Here’s Why the Porsche 918 Spyder is Worth $1.7 Million

this is a Porsche 918 spyder of course you already knew that because the 918 Spyder is one of most exciting thrilling and widely covered cars manufactured in the last 25 years when these things were new they sold for just a hair over 1 million dollars and today the average asking price for a 918 Spyder on auto trader is 1.7 million dollars for a car today I've traveled to Nashville Tennessee and I borrowed this 918 from a viewer who's on Instagram as Mazda 3 to 7 you can follow him if you click the link in the description below and you should follow him because I mean the guys got a 918 spyder and a 911 are do you really need any more reason anyway today I'm gonna find out what you get when you pay 1.7 million dollars for a car to start a little background in case you don't know much about the 918 spyder this is Porsches third supercar in the modern era after the 959 in the 1980s and the Carrera GT in the mid-2000s when this car was new two years ago the base price was around eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars but options could easily push that price over a million dollars now that's insane money but this is an insane car back here it has a gas power v8 with over 600 horsepower and it also has to eat electric motors with almost 300 horsepower the combined total is 887 horsepower and you can drive it on purely electric power if you want and it'll do 0 to 60 in 2.4 seconds and it'll do 211 miles an hour making it the fastest car I've ever reviewed or driven or sat in so today I'm gonna show you around the 918 Spyder and I'm gonna show you all of its cool quirks and its weird features and then I'm gonna get it out on the road and find out what it's like to drive the ultimate Porsche may be the ultimate German car of all time and of course for more of my thoughts on the 918 Spyder and the experience of driving a car this valuable click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also got a list of other modern cars currently listed for sale on auto trader that have appreciated in value I'll start by simply getting inside the 918 which is more interesting than you might think now for one the 918 S key is just the regular standard Porsche key found the same key you'd get if you bought a bass Cayenne 449 9 95 I think inside it's pretty simple you press the unlock button and then you reach into this little cubby where you find the door handle and you open the door right up well what happens if the battery is dead and the electronics are gone there's no exterior keyhole well actually there is it's inside the little door handle cubby you take the key out of the little Porsche key fob which interestingly you can't do if it's on a keyring and then you stick it inside they carefully hidden exterior keyhole in order to open your 918 Spyder if the battery is dead now that we're inside the car we start with the steering wheel now the steering wheel isn't that unusual for a Porsche has the Porsche logo in the middle of it three spokes it seems like a fairly normal steering wheel but there are a few quirks on the left and you will find three buttons the top button is for cruise control on and off there is actually a little hidden button for some more adjustments on the side below it is a button marked Amla that's for manual mode if you want transmission to go into manual mode you push a little M button and then you can use the panels to ship then it won't shift for you below that is a little button with a diamond on it you may be wondering what is that thing the HOV Lane button no it's called the Joker button and you can program it to do anything you want inside because central infotainment screen that's right Porsche calls it the Joker button it's one of the strangest names I've ever heard given to an interior car control on the right side of the steering wheel you'll find the other cool quark which is a little wheel with a red button inside the wheel is labeled eh s and R which stands for ease electric hybrid sport and racing it's different drive modes for the car and yes electric lets you drive it in fully electric mode with no gasoline engine at all but the really cool thing is that little red button inside that wheel it's called hot lap mode you press it and you get a little extra juice from the electric motors for one hot lap or for one Fast Pass on a highway or on a racetrack next since we're talking drive modes we better talk transmission selector which is one of the strangest I've seen it's mounted to the right of the steering wheel where you would find the ignition in a normal car and it's just this tiny little lever goes between are at the top and in the middle for neutral and D at the bottom for drive when you want to park the car simply put it in neutral and then press the parking brake and your part interestingly this car doesn't have a push button starter like everything else including Hyundai's it has a normal key you have to stick in the slot on the left like all the other Porsches and since we're talking strange buttons and switches we have to move on to these Center controls now the center controls in this car have the same font as the buttons in regular Porsche models but in this car they're not buttons they're all touchscreen II when the car is off you can't see them it's just one black panel but when you turn it on all the buttons come to life now the most interesting one of all is the climate controls this car has dual zone automatic climate controls but it only has one dial for you adjust the temperature so how does it work well you push the dial and then the thing that you're adjusting lights up inside the climate control to let you know what you're changing push the dial again the other one lights up push the dial again the other one lights up and you can change it as you push the dial that isn't the most intuitive solution I've ever seen but it does clean up the center controls and ensure that it is it full of fussy switches and dials and buttons like in some other cars and since I'm talking about the climate controls I might as well address another one of the interior strangest things that would be the climate control events now like most cars there is a climate control event to the left of the steering wheel for the driver and a climate control vent on the far right for the passenger that's normal but because of this giant Center control stack where do you put the climate control event in the middle well it's hidden it's at the very top of the dashboard one tiny little event only an inch high and because this is a pretty small cabin that actually works pretty well although it's worth noting you can't direct the air and send it on to you or on to your passenger it chooses where to go instead and since I'm talking about the functionality of the center of control it's worth mentioning that with a little slide of your finger above the center controls you can adjust the little screen that's at the top of the dashboard you can look at for instance the map you can look at the radio the current time and the car status you can also make the screen smaller or larger and you can adjust its position although as you can see here it isn't quite the easiest thing to do these touchscreen things have improved a lot even since 2015 more interesting controls something else I like is that the little buttons on the top of the center control stack pull up a picture of the car show me exactly what they're doing when you push them for example if you push the little button for the suspension mode it shows the suspension getting sporty-er or less sporty in the center screen and speaking of that center screen it's worth noting that this car has not one not two but four info screens that you can adjust and look at in order to see various different things there are two in the gauge cluster one is over on the left and it's controlled by a little button on the left of the steering wheel the other is on the right controlled by a button on the right of the steering wheel the other is the one in the middle I just showed you and the fourth is the one at the top of the center control stack my favorite of these screens is the one to the left of the gauge cluster apparently they had a big contract with the screening company but they had run out of stuff to actually put in these screens so in that one you can choose between two things one is you can set a speed limit so you don't accidentally violate the speed limit if you're driving areas a lot of police the other is it just displays what number 918 spyder you have that's good info when you're driving down the road and by the way the screen at the top of these center controls does exactly what you think it's a touchscreen and it displays for you the radio station for example and allows you to change it displays all sorts of vehicle functions like interior lighting and exterior lighting and the sounds the car makes and that little Joker key that I talked about before on the steering wheel it shows you a map at the navigation system of where you are and all sorts of other vehicle functions that you'd expect from a center touchscreen next up let's talk cupholder yes this car has a cup holder it sticks out of the center control snack and it's actually pretty sturdy and it can hold a reasonable sized drink the interesting thing about this cup holder is it's detachable if you don't want there you can get rid of it although it doesn't fold up and instead you just cast it aside and then you can use it to hold drinks I don't know in your house would you have a little storage area inside it's the center console box and it is just about the kindest storage area I've ever seen inside any car I don't even know why they bothered now the other interesting center console area is this one in here in the middle it's completely open underneath this Center control stag you can reach over and touch your driver or passenger's legs depending on where you're sitting it's kind of an interesting feature you can't put anything in there it's just open so you can see through it next up because of this cars electric powertrain you don't just have a tachometer and a fuel gauge like you do in every other car you have a battery life gauge that tells you how much battery is left that is pretty obvious my favorite additional gauge is there's a little gauge that shows you how hard the electric motors are working so when you floor the tachometer shoots up and so does the electric power gauge it's kind of cool to watch there's also in the middle of the gauge cluster a little charge display this car can recharge itself as it drives using braking and the engine and so when you're recharging the little charge icons light up to show that you're recharging the batteries it's a brave new world when a supercar has all that now it's worth noting that the production number of your 918 spyder doesn't just appear in that little screen inside the gauge cluster it also appears inside the car in the drivers footwell on the center tunnel and in the center tunnel on the passenger footwell so you'll never forget exactly what number 918 you have it also appears back here on your hood yes that's right this is your hood you see all this back here it doesn't open you can't open it if you want to go and actually look at the engine in your 18 spider you got to take it to the dealer and they can open it instead this is the only panel that opens to open it you push a little button on the driver's side door unlatches so you can add fluids like engine oil but that's it that's all you get you pay 1.7 million dollars for a car you can't even look at your own engine although maybe that's a good thing maybe we don't need people poking around inside the engine of a 918 spyder naturally that isn't even close to the 918 spyder is only exterior quark here's another one you see these things right here this is the engine exhaust that's right there's no exhaust pipe tailpipe coming out of the car underneath the bumper like in every other car the exhaust comes out of here right behind where you're sitting the benefit of this is obvious you get to hear the engine a lot better than you would when you floor it if the exhaust were under the bumper another interesting exterior quirk of the 918 Spyder how about this this is the entire rear window this is all you get to see behind you aside from mirrors your only window out the back it's so small it's about the size of an iPad I can block the entire thing with my hand not that I need to do that because the rear spoiler does a pretty good job of blocking it yes that's right the rear spoiler it is massive the interesting things about the spoiler are twofold one is that it contains the third brake light for the car which means the third brake light goes up and down depending on the position the spoiler and that is the other interesting thing the spoiler is adjustable not with a button inside the car but instead you have to go to the rear spoiler menu and just hold down the touchscreen so here's what happens you push it down and spoiler goes up and down up and down the owner of this car likes to keep the spoiler in the up position because he thinks it looks best that way and personally I very much agree with him another interesting rear quirk how about the fact that the reversing light is all the way down here basically at the bottom of the car below the license plate it's almost like it was an afterthought but it isn't the lowest thing on the rear of the car that honor goes to the reversing camera which is only mounted a couple of inches above the ground I'm moving on to the side of the 918 for some more exterior courts starting with the fuel door now on the driver's side it's the fuel door and on the passenger side it's the door for the charge port now the charge port door you just walk right up to it and open it and if you do you'll notice that the door is carbon-fibre on the driver's side the fuel door can I be opened unless you press a little button on the driver's side door once you open it it's capless just stick the fuel pump right in and start pumping away and do your 918 spyder another interesting item on the side of the 918 how about the fact that it's dirty when this car came to me this morning it was completely clean I'd driven around for a little bit and look at all the road grime and rocks and debris and leaves that have already accumulated the owner says this happens every single time he drives and he says that's not the biggest problem the biggest problem is this intake back here which often gets rocks kicked up from the road and from the front tire and getting those is a lot more difficult than getting to the ones right behind the front wheel I can see that being an issue if you wanted to keep your 918 spyder clean on the subject of the wheels the 918 Spyder has center lock wheels which can be changed out quicker on a race track instead of a wheel that has five lug nuts it's getting pretty common on sports cars with less common is the fact that the 918 Spyder has different colored Center locks on different sides the driver side is red the passenger side is blue this is a throwback to the Kuro GT but also a throwback to other race cars that have different colored center locks so people in the pit lanes at racetracks know which wheels go on which side of the car without having to really look at but that isn't my favorite thing about the wheels my favorite thing about the wheels is inside them look at that brake caliper you notice how it's green tennis ball green while Porsche calls that color acid green and it was the 19-teens color if you will I said it because if you look closely it appears in a lot more places all around the 918 you next up the 918 spyder is a very low sports car so it doesn't always clear every speed bump or Road obstacle now Porsche knows that so they fitted it with an axle lifter system push a little button inside the cabin and the car raises up to clear bumps and other obstacles now that isn't that uncommon a lot of modern sports cars have that now but it's rare that you find one that works this quickly take a look I'm pushing the button now and we're already up that's really cool in other words if you're approaching something you push the button and then boom you get up really quickly the weird thing is after it lifts this noise happens for a while okay next up how about the fact that the 918 Spyder has a mono wiper one single windshield wiper for the whole windshield I didn't know that I hadn't noticed that detailing 918 spyder before and I was surprised to see it I drove the car around earlier today in the rain a little bit and I was also surprised at just how well it works it's quick and it covers the entire windshield and then there's the roof now as the name 918 spyder implies and car parlance Spyder generally means convertible not a two-seat convertible and the 918 Spyder is a convertible though not in the sense of you push a button and the top goes down instead you pay over a million dollars for a car and you have to remove the roof yourself I'm now going to attempt this process although I've never done this before so but there goes oh and before I start you have to remove the passenger side roof panel first because it fits over the one on the driver side to make it watertight so you start over here ah done now if you want to stow those roof panels inside the car you put them inside the front trunk where they have a special little way that they're stored which ultimately Rob's all of your cargo space now the trunk itself has a couple of interesting quirks in order to open it you can push a little button on the driver's side door or push a little button on the key fob and it unlatches itself but it doesn't open you can't open it from here instead you have to put your hand under here feel around use the latch and then you can open it right up you'll find when the roof panels aren't stored in here that the trunk is actually pretty big at least for a supercar now the most interesting thing inside the 918 spiders trunk is undoubtedly this thing it looks like a little piece of carbon fiber the size of the interior rear view mirror when the roof is off you're supposed to remove this little piece of plot take out this little piece of carbon fiber and stick it on top of the windshield and a little slot where it has a home so that it can deflect wind it's a carbon fiber wind deflector that you install yourself when the roof is off I've never seen that before I've never heard of that before it's bizarre and you will only find out about this thing in this 918 spyder review now when it comes time to close the trunk the process is pretty simple though maybe not what you'd expect for a million bucks you shut it and then you push here and push here and the trunk is closed now speaking of interesting carbon fiber pieces like the one I'm just stuck in the windshield my favorite one is this this is a duct and it could just be a duct the Porsche has decided to stick some carbon fiber on it because when you're charging a million dollars you can stick carbon fiber wherever the hell you want now the reason this car has that little carbon fiber strip next to that duct the reason this car has a lot of additional carbon fiber over the standard 918 is that this one has the optional VY sock back edge which was a performance package that was optional from new it was named after a voice act which is a city in Germany the headquarters of Porsches research and development now the Vice sock package wasn't sheath it was $85,000 meaning if you chose a regular nineteen plus the package you were already in the nine hundred and fifty thousand dollar range before you added any other options it included a lot of benefits but the main one was that it lost 88 pounds of curb weight to make the car a little bit lighter that's right 88 pounds for $85,000 or about $1,000 per pound of weight loss there were a couple of other benefits too including the canards behind the rear wheels for aerodynamics the rear diffuser there are door loops inside the interior instead of regular door handles and then there's my personal favorite and that would be the racing harness now Porsche is not allowed to sell a car from the factory with a racing harness in the United States because then it would be a race car according to the government so instead they sell you the 918 and they give you the racing harness for free and you can do whatever you want with it including have your Porsche dealer install it two seconds after you sign the papers this car has the racing harness in the driver's seat in case the owner ever decides to take it on the track now beyond the interior the exterior the Vice I package there a couple of other interesting corks of the 918 that I think are worthy of mentioning for example this car runs a quarter mile in 9.8 seconds yes that's right this car runs stock nines if you've ever paid attention a quarter mile times blown away by that and think about it this way this car is closer in its quarter-mile time to a top fuel dragster than a Camry which is insane here's another insane thing when this car was new it had a liquid metal paint option that was $65,000 a new engine in this car is two hundred and sixty five thousand dollars and since we're talking about money we might as well mention that this car being a plug-in hybrid partially electric vehicle it qualifies for a federal tax rebate of three thousand six hundred and sixty seven dollars just like a volt or a leaf or a Tesla so when you buy one of these you can take a credit on your income taxes because you're saving the planet now lest you go and say that that is absolutely ridiculous keep something in mind when this car is an electric or hybrid mode it has a lower emissions profile than a Toyota Prius now before I get the 918 out on the road I think we all grab do one thing and that is see what it sounds like when it starts up and no worry it's not cold I've been warming it up here goes okay so those are all the Cork's and features of the 918 spyder and before I get behind the wheel a little story that you might find interesting now back when this car came out I worked for Porsche corporate in a boring little office job nothing exciting but the fun part of my job was I handle all the orders for the 918 Spyder if you wanted a 918 spyder you gave a deposit to your dealership and then your dealership contacted me and I worked with Germany to get the allocation for the dealer for that 918 Spyder for every 918 spyder including this one now back then I sat in a cubicle all day and I worked with Microsoft Excel and I drove a string of crappy used cars and I never thought I would ever get the chance to actually drive one but I was wrong because now I'm driving the 918 spyder first impression the car is really really quick and I don't just mean fast I mean the shifts are quick the handling is tight the steering oh it's so incredibly precise transmission shifts are incredibly fast amazingly so that rear window is really small I can't see any they got they're going over train tracks out [Music] well that's best oh my god this thing is insane and the really cool thing is when I floor it I can hear a little bit of that electric motor like you used to be able to hear turbochargers and actually it sounds really cool it's just so wildly fast like nothing I've ever driven before so I'm sitting here in a stop light now and there are a couple things I noticed in a lot of cars in a Huracan you just kind of can relax and chill and it's fine in this car you know it's shaking and vibrating it definitely feels like more of a serious car guy in a sadder and just looked at what are you getting people in saturn's that's when you know you've got a cool car I'm also surprised at how reasonable it is it does feel louder than a normal car there's no doubt about that but it doesn't feel tremendously uncomfortable or difficult getting in and out is a bit of a challenge but it's not really that hard to operate which is impressive to me it's like a supercar that's a Porsche if you fit in the seats I feel like you could kind of Cruise in this thing I got the AC on I feel comfortable the ride is harsh when you come to a complete stop you can feel a little shuddering at probably the electric motor doing something one big complaint I have and I noticed that the second I got in this car this morning you know there's like four screens but the main one the one right here next to your ear you know you're in your line of sight with it the touchscreen really it washes out in sunlight because it's basically pointing up the benefit of its positioning is that it's near you right next to string well the problem is it's pointing upwards and the windshield comes so far back that it washes out this screen it's a car that is crazy that it's so crazily crazy I've driven a lot of cars none this fast and you can tell instantly I mean r8 v10 plus was the fastest car I drove before this and that was a fast car and this feels much faster the sound is good the owner has told me that I need to take the roof off to really get get the sound so I'm gonna do that in a minute but the sound is really good you don't lose anything by ole it's only an electric car don't worry about that all right now I got the roof off and I gotta say I can already tell it's better a lot of people say well on a super car it's gotta be rigid it can't have a removable roof we'll come on I mean at the racetrack you're really gonna feel the difference between ex rigidity and X minus one rigidity it's ridiculous but you do feel the difference driving down the road with a roof off I got to keep the windows up for sound purposes but I tell you with the roof off in this car it is just a total joy it's everything you could want we got the incredible speed and the incredible handling and the technology and everything that makes this car cool but now I can see the sky bateau me isn't monstrously fast but now I can hear I can hear that glorious motor because the exhaust is right there that sounds so good I often talk about how I wish I like cars that are less powerful but you really have to ring out to enjoy well sitting here today driving this vid I'm not sure if I agree with myself few cars in this world sound better I suspect than this one I've driven cars that have better exhaust notes like the LFA but with the top off you just it's right there I mean it's so great I don't think I've ever had so much fun and I thought I'd be so nervous about the value when I was in the f40 it seems so fragile in comparison this just feels like a Porsche on steroids a lot of steroids you know it's funny because I Drive my AMG stationwagon is my daily car and I Drive that a lot that's nothing compared to this and that is 520 horsepower that's a fast car feels like a Camry I'm serious suddenly I know why that left gamescreen is devoted entirely to the speed limiter function oh my god I can't believe this but this card is so drivable even as an ultra car I feel like I can have fun with it I can throw it around and I can really enjoy it I honestly thought in all these electric supercars for kind of weenie cars though they're doing a light drink oh that's a stupid give me a big v12 that's wrong this car is amazing and the electric component only benefits it an amazing car the best all-around sports car supercar etcetera that I've ever driven in my entire life and I'm happy to say I was able to spend the entire day with it the owner tossed me the keys he was busy and I really got to learn the car and experience it and I'm confident in saying that it is the best I've ever driven and so ladies and gentlemen I've just spent the day with the Porsche 918 Spyder it was from a lot of perspectives the most incredible amazing car I've ever driven the most expensive the fastest the quickest one of the most technologically advanced that have ever reviewed now is it worth 1.7 million dollars I can just hear you people angrily typing away no it's not worth that I could have 23 50 Z's for that money or no way I could modify a Camaro so that it's faster in the quarter-mile fine but if you're worth a hundred million dollars and you don't want 20 350 Z's or a modded Camaro and instead you want the best the coolest the most amazing the most advanced the most exclusive this is that and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling I may take some heat for this but well I've always found the 918 Spyder cool looking I don't think it's really beautiful it's nice it's functional but it doesn't quite capture my imagination like some cars and it gets an 8 out of 10 but it scores improved from their acceleration does 0-60 in 2.4 seconds which gives it eight 10 out of 10 handling it's truly one of the best I've ever driven may be the very best up there with only the new 4 GT and it gets a 10 out of 10 cool factor come on only a few cars in history are cooler and it gets a 10 out of 10 and importance measures significance one of the fastest most expensive cars in the market among the first plug-in electric supercars the best that Porsche could do the culmination of decades of engineering it once again gets a 10 out of 10 that brings the total weekend score to 48 out of 50 tying the all-time leader the Porsche Carrera GT so we move on to the daily categories starting with features the 918 is well equipped with a lot of cool stuff but it's missing some of the latest gadgets like Lane keep assist and automatic steering obviously I wouldn't expect a supercar to have that stuff but this category measures all cars against all other cars and the most advanced cars do have those features so it falls a little short with a 7 out of 10 next up is Comfort the 918 Spyder is rough over bumps and the seats are tight it's not horrendously uncomfortable but it's getting there and it earns a three out of ten next up its quality which measures materials and reliability and the 918 is top-notch with excellent materials that are up to typical Porsche quality the only issues are the slow to respond touchscreen and well the obvious issue of the long term dependability of an 887 horsepower plug-in hybrid supercar with four Drive wheels two electric motors and a gas engine still it gets an 8 out of 10 next up is practicality which is a measure of cargo volume the 918 Spyder is 3.7 cubic feet should give it a 2 out of 10 and normally the gas mileage would help its case but this car is hard to enter an exit the visibility is mediocre and if you put down the roof that cargo volume drops to literally zero and then there's the question of being able to practically go anywhere in a car that's worth 1.7 million dollars so I have to give it a 1 out of 10 finally value and this is the hard one this car cost just over 1 million dollars new and it's easily worth 1.7 million today especially with the Vice Hawk package but is it worth it it's impossible for any regular person to judge but I will say that a 70% value increase in two years suggests we may be in a bit of a bubble and I'm not really sure it's sustainable it gets a 6 out of 10 but this category is the toughest of them all add it together and the total daily score is 25 out of 50 marking the very first time the Pontiac Aztek has ever beaten the 918 spyder in anything ever anyway if you've been adding up the scores along the way you already know the total Doug score is 73 out of 100 which means the 918 spyder beats out the previous champion the Carrera GT by one point and it now holds the highest Doug score of them all I guess I need to find someone with a McLaren p1 or a la Ferrari to see if I can dethrone the new king you [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 6,446,799

Rating: 4.8418765 out of 5

Keywords: porsche 918 spyder, porsche 918, 918 spyder, 918, porsche 918 spider, 918 spider, porsche supercar, porsche hypercar, supercar, hypercar, porsche spyder, porsche spider, doug demuro, demuro

Id: jiKPTadNbPc

Length: 29min 49sec (1789 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 26 2017