Porsche Still Leashed
After hearing that I've got a custom built car that can keep up with the best cars around, they immediately wanted to see it. Or rather, demanded to see it.
So I asked them to wait at our airfield hangar building, the place that we keep our cars at, the cars we don't keep at our home. It's basically our common garage. We also use it as a place to tune out our cars with some of the dynamometers here or just hang out. And the runway, we turned it into a knockoff Top Gear test track. It's basically our "base".
There's a crap ton of Air conditioners and lights in this building to keep us from melting in the Florida heat. None of which we need right now because it's nearly December of 2023.
We got a mezzanine floor built at a side of the building set up with a TV and a few couches just to hang out and chill as we look at the cars parked down below. The airfield is right by the sea so it has got a lot of wind blowing every day.
So after a while, I arrive at the airfield and enter the hangar in a semi truck with a trailer. I then close all the doors of the hangar. I open the trailer door as the whole room gets covered in clouds of smoke as the car got unloaded from the trailer. The smoke got cleared soon revealing the Liquid Metallic Silver Porsche 918 Spyder, with a black interior and the acid green accent. Speced out just like the commercials intended.
"This is it, the Porsche 918 "ten point two" Spyder. 10 Cylinders, 2 turbos all while keeping the stock exterior and interior. It's got pneumatic valves; none of that ancient spring return crap. The old laggy screens are replaced with modern stuff. Mostly there to tune the engine and suspensions on the fly. Put the suspension on "touring" mode and the car rises a whole extra 4 inches off the ground and softens up the springs. Still not enough to get rid of the awful vibrations from the engine though. 1080 Horsepower at 10,500 RPM on premium fuel and it revs up to 11.5k, put on some E85, put it in race mode with the steering wheel buttons and you get it to 1270 wheel. Weighs only 1270 Kilos wet. That's the magic One:1 power to weight ratio here. The only visual thing I changed on the interior is the tachometer, replaced with a digital one that goes 0,2,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Despite being a round screen with different numbers, the design of the tach is just like it used to be. And the entire panel covering the engine can be taken off and put on the ground just like a LeMans Hypercar." I say.
"I was kinda sceptical at first but... It doesn't seem so bad now... Keep it turned off and people won't be able to tell what kind of abomination it is on the inside. So when are you taking it out on the roads?" Catalina replies, still being a bit iffy.
"Oh there will be worse versions coming. And I'm taking it out on the streets tonight. But I won't properly reveal it until 2023. Until then, I'll keep trolling some of the best racers by crashing into their races out of nowhere and beating them or at least keeping up with them, have a bit of an urban legend go round town about the "mystery car" before I properly reveal it tomorrow night at 12:00 AM by pulling upto that long beach car meetup."
"Damn bro's got marketing strategy for a product that ain't in production. But... Did you really have to go out your way to remove the electric batteries? The very thing that made the 918, a 918?" Kozo asks.
"The thing that made it the car it is was the All wheel drive, the superior low speed handling and traction from the AWD and rear wheel steering. I haven't removed any of those have I? Besides, you bastardized a Huayra BC too haven't you? I mean when is the last time Pagani's made a hybrid?"
"What they make is naturally aspirated cars, engines that that sound legendary. I didn't go out of my way to add turbos and ruin the sound did I? I wanted it to be faster and have more power without changing the sound. So AWD drivetrain and hybrid." Kozo replies.
"And added straight cut DCT gears that overpower the engine sound most of the time. So much for not ruining the sound. Oh And you gave it an AWD drivetrain for that icing on the cake."
"Yea that's a fair point I guess. But as for the AWD, I need speed"
"And I don't ruin all my cars either do I? My LFA? Bone-stock unlike Aki's LFA to which he gave a 6 speed manual to, modding it would be a crime against the world. My '22 Civic SI? Stock as well, an economy car. Just like Honda intended. So anyways I'm gonna take the 918 around the airfield, get the suspensions and tires properly set up."
"You do know how shit the transmission feels in the LFA, right?" Aki says.
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After all that's been done, we all go back home for a while. And now I'm just laying in my couch, scrolling through the Florida's Street racing twitter, waiting for some people to start racing. And after a while at 9:30 PM, I see some people... A lot of people talking about starting to race. So I get off my ass and pick up my Porsche 918 keys. Walk downstairs and into my small two car garage, where I used to keep my dark blue LFA and my Nissan 240z with the 22' Civic Si being parked by the side of the road. So it feels a bit weird to see the 918 take over the spot of my Lexus. And even more weird to see the LFA being... parked by the side of the road behind the Si with no roof over it. I guess I should park it out at our base.
So anyways, I decide to unlock the Porsche and get in. Insert the key on the left side of the interior and crank it up. It definitely feels weird using my left hand to spin a car key. And drive over to Blackwood Heights' mountain pass. Which is the perfect road to be racing on. It's a one-way toll road, and the road does a perfect loop just like a circuit. With plenty of other roads that lead onto many parking lots. it's basically the most popular spot for street racing here.
I arrive there, go through the toll as I get greeted with a car meetup going on the parking lot by the side, I try not to get seen. It has the atmosphere of a proper racetrack. With this place being the paddock and the loop of that 18 kilometer long 1 way twisty road being the circuit itself. One you enter it, there's no going out til you've done the full 18 kilometer long lap. I could've came here earlier during the day but playing the mysterious racer at night is much more exciting.
It's also quite easy to merge into that "circuit" because this paddock like area is just like a pit lane, giving you plenty of space to merge in and out onto the track. And so I get onto the track. Which also has plenty of small parking lots to pull over at by the side of the road.
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As I put my foot down and already start catching upto the cars up front of what looks to be a 3 way battle with a Subaru BRZ at the back, a blue Nissan 350z that sounds and looks bone-stock with a 4 door R34 Skyline GT-T on the lead. I instantly catch up to them and stay behind on the straight, Before passing all three of them with an outside line on a medium speed turn. Yeah I wanted to flex my superior handling just to rub it in instead of just flexing my superior horsepower.
I keep driving and see Aki in his turbo V10 powered "Ferrari" 488 Pista which has no Ferrari badges in sight followed by Kozo Hoshino's white Huayra BC Hybrid with Catalina in her... 2018 Honda CB1000R on the lead? Probably the first time I've seen her racing that Honda.
And since my radio comms was turned on, I get joined to to their voice chat.
"Hey Tyler." Says Kozo.
"Should we really be talking over the radio? If people listen in and my plan gets kinda ruined."
"Maybe we shouldn't speak but... You want those rumors to start rolling right? Keep up with us when we're in our best cars, when people see us struggling against that 918 of yours they'll start spreading the word."
"Yea people would figure out. The one day I don't hang out with the Midnight Club is the day that that 918 Spyder Conveniently appears onto the street scene" I say before muting my mic.
"Yeah I might as well pull over, no way I'm keeping up with you guys in my CB1000R. I should've brought my V10 Murciélago SV out here instead." Catalina says as she gives way.
And so, I speed up and catch up to Aki and Kozo, And I keep up with them really well. On the next corner, I go for the overtake on Kozo. I fake an outside line, Kozo goes slightly to the outside to defend and then I quickly switch to the inside of the corner getting right by Kozo's door. There's Udo Roth that just caught up to us from the back and he watches as my 918 get right besides Kozo's Huayra.
Udo also tries to join in with his Ferrari GT3 car, the same car he used to hold the world record of Cloudsbank uphill for a year before Kozo broke the record earlier today. Udo catches up to us, and is just as fast as us on the corners. By looking at how the 918 moved and sounded, he instantly realized that it's not a normal Porsche 918 Spyder. He tries to get closer to get a look at the driver but as we exit the corner and head onto a straight, we start pulling away from him in his Ferrari GT3 car.
After that, we keep driving for a few more laps, triggering the best cars and drivers with my Porsche 918 Spyder but... The engine starts heating up really fast forcing me to get onto the paddock and get out of the toll road. There is plenty of people at the paddock, waiting to see what this car is all about but I try my best to not be seen in which I succeed. I ain't revealing this thing or it's driver until 2023 rolls around tomorrow.
I go straight to the base and onto the hangar to see what's wrong, make some tweaks to the car to make sure it's reliable enough. I check out the Discord server and what do you know, the Mysterious driver in their weird Porsche 918 is the topic of the day. So I make a Twitter account named guy918 where I claim to be the 918's driver and upload some recordings of me silently driving the 918.
And I'm not going home until I pull a few more stunts. I go onto the empty highway with my head mounted camera at 2 in the morning, and go onto outrun everyone there before going for a top speed run where I hit 375 KMH. If I try hard enough, I might just hit the 400 mark. And before I went to bed, I send a tweet on guy918 saying I'll make a proper reveal on the midnight of the new year.