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Porsche nearing 900 orders for its 918 Spyder hybrid concept

When Porsche AG showed the 918 Spyder at the Geneva show in March, we said it was a car to “make anyone a believer in hybrid supercar tech.” Well, maybe not anyone, but Porsche now says it has almost 900 potential buyers for the two-seater hybrid prototype as the German automaker gets closer to approving production. Porsche development chief Wolfgang Duerheimer said he is confident the company will soon reach the threshold of 1,000 orders, which is how many the company needs to “make a sound business case.” The 918 has 680 hp and, according to Porsche, will get 78 mpg and run from 0 to 60 mph in 3 seconds. Porsche said it wants to double its overall vehicle sales to 150,000 in the next five years or so.

Porsche purchases Andial performance brand

Porsche announced on Thursday that it has purchased the legendary Andial name that has become a staple in the realm of Porsche racing and performance tuning. In 1975, the late Arnold Wagner (AN), Dieter Inzenhofer (DI), and former Porsche Motorsport North America president and current consultant Alwin Springer (AL) came together to build Andial (an anagram of the principals names), a successful and respected independent authority on Porsche-performance tuning. Since the last active owner, Inzenhofer, is retiring later this month, timing was ripe for Porsche to jump in and offer to carry the Andial torch.

BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo (GT) concept unveiled

The BMW 5-Series GT - Due to launch at Frankfurt in September [ad#ad-1] The Germans do love a niche or two. Audi seems to be trying to cover everything from a runaround to a supercar, and Mercedes has gone as far as to build an S-Class people carrier (the R-Class) and a super-luxo-barge (Maybach). But BMW play the game as well – the BMW X6 being a good case in point.