Porsche news: 4,100 Jobs Lost, But Here’s a Flat-Eight Hypercar and maybe a virtual Manual Transmission.

The Porsche 919 Street Concept

Porsche appears to have discovered the automotive equivalent of having one foot on the accelerator and the other firmly planted on the brake.

On one hand, the sports-car manufacturer is apparently facing the possibility of another 4,100 job cuts as part of Volkswagen’s ongoing financial and structural “transformation”. This follows Porsche’s previously announced plan to reduce its workforce by around 9,000 people.

That’s an awful lot of people to tell that their particular contribution to the Porsche experience is no longer required.

Porsche CEO Michael Leiters has, however, denied the latest report in an internal memo to employees, so perhaps the corporate chainsaw has been temporarily returned to the toolbox.

And then, just when you might think Porsche has decided that sensible financial management is the order of the day, along comes the other story.

Apparently, Porsche could be developing a new hypercar, internally codenamed S1, powered by something rather wonderful: a flat-eight engine.

Because obviously, when a company is trying to cut costs, rationalise its model range and shed thousands of employees, the obvious solution is to develop an entirely new eight-cylinder hypercar. Obvious right?

But this isn’t just another engine with two extra cylinders bolted on for the sake of it. Porsche has never put a flat-eight into a production road car, making the proposed S1 a rather special proposition.

The idea isn’t entirely new. Porsche publicly discussed a flat-eight supercar engine earlier this decade, but that project, based around a Cayman chassis, was eventually abandoned. A flat 8 Cayman?  They would probably have to name it the Widow Maker!

Interestingly, the S1 name itself has previous form. More than 25 years ago, reports suggested Porsche was preparing a halo car carrying the same name and powered by a V8. What eventually arrived was the Carrera GT, complete with a magnificent Le Mans-derived V10 instead.

So, two apparently unrelated Porsche stories.

One concerns jobs, costs and corporate restructuring. The other concerns an exotic flat-eight hypercar that almost certainly won’t make anyone’s spreadsheet look better.

Perhaps that’s Porsche’s secret to surviving difficult times.

Cut the workforce, slash the costs… and build something utterly bonkers.

Frankly, I’d rather have the flat-eight.

Oh and according to the European Patent office Porsche are also developing a virual manual transmission, a bit like the idea Ferrari came up with in the 12Cilindri Manual.