Production Porsche 918 Spyder Smashes Nürburgring Lap Record

Performance cars are not going anywhere. The green party may want them banished, the government them out of their cities and tax man their owners money, but supercars will not die out. They will simply evolve. Making the environmental changes work to its advantage, the hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder has been shown in its full production ready state at Frankfurt for the first time.

Powered by a 4.8 litre V8 and two electric motors the total output for this new breed is 875BHP. Constructed predominately of carbon fibre, the 918 has just become the first road legal car to lap the Nürburgring in under 7 minutes. Clocking in at 6 minutes and 57 seconds it is a full 14 seconds faster than the previous record holder showing the performance benefit of its hybrid system. Couple all of these impressive figures with a 214MPH top speed and 0-62MPH time of just 2.8 seconds and all of a sudden that £657,400 price tag doesn’t seem all that steep.