Photo: Hakosan Design on Instagram
Porsche and the 24 Hours of Le Mans are no strangers to one another. The Stuttgart-based automaker that gave us the Neunelfer has 19 outright wins at the road-racing circuit, more than Scuderia Ferrari and FoMoCo combined.
The 917 is widely considered the highest point of the company at the Circuit de la Sarthe, and I fully agree with that. But growing up in the 1990s made me fall in love with the 911 GT1, which looks like the fried-egg 996 from the front even though it’s a very different animal from the production car.
Rather than developing a balls-to-the-wall version of the 996, the mad professors in Weissach designed the 911 GT1 from the ground up on a tubular frame with double-wishbone suspension at both ends. A water-cooled engine with two spinny boys is nestled between the driver’s back and rear wing, and Porsche also made a handful of street-going cars for homologation purposes. Of the 135 races it entered, the 911 GT1 racked up a total of 47 wins, cementing the manufacturer’s motorsport legacy.
Porsche retired from the top class of endurance racing in 2017 to join Formula E, but the carmaker is coming back to Le Mans in 2023 under the guise of Porsche Penske Motorsport. The American-German collaboration will race in the LMDh hypercar class for a yet-to-be-confirmed number of years.
In an alternate universe, this 2023 challenger would be an electric vehicle such as the Taycan GT1 EVO imagined by Hakosan Design. The all-electric racing car offers close to 1,500 horsepower and 700 kilometers (435 miles) of range in the pixel artist’s vision, which is a tall order for current EVs.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the most range you can expect from the Taycan is 227 miles (365 kilometers) for the 4S with the larger battery. As per AMCI testing, the base model with the larger battery is king with 282 miles (454 kilometers). As for the fun stuff, the Turbo S offers 671 horsepower (680 PS) on overboost while using launch control.
Rather than developing a balls-to-the-wall version of the 996, the mad professors in Weissach designed the 911 GT1 from the ground up on a tubular frame with double-wishbone suspension at both ends. A water-cooled engine with two spinny boys is nestled between the driver’s back and rear wing, and Porsche also made a handful of street-going cars for homologation purposes. Of the 135 races it entered, the 911 GT1 racked up a total of 47 wins, cementing the manufacturer’s motorsport legacy.
Porsche retired from the top class of endurance racing in 2017 to join Formula E, but the carmaker is coming back to Le Mans in 2023 under the guise of Porsche Penske Motorsport. The American-German collaboration will race in the LMDh hypercar class for a yet-to-be-confirmed number of years.
In an alternate universe, this 2023 challenger would be an electric vehicle such as the Taycan GT1 EVO imagined by Hakosan Design. The all-electric racing car offers close to 1,500 horsepower and 700 kilometers (435 miles) of range in the pixel artist’s vision, which is a tall order for current EVs.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the most range you can expect from the Taycan is 227 miles (365 kilometers) for the 4S with the larger battery. As per AMCI testing, the base model with the larger battery is king with 282 miles (454 kilometers). As for the fun stuff, the Turbo S offers 671 horsepower (680 PS) on overboost while using launch control.
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