Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid Monterey +video

The Porsche 918 Spyder in Monterey

Unless you’ve been locked in a cupboard for the last week, you can’t have failed to notice that this weekend the car world – or at least the upper echelons of the car world – has migrated to Monterey in California for a weekend of basking in the beauty that is the automobile, which culminated in the Pebble Beach Concourse d’elegance

We’ve had a couple of premiers from Jaguar and a crash by Sir Stirling Moss; the US has acquainted itself with the Bugatti Veyron SuperSports and the Morgan Eva GT got its world premier. And Porsche took the 918 Spyder Hybrid to Monterey to let the world see it – and to pitch its wares to some of the wealthiest collectors on the planet.

Which gives us the opportunity to bring you a VT of the Porsche 918 Spyder on the move. You also get a bit of an idea of why Porsche has produced the 918 in the VT, although it’s made to sound like an environmentally aware decision. But listen carefully to the commentary and you’ll realise that Porsche has built the 918 Spyder to hedge its bets.

True, in the process of hedging its bets by building a ‘Green’ Supercar it has come up with a car that appeals, but that is despite its green halo, not because of it. Because by using a hybrid powertrain the 918 gets more power not less. If the 918 had offered less than the Carrera GT did it would have been dismissed as irrelevant by Porsche buyers.

Interestingly – having grabbed the headlines with stuff like a 3.4 litre V8 with 500bhp, plus 3 electric motors with another 200bhp to give it a supecar 3 seconds 0-60mph time whilst capable of 90mpg with emissions of just 70g/km CO2 – our spies tell us that Porsche are saying privately that the V8 will in fact pack a much bigger punch in the production model.

Which sounds just fine to us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZLNAZBOnKo

By Cars UK