Your own conclusions will depend upon your badge allegiances. While it isn’t for us to say which member of the hypercar ‘Holy Trinity’ is the most accomplished, the sheer impact of the remarkable Porsche 918 Spyder suggests that this car is… well, very, very, very good at being a part of such a rarified group.
Technically, Porsche was a step ahead of both Ferrari and McLaren in creating its component of the hypercar ‘Holy Trinity’. While the 918 Spyder certainly was unmapped terrain for the manufacturer, it was also working on a hybridised version of the (slightly) more mainstream Panamera at the same time. The result is yet another hyper crazy race car for the road, but from the outset Zuffenhausen’s approach was more spreadsheet than skunkworks.
Porsche also adopted a belt-and-braces approach when it came to the 918 Spyder’s hardware. Its 6.8kWh battery was twice the size of the McLaren P1’s and, in a set-up that now sounds familiar, the 918 Spyder features two electric motors; one 115kW motor supplementing the 447kW (599hp) 4.6-litre mid-mounted V8 and driving the rear wheels, the other smaller 96kW motor driving the front axle for all-wheel drive.
More wins for the 918 Spyder? Well, while somewhat trifling when measured against fully electric models such as the Taycan, the 918 Spyder’s ‘electric only’ range of 21km was more than both the McLaren and the Ferrari and, crucially, it came with a plug, giving it – arguably – a bit more e-cred than the other two.
It didn’t quite have a top speed to match the P1 and LaFerrari, but with a 0-100km/h time of 2.6 seconds and a 0-200km/h time of 7.2 seconds, who cares?
The 918 Spyder delivers sharp performance and otherworldly speed, as only Porsche can, yet it will average 7.8-litres/100km combined fuel economy. If you drive it conservatively… which few would, given half the chance.
It was only available for the most fleeting of moments – production lasting just 18 months – but the 918 Spyder is still discussed with wonder among Porschephiles and seeing one in the wild is akin to stumbling across a unicorn being ridden by a leprechaun. The best of the bunch? Well, no… when you’re dealing with deities, it’s much more complicated than that.
