Forget A Nuvolari Rebadge, Porsche Is Now Planning A Halo Supercar With A Flat-8

It wasn't but three weeks ago we told you that Porsche was considering the idea of borrowing the bones of the Audi Nuvolari to build its next halo supercar, but something has shifted. While the 987-horsepower plug-in hybrid twin-turbocharged V8 it shares with the Lamborghini Temerario would have been a solid place to start for Porsche, it certainly lacked the bespoke qualities we've been used to seeing from Stuttgart's hypercars. A new report suggests that the next Porsche flagship could be just that, and not the done-up Audi we once suspected.

The new vehicle — internally known as the "S1" — will make use of a flat-eight engine, according to Handelsblatt, a German business newspaper. Clearly, a move like this would be a nod to its racing heritage, as Porsche has attacked tracks all over the world with flat-eight motors. It started back in the early 1960s with an H8 Formula 1 entrant. Then there were the flat-eights Porsche fitted to its incredibly successful 908 World Sportscar Championship race car of the late '60s and early '70s. Since then, Porsche has been off-and-on rumored to be mulling over the idea of bringing back the flat-eight, and it finally could be happening with the S1.

You might notice, though, that none of these are road-going vehicles, and it would make the S1 the first flat-eight road car Porsche has ever produced if it were to come to fruition, and buyers will pay for the privilege. Handelsblatt says will start at around $600,000, and that's a little over twice what Porsche is currently asking for its current top performer, the 911 Turbo S.

Not too long ago, Marcos Marqus, Porsche eFuel's project manager, said there was a running prototype of a flat-eight motor running inside a modified Cayman chassis, and he described it as a "crazy car that sounded amazing," according to Motor1. Yeah, I can imagine it would, big dog, especially since the twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter unit was pumping out 750 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque while revving up to a 9,000 rpm redline and sending power to the wheels through a manual gearbox.

Unfortunately, nothing ever came of that car. Despite all of the testing done on the roads of Weissach, Porsche said "it wasn't the right car for that moment in time," Motor1 reports. Now that sensibilities about internal combustion and the electric revolution have, uh, changed, perhaps Porsche feels that a vehicle like that is more fitting of the moment.

Hell, Ruf thinks so. As the outlet pointed out, the Porsche tuner (which is pretty much an automaker at this point) just revealed its own flat-eight motor with twin-turbochargers and 4.4 liters of displacement at its disposal; the unit is said to make 1,000 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque — sending all the power through a six-speed stick.

The era of flatness is clearly upon us. Lovers of weird engine configurations everywhere rejoice.