Porsche 918 Spyder here in 2013, says new CEO

New Porsche president and chief executive officer Matthias Müller has confirmed that the new 918 Spyder hybrid supercar is on track for a 2013 delivery.

Speaking to CAR at the 2010 Paris motor show, Müller said the engineering programme was on time and that the 918 would stay faithful to the concept car revealed in March this year.

‘We are doing [engineering] concept work on the 918 at the moment and will finish at the end of 2010,’ said Müller. ‘Then we will have all the facts, figures and prices by early 2011.’

‘We will start selling the car then, with a market introduction in 2013,’ said Müller. CAR sources in Germany suggest the 918 is likely to top €650,000, or around £560,000 in today's money.

The 918 carries on where the Carrera GT left off. It’s a halo supercar equipped for duty in these carbon-crunched times; with three electric motors backing up its petrol V8, it is at once both raucously fast and whisperingly  quiet when on EV mode.

‘This car can lap the Nurburgring faster than the Carrera GT,’ R&D boss Wolfgang Durheimer told us earlier this year. ‘At the same time, it averages 90mpg and 70g/km of CO2 when driven gently.’

Let’s hope they can pull it off in production spec. The Porsche 918 Spyder (2013) could be the first supercar without the guilt factor.

By Tim Pollard