Reeves Import Motorcars

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid - Photo from Wired.com

When you hear the word hybrid certain thing always seem to come to mind: The Toyota Prius, grassy hills, hippies. On the other hand, some things usually never come to mind when you hear the word: Performance, supercar, racing. There are people at Porsche, however, that would argue all of that is about to change. Or, it might have already.

Intent on keeping the dream of performance alive in a world suddenly overtaken by concerns with efficiency the dreamers and engineers at Porsche have put everything they have into building the performance cars of the future.

Just a few months ago at the Geneva Motor Show they unveiled the 918 Spyder – a real hybrid supercar. Porsche surreptitiously built the car and they nearly stopped the entire car show when they pulled the cover off of it. The stunning supercar of the future grabbed the attention of every person in the building. Many people gazed in amazement at the concept car, but there probably weren’t many that believed the car could ever go into production. The plug-in 918 Spyder, which can run entirely on electricity up to 25km, has over 500 horsepower and reaches 62 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds, a feat not reached by the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo or the Ferrari Enzo (neither of which can be plugged into your wall). Making this vehicle even more exciting is the possibility that it could be on the road in the next few years. The big boss at Porsche, Michael Macht, told Autocar “There is no one inside Porsche who doesn’t want to build the 918. The response has been marvelous; we will ask buyers to sign letters of intent.”

The 918 Spyder may or may not hit showroom floors, but building a super-efficient supercar isn’t the main goal of the guys at Porsche. They are focused on changing the entire industry. They want to show the world that hybrids can do anything. They are building tomorrow’s performance vehicles to satisfy the ever-hungry minds of car enthusiasts. That’s why Porsche also built the 911 GT3 R Hybrid, a high-performance race car that just took 3rd place at the Nurburgring Long Distance Championship. The hybrid needed one fewer pit stop than the rest of the cars on the track.

Explaining all of the technical details of how these amazing machines work would take forever, but luckily the kind people at Porsche put together a 12 minute video to do just that.

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