Porsche 918 Brochure Leaks. Some Of The Options Can Put You In Jail, Apparently

by Jack Baruth

Published: September 19th, 2012

porsche 918 brochure leaks some of the options can put you in jail apparently

We would also like to point out that importing and/or driving a vehicle with the Martini Racing design film package on public roads could have legal consequences

Now that Porsche has that humdinger of a disclaimer out of the way, they’d like to sell you one of the 918 examples of the 918 Spyder. Preferably one with the Weissach Package. No, not the Weissach Edition. The Weissach Package. As in, you’re going to have to start taking Marlo’s package on your corner so you and all your hoppers can live long enough to buy an example of this fine sporting hybrid.

Images from the 918 brochure were just leaked on Teamspeed. It’s plainly a gorgeous car and the interior is quite nice. I’ll even forgive Porsche for the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not a street car but a rally car via the inclusion of a top-of-wheel stripe. Trust me. If you need a little stripe to tell you where the top of your steering wheel is, you have no business driving anything faster than a Chevrolet Spark. Otherwise, it is a charming effort. Not all of the Teamspeed commenters are so kind:

3700 complicated (all the hybrid crap) pounds. $700,000 or so dollars. All I see is a wallet raping for cars and coffee bubble wrappers. Leaves me cold and totally uninterested.

A terrible decision for Porsche to have wasted the time and money to develop this albatross.

There is my honest, no BS opinion…

Nor is the poster of that statement some bitter old air-cooled throwback like your humble author; he’d just taken delivery of a new GT3 RS 4.0. When even the suckers won’t suck, there’s trouble afoot.

If anybody from Porsche is still reading TTAC — which I doubt — please take this suggestion: put the 997.2 Turbo engine in the thing, sell it for a quarter-million bucks loaded, and face the Ferrari 458 head-on. The guy with the GT3 4.0 should be aspiring to your premium vehicle, not mocking it.

#ButItWasRarelyDelivered #ExcellenceWasExpected #Porsche #Porsche918

Jack Baruth

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4 of 21 comments

Darkhorse on Sep 20, 2012

I think Porsche is headed to an evolutionary dead end. They are so focused on the top 1% of car buyers, they are at risk if the economy takes a nose dive again. They needed the 550, not the 918.

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- Ceeceeurti on Sep 20, 2012
  
  Sadly I think you are absolutely right.
  
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- NMGOM on Sep 20, 2012
  
  @ceeceeurti Darkhorse, ceeceeurti, and noxioux... I must beg to differ. 1) The 911 may be playing itself out, not Porsche as a whole, and certainly not Boxster/Cayman; 2) Porsche realized long ago how fragile its position was. That is why we have the Cayenne and Panamera, which, together, sold about 75% of all Porsches in the US in 2011; 3) All companies benefit from a "halo" car to invigorate their images. Lexus has LFA; even stodgy Toyota will benefit in public perception by the presence of the meager FR-S. And Nissan has gained greatly from the GT-R, much less its financial backing of the Deltawing at LeMans. Certainly my regard for McLaren went through the roof because of the MP4-12C. So, the 918 may be exactly the super-car that Porsche needs to get "street cred" in the upper "Ferrari echelons"; and that, with Cayenne and Panamera sales, will allow them to make the entry-level car for you and me, at about $40-50K; 4) Porsche is now a part of the VWAG, and its presence there is having a huge effect on platforms and chassis designs. Instead of being swallowed up (as some had feared), it is behaving like a shark in the swimming pool. And now VW is able to be much more aggressive on all fronts, and may achieve world dominance even by 2016 (!), not 2018. ref: "Automobile" Magazine, July 2012, pages 14-16. So, is Porsche as a brand down and out? I hardly think so. It just got a breath of fresh air! ----------
  
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Noxioux on Sep 20, 2012

The 918 is the most pointless, contradictory exercise in sanctimonious douchebag auto-greenwashing EVER.

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