Since its inception in the 1960s, the Porsche 911 has always adopted a rear-engine layout, and the 992 next-generation model will be no different. There have been a few exceptions, however. Back in the 1990s, Porsche built the road-going 911 GT1 Stra?enversion for homologation purposes, which featured a mid-mounted engine for the first time ever in a 911. More recently, the 911 RSR also broke the tradition with a mid-engine layout, but it’s restricted to the racetrack. Could it be applied to a road-going 911 again one day?
Purists probably won’t be happy, but Porsche hasn’t ruled out the possibility. “There is nothing coming soon, but in the mid-term don’t rule it out,” Andreas Preuninger, the boss of Porsche’s GT car development, told Autocar in an interview last year. “I think that adding some excitement to the car in this way wouldn’t be bad.”
Since then, render artist Rain Prisk imagined what a hypothetical mid-engined 911 could look like.
The design takes its cues from the upcoming Taycan electric sedan and also features a massive rear wing that looks like it belongs on the track-focused GT3 RS. Unlike traditional rear-engined 911s, the hypothetical mid-engined 911 no longer has a 2+2 seating layout and has been turned into a pure two-seater sports car. The resulting design looks like a cross between a Porsche and McLaren, but Porsche’s current design language lends itself well to a mid-engine layout. Time will tell if Porsche ever decides to produce a road-going successor to the GT1.
