MotorTrend

Six Questions for the Porsche 918 Spyder Manager

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Project manager Frank-Steffen Walliser likes to say that if you saw the typical918 Spyderbuyer on the street, you'd have no clue they owned a million-dollar hybrid supercar. I'd say that, if you saw the soft-spoken, curly-haired Walliser sitting at a sidewalk café in Stuttgart, Germany, you'd probably have no idea that he was the creator of thePorsche 918Spyder. Tall, slim, impeccably groomed, with delicate hands, he looks more like a cardiac surgeon than one of the most prominent engineers in theVWGroup empire. That said, if you're going to hand over a million dollars for a state-of-the-art sports car, Frank-Steffen Walliser is the sort of guy you want to have created it.

How did you arrive at the $845,000 base price?

We looked at what the Carrera GT cost [about $450,000]. We looked at standard price development, which is something like 2 percent per year. We added the [cost of the] parts for the hybridization of the car. And then we added something [more]; compared with the Carrera GT, we have 30 percent less volume. The fewer cars you make, the more expensive they are. And we came up with this price. We do the prices only in Euros, U.S. dollars, and Chinese renminbi. We have the cheapest offer, compared with competitors.

How many U.S. Carrera GT owners are you expecting to migrate to the 918 Spyder?

I do not have real data at the moment, but it's approximately 50 percent. Very interestingly, we get a lot of new people who are considering Porsche for the first time because of the technology and the design of the car. These buyers are coming from other brands, or they have just started collecting cars, and the 918 is their first [collector car].

How soon will the 918 Spyder's hybrid powertrain technology trickle down to other Porsches?

You can already buy it. It's in the Panamera e-Hybrid. We already shared components and ideas. For sure, the 918 Spyder is a little more ahead.

How did you tune the powertrain for sound?

Even with everything we know—how big the muffler must be, its volume, the length of the primary tubes, and all these things—when we first started the engine, we couldn't hear anything. It was way too silent. The sound in the beginning was hard, no real sound, just loud. We threw everything away and started, really, from scratch only a year or so ago.

Just a year ago you were re-doing the engine sound?

Completely. One and a half years ago. We did new primaries, longer, with a different position of the catalytic converters. Our target was more like an RS Spyder sound. I think you can hear that. We looked at the 908 as an historic example of an eight-cylinder. The Carrera GT is completely different. Its exhaust system weighs 56 kg [123 lb], whereas the 918 Spyder's weighs only 29 kg [64 lb]. From the outside, the Carrera GT is still unbeaten, soundwise; the barking of the car is unbelievable. Inside the car, though, it's mechanically loud. If you are in a 918 you hear not a lot from the mechanics; especially if the windows are down, you hear the throttles and the incoming air, and then you hear the really big exhaust a yard away from your ears, especially with an open top. 200 miles per hour, with an open top, this is really special.

How fast have you, personally, driven a 918 Spyder?

I can only say what I've seen on the speedo. I've seen 220 mph on an autobahn in Germany. 214 mph is the exact top speed, but you always have a little bit of difference between what the speedo shows and what you are actually going.

Joe DeMatio

I landed a job at the then-fledgling Automobile Magazine by answering a blind ad in the Ann Arbor News for an “editorial assistant at a national magazine.” I knew that both Automobile Magazine and Car and Driver were based in Ann Arbor, and I knew the story of how David E. Davis, Jr., had left Car and Driver to found Automobile Magazine with, as he liked to say, “Rupert Murdoch’s money.” So I dearly hoped, as I carefully composed my cover letter and printed it out on 100% cotton stock, that I was applying to one of Ann Arbor’s two automotive enthusiast magazines rather than to Mathematical Reviews magazine, which was also (and still is) based in Ann Arbor. After all, I had barely passed rudimentary calculus at the University of Michigan.

My cover letter was not as carefully composed as I thought, as it contained a typo, so the managing editor at the time threw it into the reject pile. Only after interviewing an assortment of poorly dressed and groomed losers did she, out of desperation, fish my resume out of the pile and call me in for an interview and a battery of quite difficult editing, proofreading, and typing tests. Yes, I took a typing test to get my job at Automobile Magazine, so when people ask me the inevitable question, “How did you get that incredibly cool job?” I can honestly answer, “through a classified ad in the newspaper, and because I took typing in high school.”

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and I’ve had a variety of positions at Automobile Magazine: editorial assistant (in which role I answered Jean Lindamood’s reader mail, including to inmates on death row); copy editor; associate editor; and senior editor. I also was the editor of our annual Buying & Leasing Guide for many years, which allowed me to spout off powertrain specs on virtually every car on the market. Along the way I learned to drive (I mean really drive, not what you learn in drivers training); to write and edit to the high standard that has been Automobile’s raison d’etre since Vol. 1, Issue 1; and to produce a monthly magazine, with all that entails.

And the cars. Yes, the cars. I’ve driven them all, I’ve written about many of them, and I’ve edited others’ writing on the rest. Well, I missed the Ferrari Enzo and the Porsche Carrera GT, but I’ve driven every Lamborghini since the Countach, every mid-engine Ferrari since the 355, and, most recently, the Bugatti Veyron, which was even better than I had hoped. Having access to so much hot metal surely is hazardous to one’s driver’s license, no? Yes, indeed, it is. I’ve spent more than my share of time at the side of the road having conversations with police officers, and I’ve begged and groveled for mercy in front of many traffic court magistrates. Funny thing is, I’ve had more speeding tickets in workaday vehicles like minivans, economy cars, and family sedans than I have had in exotics.

If I had to pinpoint two cars that have meant the most to me during my time at Automobile Magazine, it would be the Porsche 911, in all its series and iterations, partly because a 964-chassis was the first car I ever drove cross-country; and the Mazda Miata, a car that fits me physically and philosophically and which has been around since I stuffed that cover letter and resume into an envelope.

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