Oh yes, Porsche has built a one-off, 671bhp road-legal* V8 963 hypercar
*sorta. In honour of Count Rossi's glorious silver 917 comes this glorious silver 963
Porsche has shocked the motoring world by unveiling a brand-new road-going performance car. While it shares many things with road-going performance cars – headlights, turn indicators, a horn – it is unlike almost anything you can currently purchase.
Because this one's spun directly off a car that's won multiple endurance racing world titles. Welcome, one and all, to the mad, bad, and entirely brilliant Porsche 963 RSP.
It's a version of Porsche's WEC and IMSA competitor built to mark 50 years since a certain Count Rossi drove the all-conquering Porsche 917 from Zuffenhausen to Paris. Like that car, this one's been tweaked so it's street legal. Sorta.
'How could we reimagine [the 917's] story in today's time?' asked Porsche's North American boss Timo Resch. The answer, as you can see, is quite clear.
'The 917 from the story was every inch a race car – albeit one driven on the road – and we took the same approach with the 963 RSP,' added Resch. 'It uses beautiful materials of the best quality available, but is still every bit a race car underneath.'
A fine place to start. For this very special project, the small team in charge of the RSP - including Porsche's Sonderwunsch department - decided early on that they'd need a brand-new 963 chassis, not an existing one. To which a number of very subtle, very important and likely mind-blowingly complicated changes were made.
The 963's ride height was raised from a hair's width to something more suitable for general roads, while the adjustable Multimatic DSSV dampers – designed for sports prototypes, don't forget – were gaffer taped into their softest setting.
Then came one of the hardest bits: allowing the 4.6-litre, twin-turbo V8 hybrid powerplant to run on regular unleaded. Not race fuel, but the stuff you can get out of a forecourt pump. 'Not a small undertaking,' explained Porsche Penske Motorsport MD Jonathan Diuguid.
Amazingly, it's in race trim, which means the 918 Spyder-derived V8, e-motor and battery combo punches out an incredible 671bhp, only here it's been treated to an ECU remap to smooth out the power delivery. Top Gear has not long forgotten what the nat-asp 918 Spyder's V8 sounds like, nor the 963's race-bred unit. This Will Be Loud.
Not when running on e-power alone, which the 963 RSP is capable of for short stretches. Though Porsche has ensured its lucky new owner will want to do rather longer stretches because the interior is, of course, the biggest departure from the race car.
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