Get First Look of Porsche 718 Spyder
Presently, Porsche's image is largely comprises of high performance sports cars, SUVs and now even electric car has also joined the bandwagon. But when it comes to the core of their identity as well as history is the lightweight and fun to drive sports car.
The above concept began with 356 in its early days to the Boxster as well Cayman in noughties and presently 718 range since 2016. The above car has been on sale in India since 2017 and very recently we had a chance to get up close to its latest generation 718 spyder.
Exterior Design
When you have a single glance at the 718 Spyder and you will be able to see Porsche's unique 7.5 decade old heritage in its design. It has got a mixed signature Porsche, but having both, latest design language as well as an element.
This is most evident in its shape of the headlamps which are full LED units, but it has tried to retain very familiar shape central to the Porsche appearance. This is a more hardcore Spyder variant of the 718 receives black inserts on the front bumper inside which you will be able to witness large cooling intakes for additional performance and just for some extra style; it has been found the word spyder has been embossed in the lip.
The 718 Spyder has received a low slung purposeful stand and even when it in standstill, it looks ready to blast into the horizon. The attention to detail that Porsche has put into sculpting each element of the car in order to make sure, it looks as good as it is. A close up example of this would be shape of black elements near the wheels for channelling air towards the engine at the rear.
The wheels were always been a significant part of the Porsche design language. The disc brakes have got special red callipers while the rear types are comparatively larger when compared to its front one because of the design of the car. The rear wheels also have received special air intakes on the side pods for additional cooling for the brakes.
Interiors Features
When you step into the cabin and you would be greeted by a sea of leather, high quality plastics, Alcantara.
In this interior layout, the instrument cluster holds the rev counter in the centre at the same time both the touchscreen display as well as dual zone climate control dials is housed lower down on the stack for better visibility when the roof is down. The doors tend to pull straps instead of handles in a throwback to lightweight performance –oriented Porsches of the eras gone by while on the passenger side, Porsche has included 2 cup holders.
The seats of the 718 spyder have been trimmed out in Alcantara and to make them stand out, the Porsche has offered them contrast red stitching and spyder logs adorning the top of the seat back. The speciality of the spyder is, it is lightweight in nature and Porsche has in one way achieved by eliminating the roof mechanism. Instead, one must receive a manual soft top that can be stored above the engine bay. With the roof down, you will be able to view the prominent air curtain between seats.
Engine as well as gear box
Powering this open top Porsche, it has got a 4 litre naturally aspirated inline 6 producing nearing to 414 bhp and 420 Nm. Power is sent to the rear wheels and it is only available having 6 speed manual in order to ensure, you get the pure driving experience. The 0-100 kmph in mere 3. Seconds, while the cartops out at 301kmph.
Pricing and competition
The Porsche 718 SPyder is priced about Rs.1.60 crore and this one is many cars in the 718 range which has been sold in India. It is rival for the BMW M5 and the Mercedes-Benz E63 S AMG both of them are similarly priced but they are actually larger vehicles.