Porsche Mission S Supercar Leaks, Shows 917-Style Cooling Fan

Footage of Porsche's Mission S supercar concept has leaked online, hours before the official reveal. And Porsche must be fuming twice over because the unusual camera angle shows a very special design detail that is sending classic Porsche fanboys nuts.

Porsche announced the Mission S project last week as part of its turnaround strategy, and has released a couple of teasers so far, including one showing the car from above, covered in a sheet. But a video apparently taken in New York while the car was being photographed by Porsche's official photo team gives us a much clearer idea of what to expect.

The clip shows handlers pulling off a black protective cover to reveal a mid-engined supercar with swollen fenders and an integrated hoop-style rear spoiler like a 959. They give the effect of the rear end of the car being enveloped by the fenders, and we're probably not alone in thinking it looks more than a little similar to the 911-based Marsien from Marc Philipp Gemballa. There are shades of BMW i8 in there, too.

The roof has two glass panes above the driver and passenger, and a raised central spine that could possibly be a roof snorkel, but what's going on behind that roof is far more interesting. The Mission S has a horizontally mounted cooling fan right in the middle of the rear deck. It looks like a much smaller version of the fans that were fitted to legendary racing cars like the Porsche 917 in the 1960s and 1970s.

Those cars needed their huge fans because their flat-8 and flat-12 engines were air-cooled, a technology Porsche abandoned in the 1990s due to noise regulations. But we at least know it will have an engine. Two pairs of stacked exhaust tips confirm it, and some sources suggest it could be a flat-8, though the exact configuration and layout remain unconfirmed.

But whatever kind of engine is under there, it's probably safe to assume it comes with some kind of hybrid technology like the 918 Spyder, and the 911 GTS and Turbo. We'd expect to see a couple of motors at the front to give torque vectoring capability, and maybe a third motor working with the gas engine on the rear wheels. Again, that's all unconfirmed, and although we're confident this is a genuine leak, we should also say we can't 100 percent rule out that there's AI involved.

Porsche wants to improve its profitability by making cars with higher margins, and a production version of the Mission S could be a big help. It's been referred to as a successor to the 918 Spyder hypercar, but Top Gear says it's aiming for the supercar category and will be sold in bigger volume. We'll find out more later today. The official reveal is scheduled for 16.30 ET.