porsche unveils 'mission X', its fastest road-legal electric hypercar yet with butterfly doors

Porsche Mission X is a dream come true

Porsche has introduced the Mission X concept car study to its fans, the car manufacturer’s fastest road-legal vehicle yet – at least on the Nürburgring Nordschleife (racetrack) – equipped with Le-Mans style doors that swing upwards and a high-performance electric powertrain. The unveiling of Mission X took place on the eve of the ‘75 Years of Porsche Sports Cars’ exhibition opening on June 8th, 2023 at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen. From its sculpted form and muscular lines down to its long-slung bodywork and Rocket Metallic color, Porsche’s dream of realizing its hypercar design that blazes through streets and roads is hoped to come to finesse fruition.

Porsche Mission X, a high-performance luxury concept car with a sleek and stylish design, is imagined to have a low and sculpted body with smooth lines instead of an aggressive look. Certain parts of the body have a carbon-weave finish, and the wheels have aero blades for better brake cooling. A lightweight glass dome covers both the driver and passenger, made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, and the doors open forwards and upwards, similar to those used on the famous Porsche 917 racing car. The headlights have a unique design inspired by historic racing cars, and the rear of the car features a full-length light unit with transparent Porsche lettering that illuminates.

open-top steering wheel with mode switches and shift paddles

The Porsche crest on Mission X has been modernized with a brushed precious metal finish and other tweaks such as a three-dimensional honeycomb structure, a refreshed heraldic beast, and a more subtle gold color. Inside the car, the two seats have different colors, with the driver’s seat in Kalahari Grey and the passenger seat in Andalusia Brown. The interior oozes a sporty feel with features like an open-top steering wheel whose design resembles the wheels found in arcade games and is equipped with mode switches and shift paddles. There are also multiple cameras in the car that can record when the driver presses the record button.

An interesting feature Porsche Mission X brings in is a bayonet system on the passenger side where a stopwatch module can be attached. Porsche Design has created a special stopwatch module with analog and digital displays for the Mission X which is typically designed for use on racetracks and rallies and can show lap times and other important information for the driver. In its luxurious, road-legal way, Porsche Mission X makes the driver feel as if they were competing in a circuit racetrack like a true racecar driver.

the unveiling of Mission X took place on the eve of the ‘75 Years of Porsche Sports Cars’ exhibition

fastest road-legal vehicle on Nürburgring Nordschleife

For tech buffs, Porsche Mission X measures approximately 4.5 meters long and two meters wide, making the hypercar concept study a relatively compact hypercar. Its wheelbase is expected to be 2.73 meters, similar to the dimensions of the Carrera GT and 918 Spyder, and its battery is installed behind the vehicle’s seats. For aerodynamic purposes, the concept car has mixed-size tires with 20-inch wheels at the front and 21-inch wheels at the rear.

Porsche states that if the Mission X goes into series production, it should, at least, be the fastest road-legal vehicle around the Nürburgring Nordschleife (circuit track); have a power-to-weight ratio of roughly one PS per kilogram; achieve downforce values that are well in excess of those delivered by the current 911 GT3 RS; and offer significantly improved charging performance with its 900-volt system architecture and charge roughly twice as quickly as Porsche’s current frontrunner, the Taycan Turbo S.

‘The Porsche Mission X is a technology beacon for the sports car of the future. It picks up the torch of iconic sports cars of decades past: like the 959, the Carrera GT, and the 918 Spyder before it, the Mission X provides a critical impetus for the evolutionary development of future vehicle concepts,’ says Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG. ‘Daring to dream and dream cars are two sides of the same coin for us: Porsche has only remained Porsche by constantly changing.’

the vehicle is equipped with Le-Mans style doors that swing upwards and a high-performance electric powertrain