Porsche Mission X concept sees the marque set its sights high

This is the Porsche Mission X, a dramatic new hypercar concept unveiled 75 years to the day after the very first production Porsche was completed. 

You may have noticed a trend in recent hypercar design: storied manufacturer unveils an incredibly dramatic concept car and promises the world. Several years later, the world has not manifested, and a torturous combination of waning budgets, over-ambition, massive complexity and the laws of physics have diluted the initial impact. 

It’s true that Aston Martin ultimately made good its promise of an F1 car for the road, delivering the Valkyrie to a brave coterie of patient customers who now have the pleasure of terrifying themselves in a machine that offers high stakes at low speeds. Mercedes has also admitted to biting off more than it can chew with the AMG One, a hybrid road-going hypercar built around an F1 engine, with all the foibles, complexities and compromises that entailed. 

And Porsche? Well, Porsche is doing things differently. The company has always indulged in the one-upmanship inherent in the sports car industry, but more often than not, its solutions are both devastatingly quick but also surprisingly easy to drive. The 1986 Porsche 959 springs to mind. A contemporary of the Ferrari F40, it was also its diametric opposite, stuffed full of technology in a 911-derived body that made it eminently practical. We’ll skip over the tricksy 2004 Carrera GT, which demanded elite levels of driving skill, and also consider the impressive Porsche 918 Spyder, revealed in 2013. 

Now Porsche is at it again. The new Mission X was unveiled on 8 June 2023 at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, part of the marque’s ongoing 75th birthday celebrations. It also marks the debut application of Porsche’s new badge. 

Right now, it’s still a concept, but should Porsche decide to go ahead – no doubt encouraged by the sound of chequebooks fluttering down the phone lines – it wants the car to set a few markers. First up is to break the lap speed record for the fastest road-legal car around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the 13-mile-long German circuit that is an unofficial benchmark of sports car prowess.

Porsche Mission X concept: record-breaking ambition

Porsche also wants this car to be speedy in other ways, suggesting it could be fully charged in just half the time of the current Taycan Turbo S. For the Mission X is pure electric, and a gauntlet thrown down in the face of Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, et al, as well as reigning EV champions like the Rimac Nevera and the (closely related) Pininfarina Battista. Lest we forget, Porsche owns a chunk of Rimac, an arrangement that no doubt enables some engineering secrets to be shared. 

Resplendent in Rocket Metallic (a fancy shade of brown), the Mission X continues Porsche’s history of off-the-books cars, esoteric side-projects and weird one-offs. Porsche describes the concept as a ‘technology beacon for the sports car of the future’, and the concept looks polished and production-ready, designed down to the tiniest detail inside and out. 

As well as the EV powertrain and high-performance aspirations, the Mission X marks a departure from the aggressive era of hypercar design. Yes, there are hints of Porsche’s legendary endurance racers, most notably the doors that reference the Porsche 917, as well as the vertical stack of headlights, but it’s not a crazed confection of aero and carbon like many of its rivals. Modestly scaled (just 1.2m tall), the Mission X illustrates that Porsche wants to retain its sporting crown long after the last cylinder has fired. 

Porsche Mission X Concept, Porsche.com