Porsche 908-04 Vision GT Concept Is the Gran Turismo Car We Will Never Drive

Except in our imaginations.

byWill Sabel Courtney|
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Barring a literal act of God or a lucky stumble into a magic lamp, none of us will ever have the chance to drive the Porsche 908-04 Vision GT Concept seen here. Not in real life; not in the digital world of Gran Turismo, for which the car was designed. Porsche had no role in crafting its shape, other than to provide inspiration for its lines and curves. The Porsche 908-04 Vision GT was crafted over thousands of hours by a group of a half-dozen enthusiasts with a singular vision: to show the world what a modern-day Porsche supercar for honest car guys would look like.

PorscheVisionGT.com

Plenty of carmakers have whipped up custom rides strictly made for the virtual racing realm of GT6, from Bugatti's Chiron-esque Vision Gran Turismo to Chevrolet's laser-powered Chaparral 2X Gran Turismo. But Porsche refuses to do business with Polyphony, the video game company behind the Gran Turismo franchise. As such, the world would never have a chance to see the carmaker's own attempt at a no-holds-barred hypercar for gamers and designers alike to freak out over.

So the 908-04 designers decided to design their own.

PorscheVisionGT.com

By their own admission, it took somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 hours to bring the 908-04 Vision GT to where it is today. Hours of work conducted here and there, on the side, nights and weekends. Every one of the crew of six came to the project for their own reasons. Exterior designer Alan Derosier, who came up with the idea, was inspired by his life-long love for Porsche. Exterior modeler Marcos Beltran was excited to render the sultry forms as realistically as possible. Component modeler Martin Peng saw it as a way to learn more about Porsches past. Interior designer Guillermo Mignot and interior modeler Hasan Umutlu had helped Volkswagen develop the interior for its official Vision GT car; they were excited to try their hand again at a similar project. And image retoucher Tom Wheatley was keen to try his hand at Photoshopping a virtual car for a change.

The resulting car is nothing short of breathtaking.

PorscheVisionGT.com

Created as a modern homage to the 1969 Porsche 908 LH, the 908-04 Vision GT has the exaggerated, extreme proportions of a race car for a superhero. Its tail stretches out halfway to infinity; the tops of its fenders sit almost parallel with its driver's eyes. And while the car is clearly the spiritual successor of those Le Mans racers past, the influence of Porsches present and future is apparent; the quad-LED headlamps of the Mission E, the vertical exhaust stacks and green calipers of the 918 Spyder. An e-hybrid badge and the exposed portions of the mid-mounted engine are the only clues as to what powers it. But it comes with a manual transmission.

PorscheVisionGT.com

The 908-04 Vision GT is still a work in progress. The Sixties Le Mans-inspired interior is a handful of sketches; the team says they hope to see the final renders completed by September or October. We'll be waiting. And while we do, we'll be dreaming about hurling this impossible Longtail down our favorite back roads, engine screaming as loud as our imaginations can sing.

PorscheVisionGT.com
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