Stunning Porsche 917 hypercar concept revealed

Porsche has announced it is celebrating 50 years of the legendary 917 race car with the unveiling of a special Porsche 917 concept.

Releasing a single pic of the Porsche 917 concept it plans to reveal at a special VIP event at the Porsche Museum on May 14, details remain scarce on the sudden appearance of a homage to one of the most successful race cars of all time.

Said to have been created by a small team of engineers and designers, the beautiful tribute appears to be an evolution of the 918 Spyder's styling, prompting some to suggest the sleek, low Porsche 917 concept could preview a forthcoming hypercar.

Set to line-up alongside the original recently 1969 917 prototype that the car-maker has also restored for the 50th anniversary, the new 917 concept will join another nine 917s that are currently displayed at the factory.

The original 917 race car, despite a shaky start to its career, came good and famously went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in both 1970 and 1971.

The latter 917/30s that campaigned in 1973 remain to this day one of the most powerful race cars ever made, producing up to 1200kW from their mighty turbocharged 5.4-litre flat-12 cylinder engines.

Porsche has not given any indication of what powers its latest 917 concept.

As revealed last week at the Geneva motor show, Porsche announced plans to follow up its 918 Spyder with a pure-electric hypercar that's set to benefit from next-generation solid-state batteries being developed by the car-maker.

It's thought the 917 concept could hint at the unnamed hypercar project that's currently being developed to rival cars like the Mercedes-AMG ONE and Rimac Concept One and newcomers from Pininfarina and Piech.

The zero-emission project is reportedly being readied for some time after 2025, when the next-generation battery technology will come online.

Solid-state batteries are claimed to be the crucial breakthrough in EV development that will overnight bring an end to range anxiety pushing cars to more than 1000km between charges.

The next-gen batteries will also be 30 per cent lighter, with far greater energy storage potential while being up to 99 per cent recyclable.

Porsche’s first EV, the Taycan sedan, will launch later this year with liquid lithium-ion batteries — as will its second EV, the Taycan Cross Turismo, and the 2020 Macan-style EV.