It may not be the quickest car, or have the highest top speed, but the Porsche 918 Spyder looks like it could be the fastest car in the real world.
At the introduction of the much anticipated production version of the $845,000 hybrid supercar at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Porsche announced that it has set a new production car record at Germany’s 12.8-mile long Nurburgring Nordschleife race track of 6 minutes 57 seconds, making it the first street legal car to break the 7 minute barrier.
The winding course with its 154 turns, elevation changes and less than perfect pavement has become the benchmark in overall performance for automakers in recent years, and few cars go on sale today before making a visit to the track.
The all-wheel-drive 918 Spyder is powered by a 4.6-liter V8 and two electric motors that deliver a maximum combined output of 887 hp good for a 0-60 mph time of 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 216 mph along with a fuel economy rating of over 70 mpg in European tests.
Its combination of acceleration, speed and impressive handling conspired to help it best the lap times of near race cars like the Gumpert Apollo and Dodge Viper ACR, not to mention the appropriately-named Lexus LFA Nurburgring model.
That’s not to say there’s no one hot on its heels. The million-dollar Ferrari LaFerrari and McLaren P1 hybrid supercars are on the way soon with more power than the Porsche and the lap record in their sights. The P1 is rumored to have already done a 7:04 lap, and you can be sure they’ll be hard at work looking for a way to trim those seven seconds before the cars start hitting showrooms in a few months.