Porsche has shared pictures of its new 911 Hybrid (992.2) being tested in the sands of Dubai and at the Nürburgring, where it took almost 9 seconds off the lap time of what I guess may be the 992.1 Carrera. That sounds pretty impressive – I wonder what the cost per second will work out to when the list price is revealed.
Porsche Hybrid Nürburgring Test
Over the course of performance testing, Porsche brand ambassador Jörg Bergmeister completed a lap of the circuit in 7:16.934 minutes – 8.7 seconds faster than the corresponding version of the predecessor model. The test car was equipped with standard road tyres, plus the aero kit with a fixed rear wing that has been available as an option for several model generations now, and which provides increased downforce at high speeds.
“The new 911 has become considerably faster on the track,” says Bergmeister. “We have more grip, significantly more power, and the spontaneous response of the performance hybrid is a great advantage.”
Porsche 911 Hybrid Techical Specification
The obvious question is what sort of system is Porsche using in the 911 Hybrid but there is little detail about this in Porsche press land. Writing for Car and Driver this year, the well connected journalist Georg Kacher said that the lightweight c.27-kilo system would likely be Rimac designed (the EV company that Porsche has a 45% stake in) and feature a 400v electrical system with an integrated starter-generator, an 80-90hp electric motor driving the front wheels and a 2kWh battery recharged by the engine and regenerative braking. We will have to wait and see what the system actually looks like in practice.
When is a Hybrid not a Hybrid
A recent trip to Brescia in Italy to inspect an old 911 race car saw me renting my third Fiat Panda/500 hybrid in Italy in under 12 months (see above). Badged as a Hybrid, the car basically has a bigger alternator and a miniscule battery that cannot drive the car but helps the stop-start work recharge quicker. It makes the cars eligible for low emission/ZTL zones in the old towns, and the Panda’s economy was good over 200kms but it is hardly what one would seriously call a hybrid drivetrain. I’m looking forward to seing what Porsche’s first part-electric 911 looks like.
Five Million Kilometres of Testing
“We left nothing to chance during development and tested the new 911 under all sorts of conditions all over the world,” said Frank Moser, Vice President Model Line 911 and 718. “From the freezing cold to scorching heat, as was the case during the final stages of testing in Dubai. Whether at a high drivetrain load in the demanding conditions of mountain passes or in the stop-and-go traffic of an urban environment, the new 911 has mastered even the most difficult challenges with aplomb. All in all, our engineers and test drivers clocked up more than five million kilometres of development driving.”
Hybrid drivetrains are leading the way in the transition from oil to electric. Auto Trader recently announced that one in five used cars next year would be an EV and the market is taking its time to adopt them for various reasons including higher purchase price, perceived safety concerns, practicality of longer range driving and long term reliability and maintenance costs. Leading with the 911 hybrid drivetrain rather an introducing a full EV version obviously makes the most sense, but the idea of a full EV 911 with lightweight batteries and what that might do for Nurburgring lap times is also an enticing prospect. We might expect that in the 2030 998, says Kacher.
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Ferdinand Magazine is the personal blog of John Glynn, a writer, classic car and motorcycle valuations expert and court expert witness. To explore and enjoy more of my work, and to support the Ferdinand Porsche blog, you can:
Porsche has announced that four-time F1 champion, Sebastian Vettel, will test the Porsche 963 hypercar as part of a 36-hour test for Porsche Penske Motorsport ahead of the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The 36 year-old from Heppenheim, which is about 90 miles north-west of Stuttgart, has prepared for the test by meeting the team at its Mannheim base on March 14th and doing some miles on the sim the following day. Yesterday was his first real-life run in the physical car on track at Weissach – one of few times he has driven a race car with a roof.
Vettel excited ahead of the test
“I’m looking forward to testing the Porsche 963,” said Sebastian. “I’ve always followed other racing series and my curiosity for endurance events encouraged me to just give it a shot. I already got the chance to get a feel for the car during a rollout in Weissach, and I’m excited about the long run in Aragón.
“I’m looking forward to my time behind the wheel. It’ll definitely take an adjustment and some getting used to but everyone in the team is very open and helps me. This will be a new experience for me. We will then see what happens next in this respect – at the moment there are no further plans for the future.”
Alongside Sebastian for the test at the 3.3-mile Aragón circuit in north east Spain will be works drivers Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, Fred Makowiecki, Kévin Estre, André Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor. The endurance test serves as preparation for the highlight of the season in Le Mans on 15/16 June. As the record holder, Porsche aims to secure its 20th outright victory at the Circuit des 24 Heures.
Porsche has had good fortune putting successful F1 drivers including Mark Webber and Nico Hulkenberg in its cars, but no Germans of late (not that there are many to choose from – although German-born Lotterrer did have a run out with Caterham in 2014), so a tie up with Vettel is excellent news. It is exciting on many levels, not least of which is the return of a potentially competitive Sebastian against his somewhat subdued F1 exit following two years with the Aston Martin Grand Prix team, now newly reinvigorated with Fernando Alonso on board.
It’s funny that, at 35, Vettel was seen as an elder in F1 where he eventually gained a reputation for being particularly empathetic towards young drivers, encouraging the highly competitive driver field to embody their emotions more deeply. “You cannot always be the best. But you can do your best,” as Vettel puts it.
I like the idea of this new-Seb personality integrated with some Porsche brand communications; the concept has a potential softness and emotionally considerate tone that I often think carmakers lack. I hope they take advantage of his genuine and caring nature as well as reawakening our awareness of his speed – that could lead to some very exciting storytelling and hopefully some race-winning history too.
Vettel is famously an avid historian and loves racing history, with a car collection including Mansell’s 1992 Williams FW14B F1 car, which he runs on sustainable fuel. Thoughts of former Porsche F1 pilots including Hans Herrmann, Edgar Barth and other drivers of that calibre are not far away today. We live in exciting times.
Inimitable graphic artist and illustrator Guy Allen has just released another great series of classic car prints. Titled Kinetic, Part 1 is a four-car series featuring the 1973 911 Carrera RS, Jaguar E-Type, Lamborghini Miura and BMW CSL.
I have been captivated by Guy’s work for over 15 years, ever since seeing his first Felix Petrol cartoon. Our freelance paths have intersected many times over the years and he was the obvious choice of collaborator on two series of t-shirts and prints we produced for my Impact Bumpers Porsche forum in the late 2000s.
Guy has the knack of picking up on an idea and quickly understanding the basic dynamic concept, but then taking it further in exciting and engaging ways that one has not imagined. Some of his finest work involves the 911 and I have many of his prints in my small collection.
The latest print in my collection features the Carrera RS. This classic design blending so much Porsche iconography – including the Carerra side stripe, ducktail spoiler and Fuchs alloy wheel – must be one of the most illustrated 911s ever, but Guy again manages to bring something new to the legend. A hat tip also for resisting the urge to widen the wheels and tyres and lose the knife-edge nature of those early ’70s 911s, balletically balanced on the tiptoe of the tyres as they chase driving nirvana. It is no surprise that his artistry is often commissioned by Porsche itself.
If you have not got some of Guy’s work, I encourage you to start with the Kinetic Carrera RS. The print is limited to 100 signed and numbered examples and his Porsche works tend to sell out pretty quickly. Printed on archive quality paper using pigment inks, the large A3 work ships unframed and worldwide shipping is free.
The key to an enjoyable freelance career is realising one’s most exciting ideas. Saving ideas – good or bad – for future reference is crucial, and a solid notebook habit soon becomes one of the most important practices in a freelancer’s life.
A notebook is not just a writing space: it is also a thinking space. My pile of colourful A5 moleskine notebooks dates back to the mid-2000s, when I first starting writing about Porsche. Their contents are interwoven with several thousand voice memos and tens of thousands of iPhone images shot over the last twenty years.
I therefore regard my notebooks with great affection and appropriate respect and so I was delighted to get an email from my friend Guy Allen last week about a new range of notebooks he has designed in collaboration with German publisher, Dingwort Verlag.
The A5 notebooks contain 176 pages of sustainably sourced 120gsm Munken paper, with a subtle dot grid printed on each page. The recycled leather covers are screenprinted with some of Guy’s most iconic print designs. The covers have a soft-touch coating and a smooth textural finish. Solid thread stitching and a round spine allow the books to lie flat when open. Rounded corners and black edges help to protect against wear and tear.
Guy sent me a notebook to experience the quality. He chose to send his 911 print – one of my favourites and in my Guy Allen collection. It arrived just in time, as I was on the last two pages of my most recent notebook, so today is my first day using this one. My Lamy Al-Star workpens seem to agree with the very beautiful paper and I have several big classic car valuation reports to get through this week, so I will enjoy filling this with thoughts, ideas and conversation notes and whatever else sparks my awareness.
The Guy Allen Art notebooks are available to buy direct from Dingwort Verlag and no doubt they can ship in time for Christmas. I am tempted to add the Col de Turini and Salzburg 917 designs to an order. Guy’s work is beautiful, so I am delighted by the prospect of having it in my hands and on my desk every day.
The beautiful Porsche collection of Steven Harris is about to go on show at the Saratoga Automobile Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York. Running through to autumn 2021, the exhibition includes many significant models in original factory condition, but also some cars that were modified to match the owner’s intentions. The list of air-cooled Porsches on show includes:
1956 356A Carrera Coupe
1957 356A Carrera Speedster
1958 356A Carrera GT Coupe
1959 Carrera GS Cabriolet
1960 356B T5 Roadster
1963 Carrera 2 GS Cabriolet
1964 356C Couple – Peking to Paris Rally car
1973 911T “SHTang”/RGruppe
1973 911 Carrera RS
1974 911 Carrera RS 3.0
1984 911 SCRS
1992 964 911 Carrera RS Lightweight
1992 964 911 RS N-GT “Macau”
1994 964 911 RS 3.8
1995 993 911 Carrera RS
1995 993 911 GT2
As part of the exhibition’s preparations, my long-time friend and creative partner, James Lipman, flew to NY and shot the collection in studio, for an accompanying book that will document the collection at this moment in time. The photos seen here are by James.
Steven was responsible for introducing James to the profound effects of immersion in the social scene that surrounds air-cooled Porsche life across North America, particularly in California, where the light hits just right. James’ enthusiasm for a trip to the Baja California taken with Steven sometime in early 2009, and the wonderful images that came out of that trip, led to his selling me on the idea of doing some work out there in May of that year. This was our first R Gruppe Treffen, where we shot the two SWB 911s of Bob Tilton and Chris Nielsen that inspired a raft of work over the next two years and forged lifelong friendships.
Steven’s formative influence does not end there. An esteemed career in architecture has included professorships at Harvard, Yale and Princeton and the work of Steven Harris Architects LLP may be seen all over the world. It is my privilege to have stayed in Steven’s own house in upstate NY and to have briefly experienced what it is to exist inside the vision of a professional whose work I greatly admire.
Combining an achitectural vision with a deep understanding of air-cooled Porsche culture and history (not to mention a keen awareness of market activity) has created to the collection that is partly shown at Saratoga, including several Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance winners. I urge anyone local to the museum to visit and experience Steven’s cognitive precision as expressed through his collection, and to enjoy what blending true passion for these cars and a genetic understanding of what great design looks like can accomplish over time.
About the Saratoga Automobile Museum
The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located within the 2,500-acre Saratoga Spa State Park, in the heart of historic Saratoga Springs, New York. Famous for its legendary one-mile thoroughbred track, the Museum’s facility is the fully restored and renovated New York State Bottling Plant, a beautiful neoclassical structure completed in 1935.
The Saratoga Automobile Museum was chartered in 1999 and officially opened to the public in June 2002, with a mission to preserve, interpret and exhibit automobiles and automotive artifacts. The museum celebrates the automobile and educates the general public, students and enthusiasts to the role of the automobile in New York State and the wider world. In addition to technical and design aspects, the educational focus is on past, present and future social and economic impacts of the automobile.
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