Maybe there actually is something like hoping the end will come soon, “or at least that’s what I start to think on hearing the same thing for the third time at a trade fair or a car show, when journalists pose what they think is a surprisingly daring question about the future of sports cars”, said Michael Mauer head of Porsche Design. It’s a variant of “Why should we continue to race cars?” To their way of thinking, sports cars will soon be fossils in a world of electric, self-driving cars.
“The answer is easy, and for the same reasons as in 2018. It’s fun. There’s pure joy in speed, in physical forces, in what the car can do (if it’s a Porsche), and in what you can do with it. Breaking free from the swarm of autonomous currents. Setting one’s own course. Experiencing the pleasure of authenticity beyond efficiency. Sports cars embody all of these things—now and in the future as well”.
Henry Ford, Ferdinand Porsche, and Ettore Bugatti could hardly have imagined that their motorized carriages would one day brake automatically when a pedestrian steps into the road—while adjusting the deceleration to prevent the car from skidding. It’s still a somewhat open question as to what we’ll be able to do in one or two decades. “But I’m sure of one thing. There will continue to be very different categories of cars. Practical and pleasure-based. Small and opulent. Elegant and sporty. Sports cars sweep us into a world of emotions. And that’s precisely what we seek. Sensations. Challenges. Beauty”.
What exactly the sports car of the future will look like is a question of possibilities. But it’ll clearly be something extraordinary. A form that adds an exclamation mark to function. “The sports car will probably also be a Level 6 or Level 7 vehicle. Autonomous and hyperconnected. It’ll probably be able to follow racing lines in the driving styles of popular racing robots or human race-car drivers. But it will have a steering wheel. The option at any time to drive oneself. The sports car of the future will continue to offer the promise of extreme performance. And its exterior will reflect that. The Porsche of even the far-off future will surely be recognizable as a Porsche”. As a car whose genes contain a very special code: 911.
