared with the Geo Metro convertible, this is a
unique fortress of solitude. A 10,000-rpm tach with a lime-green needle perches
atop the steering column. Protruding from the wheel between the 3- and
6-o’clock spokes is the rotary powertrain-setting selector, with “e-power,”
“hybrid,” “sport hybrid,” and “race hybrid” options arrayed around the circumference
and an inviting red button in the middle that engages the fully furious “Hot
Lap” mode. A top the sweeping center console is an iPad-style touch screen that
will surely trickle down to workaday Porsches when the 918’s run is through.
And all the climate and infotainment knobs are knurled aluminum, perfect for
filing smooth the jagged edges you gnawed into your fingernails before climbing
into a car worth more than your grand-father’s entire lifetime earnings.
The 918’s doors
open like those of a normal car, and you have to poke a key into the dash and
turn it to get things going
The $84,000 weight-saving Weissach package deletes the
carpet, and stepping in onto a bare carbon-fiber floor is decidedly unlike
entering most road cars. Out back, there’s a mesh engine cover that gets
stamped as a solid sheet of stainless steel before a laser takes four hours to
cut 7335 holes into it. We counted. Lasers also make suede patches on the tire
sidewalls. No, they’re not actually suede, just laser-etched for a texture
exactly like suede. You’ll note this option is nowhere in your Honda Odyssey
order guide.
There’s no kryptonite or adamantium in the 918, but hardly
an exotic earthly substance is missing from the materials list. Carbon fiber,
titanium, Inconel, and magnesium are all included. Lore has it that this engine,
with its titanium connecting rods, is derived from that in the RS Spyder, with
which Porsche won the P2 class at Le Mans in 2008 and 2009. But that’s an
awfully loose use of the word “derived.” About the only design details shared
between the RS Spyder’s 3.4-liter and the 918’s 4.6 are a flat-plane crankshaft
and a 90-degree V angle, the latter being a feature of most of the V-8s ever
made.
Four-wheel drive
is, of course, a major factor in the 918’s traction
But if the 918’s engine shares little with the racing mill,
it also shares little with any “everyday” Porsche. For starters, it breathes
backward. Air enters from the outside of the heads and is exhausted in the
valley of the V. After passing through two catalysts, the exhaust blows skyward
like the stacks on a Kenworth, except here there’s a pair of short cannons
mounted immediately aft of the occupants’ heads. There’s no room for much in
the way of mufflers, which is fine by us and a boon to driver alertness. The
lack of any accessory drive (everything is electric) helps keep the V-8 to just
298 pounds, 134 less than the naturally aspirated V-8 found in the Panamera and
the Cayenne. The 918’s crank-shaft alone weighs half as much as the one in
Porsche’s other V-8.
Think of the 918 Spyder as two Porsche flagships in one –
for the price of three or four. The engine makes 608 horsepower, three more
than the Carrera GT’s 5.7-liter V-10. To that, Porsche adds the approximate
output of its old 930 Turbo with two electric motors. One wedges in between the
V-8 and the seven-speed PDK transmission, and the other sits just aft of the
front cargo hold. Together, they hurtle the 918’s peak thrust to 887 horsepower
and a maxi-mum of 944 pound-feet of torque.
