Beverly Hills Porsche is pleased to announce the Porsche 918 Spyder has been green lighted for development and production. The concept car that has had the showroom and all of Los Angeles buzzing with anticipation is finally announced as a reality. In a press release issued today, Porsche confirmed its intentions to build the super car. With this hybrid power-train the Porsche 918 should be able to sprint from 0 to 62 MPH in just 3.2 seconds and it could reach a top speed of 198 MPH. Porsche claims this hybrid super-car will return a fuel consumption of 78 mpg with a CO2 emissions level of just 79 g/km. In its session today, the Supervisory Board of Dr. Ing. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, gave the green light for series development of the Porsche 918 Spyder. Reflecting the overwhelming response from the public and customers to the Concept Study, the Supervisory Board gave Porsche鈥檚 Board of Management the mission to develop a production model based on the car already presented. This concept version of an ultra-high-performance mid-engined sports car with plug-in hybrid technology made its debut at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show and at Auto China in Bejing, hitting the headlines worldwide. Beverly Hills Porsche is an authorized factory dealership of Porsche cars, SUVs, accessories, parts and merchandise. Centrally located to all of Los Angeles, we aim to be a complete lifestyle destination for all Porsche owners and fans!
The 541S front passenger seat folds completely up to allow far easier access into the rear than most other two door cars - even modern ones. Both the 541S and the CV8, unlike many more modern fast cars, sensibly provide a very large boot space for luggage. I do feel that a lot of the modern fast car designs, fail to provide the head room and leg space for taller drivers, and completely fail to provide useful luggage space. As a family man these are some of the reasons why I favour the CV8. Out of all the Jensen cars of this period, the 541S has been the least sought after, and the most difficult to sell. There is a reason for this, although it is an impressive car and beautiful, it has a reputation for lacking acceleration as a sports car. It has a good top speed and is capable of travelling at over 100 mph all day long. But all the original road test reports were based on the automatic version (this automatic gearbox although developed by Rolls Royce lost an awful lot of performance) - it is such a pity that the manual version was never tested!
Between 1960 and 1962 Jensen built 127, in total of 541S cars, out of these only 22 were manual drive. The manual is a gem of a car! The most luxurious car of all the 541 range, and what is not generally known, these manual drive cars with the Lacock-de-Normanville overdrive are very fast cars indeed. They would have earned a much better reputation from a road test than the one they have from the automatic version. The 541S has certain unusual design features, adjustable front seat arm rests fitted to each door, the Bevelift jack, kept in the boot, was designed for use through the floor of the car in front of each front seat. So it was possible to lift front and rear wheels together whilst protected from the rain. When the boot lid is open the driver can still see, without any restriction, out of the rear window.
Very sensibly the spare wheel valve is accessible, through a fitting in the rear of the boot floor, thus allowing the air pressure to be checked easily without having to remove the wheel. The look of these cars when viewed from the side could be said to be reminiscent of early Jaguar cars, head on possibly Aston Martin, and from the rear one thinks of Porsche. However Jensen developed with the 541S quite an original and distinctive aero dynamic design without any sacrifice to space or comfort. I still consider it to be one of the most attractive four seater cars of that era that still attracts admiration today. Readers will by now realise that I rather like these cars, that is certainly true, and we owned 5 out of the 22 made. It will not be easy to buy a good manual 541S as only 15 more at most exist. The hunt would be worthwhile, if one could be found, as such a car would cost less than an ordinary 'E' type Jaguar in reasonable condition. My bet is that this situation will change.