Porsche 918 Spyder shows its production body

We've seen it (in concept form, in officially rendered form, in flat black, and in Martini Racing livery), we've heard all about its 4.6-liter V8 with 608 horsepower, buoyed as it is by twin electric motors, its sophisticated all-wheel-drive system and carbon fiber monocoque chassis. We've even taken a ride in one. What we haven't had, up until now at least, is had all of these details about the Porsche 918 Spyder in one convenient press blast. And we also now know that it will be a introduced as a 2015 model.

Along with the official specifications, Porsche has seen fit to release a new batch of images showing its production body from all angles. We get a good look at the car's interior bits and pieces, including a few shots showing how people fit underneath the removable hardtop panel.
Porsche sums up its baby with the following words: Maximum driving fun with minimal fuel consumption. We like the sound of that, and we think it's cool that the 918 can travel up to 18 miles on electricity alone, with performance statistics that aren't far off what we had from sports cars from a few short decades ago.

Porsche 911 GT3 hauls 469 hp behind the steerable rear wheels

On the 50th anniversary of the Porsche 911, the German sports car maker can also celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 911 GT3, it's race-ready variation on the theme. At the Geneva Motor Show today, Porsche revealed the 2014 edition of the 911 GT3, offering 469 hp and a bevy of technical updates — including a Porsche first: steerable rear wheels.

The most track-capable GT3s usually forego most luxury accoutrements in order to save weight for going fast, from sound deadening to replacing door handles with fabric pulls. The new GT3 keeps a few high-end touches, such as all-LED headlamps, but saves weight in other areas, such as with a large rear wing that's fixed rather than deployable.

Under the rear hatch, the 3.8-liter flat-six engine shares little with the unit in regular 911s, with titanium connecting rods and other custom parts that push the redline to 9,000 rpms. The seven-speed PDK automatic transmission also gets reworked for GT3 duty, and the suspension has been modified for track use.

But the biggest change comes from the steerable rear wheels, a Porsche first. After first appearing on cars in the 1980s, and disappearing as an overpriced gimmick, luxury automakers have been testing it again. Porsche says the new system will turn the rear wheels in either the same or opposite direction as the front tires depending on the speeds in use. Given that the new 911 GT3 will supposedly lap the Nürburgring in under 7 minutes, 30 seconds — at least 10 seconds faster than the previous generation — whatever Porsche has done to the rear axle isn't hurting.

Porsche confirms Ferrari 458-fighting 961 supercar

by: Jonathon Ramsey

The haze around the mid-engined Porsche supercar being bred to fill the space between the 911 and 918 Spyder is clearing. A few months ago, combined intel from Automobile and Car was that the 960, a challenger to the Ferrari 458, would either be a coupe or a "four-door coupe" powered by a twin-turbo flat-six and priced "on the creepy side of 200,000 euro." Auto Express has just reported that the new car is "set to be called the 961" and cost in the area of 250,000 pounds, reflecting a lower price than was supposed last year.

Exotic technology runs downhill and Auto Express suggests the 961 will be a heavy study from the 918's chapbook, utilizing a monocoque chassis from the same CFRP materials and the 918's 4.6-liter V8. The deep haze returns again in the predictions of how those details will come together, though. Theorized output is 570 horsepower, which is the horsepower number of the engine in the 918 but less than the 620 hp in the current 911 GT2 RS, the 961 going without the electric motors of its hybrid brother. The sprint from naught to 60 miles per hour is pegged at just above three seconds, which would put it in the same bracket as the 918 and nearly a second faster than the GT2 RS.

We await more word from The Oracle to know where the 961 will get its looks from – the 911 or 918 side of the family.