The Porsche Boxster Bergspyder Is an Awesome One-Seater That Was Almost Built for Real
The Boxster Bergspyder is a one-off prototype created in 2015 that Porsche is now showing for the first time.
Based on the 2015 Boxster, it was a feasibility study commissioned by Porsche's executive board to see if such a car could be put into production.
The new Bergspyder was inspired by the 909 race car from the 1960s.
As it did with the 917 Living Legend concept, Porsche has released new photos and information about a one-off creation that has never been shown to the public before. It's called the Boxster Bergspyder, and it's a one-seater based on the Boxster that was commissioned by Porsche's executive board, with the intent to see if such a car could go into production.
Porsche says that the task was to create a sports car that was "as light and minimalist as possible," with the inspiration coming from the 909 race cars from the 1960s, which were nicknamed Bergspyder. Those tiny racers were designed for hill-climb races, and they weighed just 847 pounds and used a 275-hp flat-eight engine, making them the lightest cars that Porsche has ever raced.
The new Bergspyder used the 981-generation Boxster as its basis, but the look is much more radical. Gone are the passenger seat, the windshield, the exterior door handles, and the roof. Porsche fitted a small curved wind deflector in front of the driver, and there's an aluminum roll hoop behind the driver's seat on top of a fairing. The redesigned rear deck and covering for the passenger compartment are made from carbon fiber, and the mid-mounted 388-hp flat-six engine (taken from the Cayman GT4) is visible through a mesh cover. To match the 909, the car is finished in white with green accents and stripes.
Even though it's a single-seater, Porsche says the car's passenger door could be opened to access a cargo area where the passenger seat used to be, which is big enough to hold a helmet, luggage, and a leather cover panel for the driver's area. The dashboard of the Bergspyder has been totally redesigned relative to a normal Boxster, using gauges and other elements from the 918 Spyder; the bucket seats were taken from the 918, as well.
Thanks to the new design and the use of lightweight materials, the Boxster Bergspyder weighs 2423 pounds, 617 pounds less than a 2016 Boxster Spyder we tested. According to Porsche, the new Bergspyder would have a zero-to-60-mph time of just over four seconds and a Nürburgring time of around 7:30, but no official testing was ever done.
Ultimately, the project was killed because the car could be ineligible for registration in some countries, which Porsche says "would have an impact on potential sales." So development work never continued past this one-off, and it was kept hidden at Porsche's Weissach development center. But now the car has been taken into the Porsche Museum's custody and will be shown in public for the first time at the 2019 Gaisberg hill-climb.
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