Weekly Porsche Wrap

Porsche 918 Spyder unofficially, officially a “go” – Michael Macht told Autocar last week that Porsche was committed to building the 918 Spyder. He admitted that the positive reaction to the 918 had swayed opinion within Porsche. “There is no one inside Porsche who doesn’t want to build the 918,” Macht said. “The response has been marvelous; we will ask buyers to sign letters of intent.” Here’s an interesting little fact: Porsche took the 918 Spyder from drawing to show car in under 5 months. Insiders believe the car will go on sale within 5 years. [Via Autocar.co.uk]

Porsche Panamera chopped top coming? – “Official” drawings (whatever that means) were supposedly released on the Internet recently depicting a topless version of Porsche’s latest production car. It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know of too many convertible 4-door versions of cars unless you go way back to the big American made convertibles. No idea if and when this car will see the light of day.

Porsche is working on fixing it’s brand image – After the company nearly went bankrupt last year, it was inevitable it would experience some aftershock. Here’s a clip from an interview The Financial Times did with Wolfgang Porsche:

Wolfgang Porsche, chairman and a large shareholder of the eponymous sports carmaker, conceded that the brand had suffered from its financial troubles and the subsequent agreement to be taken over by Volkswagen in the past year.

“We could not have emerged unscathed from something like that,” he told the Financial Times.

But he said Porsche’s concept 918 Spyder car, a plug-in hybrid super-sports car unexpectedly unveiled at this week’s Geneva motor show, was a display of Porsche’s regained strength that would bring a new impetus to the brand.

“This is the right statement to demonstrate that Porsche will remain an independent brand and will not simply be absorbed by a large corporation,” he said. [Via FinancialTimes.com]

Ruf releases a V8 engine for it’s RGT-8 – A Porsche 911 with a V8 sounds wrong in a lot of ways, but once you hear it’s from Ruf, you know it’s gotta be good. It’s a 90 degree V8 that fits nicely into the small space in the 911. It’s a 542 hp producer that should turn some great numbers on the track. Be interesting to see how this is received. [Via Evo.co.uk]