Porsche opens its vault

These Porsche design studies were never meant to see the light of day. From roadlegal LMP1 cars to MPVs, they’re a window into the company’s wild imagination

Wraps o some amazing lost concepts

This is not the done thing. Car companies’ design studios don’t normally show their working: the flights of fancy, the ‘What i ?’ studies, the way-out-there concept-car proposals. But Porsche has taken the unusual decision to do exactly that, revealing a tantalising array of 1:1 scale models that didn’t make it to the motor show floor, but do carry elements that will live on in Porsche road cars of the future.

‘It’s not normal for a car company to show its secrets to the public like this,’ says Porsche design chief Michael Mauer. ‘These models were a starting point for discussion within the company, to see if it would make sense to realise them, to bring these ideas to the street.’

While some are serious design stress-tests and others works of imagination, they’ve all had an impact on Porsche’s design strategy. The Taycan production car’s shape began as a model for a four-door grand tourer version of the 918 hypercar. And the Mission E concept car that previewed the Taycan borrowed its headlights from an exploratory study of a six-seater Porsche MPV (nope, not a misprint).

‘It’s a sign of confidence in our work that the CEO Oliver Blume gives us the budget to explore without really knowing what the result will be,’ Mauer says. ‘We’re going into the day after tomorrow doing studies like this – even as physical models as a base for discussion – and that gives you findings that change your state of mind. You then bring that back to the cars of tomorrow. I think the fact that we do this is one of our keys to success.’

This isn’t every single previously-unseen Porsche concept. But by revealing this carefully curated selection of clay and hard models to the public, the designers’ blood, sweat and clay shavings get a world debut after all, and Porsche reaps some handy marketing benefits. You sense they’ll be gauging public reaction to some of the design cues with interest, too.

The really tantalising thought: what other projects are Mauer and his team working on right now? ⊲

‘Here’s one we didn’t make earlier…’ Design boss Mauer

Even the Porsche badge is up for debate

919 Street exactly as described: a proposal for a roadlegal version of the 919 Le Mans racer

917 tribute: this one, happily, did make it to the reveal stage ▲ Taking it to the street 919 Street Porsche poured huge resources into its Le Mans campaign in the top LMP1 class, winning the 24 Hours three times from 2015 to 2017. When it pulled out to save cash, Mauer’s team didn’t want to see that tech go begging and explored a customer-spec 919. The 900bhp hybrid system ultimately proved just too complex: the race team needs 45 minutes to start the race car’s engine. ‘The technology in the end was too complicated to put into customer hands,’ says Mauer. ⊳ This is just a tribute 917 Living Legend In 2013, Mauer’s team spent six months creating a modern interpretation of Porsche’s most famous racing car, the 917. Despite dimensions based on the 918 hypercar, it’s a full-size clay model rather than a real car (sadly). It made an appearance in public in 2019, for the 917’s 50th birthday.