by Wallace Wyss –
Just to show nothing in the auto business is a hammered down success forever, Porsche almost ran aground recently, first they lost a huge part of their market, partly because Chinese buyers stopped buying Porsches for some of the vastly cheaper Chinese cars. Secondly they invested so much in EVs and that market is evaporating fast.
So Porsche has reversed course and is going to emulate Ferrari by building a top-of-the line model that’s so profitable it will start a new era for them of aiming at the top, and forget trying to build cars for the Little Guy.
So they will build fewer examples of that top of the line model but it will be immensely profitable, maybe $100,000 per car, which Ferrari does every day of the week.
To give us an advance preview of what this new car is going to be like, they introduced a concept car which is called Mission X, in early publicity (featuring a dark grey car) and then switched to the Mission S, the white car shown here.
You could say the styling direction was kicked off by the discontinued Porsche 918 Spyder. The idea is to have a road car that looks like it just drove off the track at LeMans. And indeed these cars will be entered in all sorts of club events just as the most premium Ferraris are entered by amateur owners in various Ferrari run events..
The key to the car’s appeal beside the muscular look nose to tail is the flat eight engine. Many of Porsche’s most famous race cars had flat engines, better for the center of gravity.
Once they had the basic shape they spent a lot of time on venting the engine such as an engine cover with fan on top of it, shades of the old 917. Vertically stacked exhaust pipes could the part of the rear view, more integrated than running them under the car.
I humbly present my design commentary based on pictures from the world preview.
FRONT On the first (gray Mission X) prototype they had vertical headlights (could you call them “slotted?”) but when it came to the white Mission S, which I gather is the final version, they have circular or oval lamps with several bulbs so when they are on they appear to be four separate headlamps within each oval. To me if it’s oncoming with the lights on it looks like one big headlight with a cross of tape across it but when the lights are off they look good.
The funny part about the grille cavity, which has no mesh grille, I don’t know what’s protecting the radiator, is that it’s the same as the shape on the 1965 Ford GT40.
SIDE I congratulate them for having a “shades of 911” shape to the whole car (the white one) and they changed the idea of the abrupt jutting out of the fenders from the door which emphasize “We chose the tires it needed and are not limited by how wide the rest of the body itself is.” Now in the Mission S the fenders are smoothed in to blend with the main body.
Still objectionable, from this critic, is the black portions of the body. Use of black surfacing on a body of another color always looks to me like “We don’t know what to do here so we’ll paint it black.”
The flip-up doors, as shown on the Mission X, are what you need to satisfy the ego of the hyper car crowd who like that dramatic effect when they arrive at the cars and coffee and flip the doors open (hey I remember my two 300SL Gullwings and loved it). Unfortunately that limits the size of the side windows because, if they were full size, there’s no place to retract them.
REAR The long thin taillights are not unusual, many automakers use them. The built in spoiler seems to have lines on it that indicate it can be raised and lowered but no info yet on if that is done automatically or the pitch is selected by the driver? The huge enveloping body curling around the center part gives the odd illusion that a speeding car has rammed the clay model and sunk in all the way to its taillights, coincidentally the same problem I saw in the Ferrari Luce.
The large rear window is big but we have to see how much you can actually see from the inside with all those engine parts.
INTERIOR Looks functional and stylish without any large screen displays.
IN SUM The car is a salute to the traditional 911 but specs and price will be way way beyond other Porsches and will flip up doors still allow for a targa version? (I supposed if you have half flip up doors…as some cars with flip up doors have…).
THE PRICE To get some of the money back they lost on their over-embracing of EVs they need to price this in Ferrari territory. One price talked about is $1.5 million each, compared to $270,300 for the present 911 Porsche Turbo S coupe and and $284,300 for the open version.
THE CRITIC Wallace Wyss has written 18 car books, and is now a fine artist specializing in motorcars.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Photos compliments of Porsche.
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