Porsche Unravels Swanky Concept Car Designs That Were Never Shown To The Public

By Mikelle Leow, 12 Nov 2020

Image via Porsche AG

Automakers have a plethora of ideas for car designs. The only issue is how they’ll pan out on the road. Over time, autophiles have been treated to an array of conceptual work from car companies, including Mercedes-Benz’s Avatar-inspired design and BMW’s futuristic electric scooter.

It seems that Porsche has a number of compelling spec projects up its sleeve, too. The automobile company has just published a book called Porsche Unseen featuring 15 previously top-secret concept cars that its single design studio worked on. The models are also currently on show at the Porsche Museum shop.

The company teased three of the imaginary models, namely a ‘Renndienst’ family vehicle, ‘919 Street’ supercar, and ‘Porsche Vision Spyder’ sports car.

Porsche detailed that holds visionary concept studies close to heart because they are “the foundation” of its success. “They provide the pool of ideas for the Porsche design of tomorrow, and combine our strong tradition with trailblazing future technologies,” it added.

Describing the company’s design process, Porsche said everything starts with a sketch before being rendered in 3D. It then produces small models on a 1:3 scale and hard prototypes in a 1:1 scale. “The virtual world is the first step, but you especially have to experience the unusual models in reality in order to understand whether a car has small, large or surprising proportions,” explained Michael Mauer, Porsche’s Vice President of Style.

Where the conceptual design process differs from the production for real-world cars is that vision projects “concentrate on a single vision model” to inspire a “central idea,” whereas production projects involve “several models” in “different styling formats.”

You can preview the renders below. Find out more about Porsche’s design studies here.

Porsche 919 Street (2017; 1:1 clay model)