Porsche unveiled a new hybrid 918 Spyder coupe at the Detroit Auto Show this week. It is expected to be on the market in 2013.
“Porsche is back in Detroit with force,” Porsche chairman Matthias Mueller said as he unveiled the new model.
“The US is always our largest and most important market.”
The latest car was unveiled in Geneva as a concept car, but the German automaker decided to put it into production due to strong interest.
The luxury sportscar maker saw a strong gain in sales during last year. Some 95,000 cars were delivered to customers last year, a gain of 25 per cent.
With its highly-efficient flywheel accumulator, the 911 GT3 R hybrid racing car proved to be an attention magnet during competition racing on the Nuerburgring Nordschleife circuit, during the American Le Mans Series races (ALMS) in Road Atlanta/US and the ILMC run in China’s Zhuhai.
It demonstrated its massive performance potential under realistic motor racing conditions against top competitors. The 911 GT3 R Hybrid, referred to internally as the “Race Lab” actually surpassed the high expectations of Porsche Motorsport. Competitiveness, high reliability and exemplary fuel efficiency combined with top performance under-scored the Porsche technicians’ basic idea of generating additional power in an intelligent manner. The 911 GT3 R Hybrid obtains its additional power from its own vehicle dynamics when braking. Porsche is now transplanting this technology into the mid-engine coupe 918 RSR, the motor sports version of the 918 Spyder concept car.
From the tradition established by classic Porsche long-distance race cars such as the 908 long-tail coupe (1969) and the 917 short-tail coupe (1971), the Porsche designers created a link to the postmodernism of the “form follows function” philosophy. In the 918 RSR, the lines’ elegant flow is dominated by muscular wheel arches, dynamic air intakes and a pulpit-like cockpit.
Meanwhile, German automakers are eyeing a larger share of the US luxury segment in a market expected to show solid growth this year, an industry spokesman said.
Matthias Wissmann, head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, told reporters at the Detroit Auto Show that the overall US car market is expected to grow 11 per cent in 2011, to a total of 12.8 million vehicles.
“Last year in the luxury segment, the German brands built on their dominant position, pushing up their market share to 47.1 per cent” from 45.5 per cent in 2009, he said.
“If we look at the volume of the US light vehicle market in 2011 of 12.8 million units in relation to our market share, we can achieve sales this year reaching the one-million mark, given the right background conditions.”