Video: Jay Leno's Guided Tour Of The Porsche 918 Spyder

Richard Read

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Richard Read covers technology, social media, advertising, legal issues, and other auto industry topics for High Gear Media. With a background in... More

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Jay Leno gets a tour of the Porsche 918 spyder

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Here at High Gear Media, we've talked a lot about the stunning Porsche 918 spyder. Most recently, we learned that it's officially making the leap from concept to production, and it's going to be more powerful than expected. Yesterday, we saw Jay Leno and Arnold Schwarzenegger smitten by the supercar's steering wheel (well, sort of), and today, we've stumbled across an in-depth video tour of the 918, brought to us by none other than Leno himself.

Leno isn't just a car guy, and he isn't just an entertainer: thanks to his highly popular website, Jay Leno's Garage, he's also a social media phenomenon. So, it was only natural that when Porsche brought the 918 out to play at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, the automaker carved out some time for Leno to meet the car's chief designer, Michael Mauer.

Here's a clip of that rendez-vous, with a fairly thorough rundown of the 918's capabilities. (And since the 918 is a hybrid, with a big battery pack and a luscious V8 engine, those capabilities are pretty impressive.) Thrown in among all the chatter about horsepower and miles-per-gallon, there's an interesting moment about two minutes in (6:30 left on the clock), when Leno disses electric rides that "cost more than a gas car, they go 50 or 60 miles". Is that a dig at Nissan? MINI? And how, exactly, does Leno feel about the 918's $630,000 price tag, which is a good 20 times the cost of "a gas car"? We suppose those questions will have to wait.

[JayLeno'sGarage via Autoblog]