The Porsche 911 has been the company’s most-iconic model since the 1960s and fans have historically been adamantly against the manufacturer tampering with the recipe. As you might imagine, news that a hybrid version was under consideration resulted in some mixed opinions. However, Porsche says development has completed and that the resulting product is a complete success.
Porsche has definitely enjoyed some amount of success with hybrids. In 2013, the Porsche 918 Spyder proved to the world that hybridization could offer some staggering performance advantages. Years later, hybrid versions of the Cayenne and Panama showcased that the marquee could move partially electrified vehicles in decent numbers. The company even claims that Ferdinand Porsche designed the world’s first-ever hybrid car by way of the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus prototype in 1900.
Viewed broadly as an attempt to adhere to European regulations, Porsche is electrifying its lineup wherever possible to comply with aggressive emission requirements. The company recently had to stop selling the gasoline-powered 718 and Macan inside the European Union due to the models lacking the latest electronic nannies mandated by the government and presumably doesn’t want to have to do something similar over emission requirements.
The bad news is that, despite the 911 having undergone sweeping changes since its introduction in 1964, it’s never been hybridized and is likely to see some amount of backlash from the Porsche faithful if the model’s past history are any indication.
The good news is that the the public dismay never seems to last and the company claims it has done a stellar job developing the new hybrid model. It has stated that the changes have only boosted the 911’s performance. More importantly, Porsche is trying to stress just how much testing was done to help assuage any fears about reliability or this being a compliance vehicle it doesn’t expect people to actually purchase.
“For the first time in our icon’s 61-year history, we are installing a hybrid drive system in a roadgoing 911. This innovative performance hybrid makes the 911 even more dynamic,” stated Frank Moser, VP of the team responsible for the 911 and 718. “We left nothing to chance during development and tested the new 911 under all sorts of conditions all over the world. 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 kilometers of development driving.”
As expected, this included time on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Porsche said the 911 Hybrid, piloted by Jörg Bergmeister, completed a lap of the circuit in 7:16.934 minutes. According to the manufacturer, that’s “8.7 seconds faster than the corresponding version of the predecessor model.”
While Porsche didn’t expressly say which 911 variant that would be, we happen to know that the Carrera S fits that bill in terms of lap times and we’ve heard rumors that was the unit the manufacturer was targeting when developing the hybrid.
“The new 911 has become considerably faster on the track,” Bergmeister stated as part of Porsche’s announcement. “We have more grip, significantly more power, and the spontaneous response of the performance hybrid is a great advantage.”
All that’s left for the company to do now is actually debut the thing and that’s been scheduled for May 28th. Interested parties can catch the event on the company’s YouTube channel.
[Images: Porsche]
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