Two newcomers chatted, and then the design team got to work on a vision for Porsche’s new halo hypercar. Roughly eight months ago, Porsche’s new head of design got a call from the also, still relatively new head of Porsche itself. CEO Michael Leiters, chairman of the executive board of Porsche AG since January, wanted to talk with Tobias Sühlmann, who took over as Porsche head of style in February, about designing a hypercar above the 911 that would sit atop the lineup. The newcomers ping-ponged ideas off each other about what a future product along those lines could look like, and then the fuse was lit: Sühlmann and his team got to work on the car that would become the Mission S concept, which you can read more about here. After the call with Leiters, Sühlmann sat down with his team to generate ideas. It was a fantastic journey because everybody was immediately sucked into the Mission S project. Sühlmann’s vision came from doing his homework. He started at the Porsche museum to immerse himself in the brand to better experience it, to understand how it was created as well as how it evolved stylistically and otherwise. Inspirations and Challenges “I got inspired by so many cars,” Sühlmann said of his immersion and love of Porsche design and how it helped influence the Mission S. “Not just 911. I love a 928. I love a Carrera GT. I love a 964. I love a 550, you name it. I love a 917. I love our race car history also on the track, there’s a lot of beautiful cars in our history, in our portfolio. You can get inspired all the time.” The Porsche 550 Spyder, shown here in roughly the same spot in Queens in 1953 as the Mission S unveil, is one of Sühlmann’s loves. Once the strategy was determined, the team worked on design principles they wanted integrated into the car. They also sat with engineering to find out what was possible and what wasn’t, and with the aerodynamics team to better come up with a form that also worked from a functional perspective. “Every element was a challenge,” Sühlmann said of the process. “There were aerodynamic challenges in exterior, ergonomic challenges in the interior. It's a design sculpture to show what the future of mid-engine cars at Porsche could look like.” Although the Mission S is a concept, Sühlmann always challenges himself to style elements that someday could be a part of a production car. “When you design, for me, it’s important to think of, is it possible to do that? Because otherwise, I don’t need to do it. If it goes into the bin afterwards and you make a beautiful car, but you can’t do it, it doesn’t make sense,” he said, citing one of the car’s signature elements. “We have those aero blade rear lights. And they're the same in front. It’s something that we think could be a feature in the future.”
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Liked by Amélie Green, Olivia Lewis
Liked by Amélie Green, Olivia Lewis
