In celebration of the brand’s 75th anniversary, the Porsche design team has really been churning out dream cars, and they aren’t showing signs of slowing any time soon. They graced our eyeballs with a wonderful homage to the 356 in the form of the Vision 357 concept back in January, and now they’ve lopped off the top to create this: the outrageously cool Vision 357 Speedster.
Set to be unveiled later today at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the differences between this and its coupe concept sibling go beyond the missing roof, as is hinted at by a few excellent little easter eggs. While the 357 featured a cartoon dinosaur sticker, a nod to its dino juice-fuelled GT4 RS-derived powertrain, this new 357 Speedster features an electric blue unicorn sticker just ahead of the rear wheels. That’s because — you guessed it — this topless wonder is hiding an electric powertrain beneath its beautiful carbon fibre bodywork.
On that note, the Vision 357 Speedster combines the chassis of the Porsche 718 GT4 e-Performance with the battery pack and motors from the Mission R. While no real performance figures are given, considering that the Mission R boasts over 1000hp, the 357 Speedster should be startlingly fast.
That came as a bit of a surprise to us; we were hoping this would follow the Vision 357’s lead and use the running gear of the recently unveiled 718 Spyder RS. However, Porsche clearly have their sights set on the future, which — as the Mission X and Mission R have both made clear — will indeed see the good old combustion engine bow out to make space for a host of electric motors and battery packs.
Visually, though, there's certainly a lot to like about this electrified 357 Speedster, especially in this two-tone Marble Grey and Grivelo Grey livery. Compared to the coupe, this concept features a shorter windscreen, while the Porsche design team took further inspiration from their racecars of old with the addition of a tonneau cover for the passenger seat. Another cool design element is the floating headrest mounted to an engineered carbon rollover hoop, which proves that safety doesn't have to come at the cost of style.
While we can already hear the enthusiasts’ cries of disapproval, Porsche’s fixation on the 357 suggests that this outstanding design might have production potential. No, this won’t be the 718’s electric replacement — the Mission R gives us a good idea of what that will look like — but we wouldn’t be surprised if the Vision 357 receives a small but highly limited production run. We can only speculate on what will power that hypothetical production car, but at least the bodywork is guaranteed to look gorgeous if it’s anything like these two 357 concepts. Either way, as far as birthday presents go, the Vision 357 Speedster is a pretty good one.
