The Porsche Boxster Bergspyder Came Agonisingly Close To Production

It turns out the ultimate Boxster is not the lightweight, 991 Carrera S flat-six-powered Spyder. A few years ago, Porsche was mulling over something much more extreme.

It was called the Boxster Bergspyder, a car inspired by and taking the name of the 909 Bergspyder, Porsche’s lightest ever competition car which tipped the scales at a scarcely believable 385kg.

The Boxster Bergspyder had no roof, no door handles and only one seat. It didn’t have a proper windscreen either - merely a wind deflector like the old hill climb car. It was possible to open up the passenger door, at least, revealing a luggage compartment.

The dashboard was completely redesigned, while the car’s seats were pinched from the 918 Spyder hypercar. Initially, it had a leather cover which went from the deflector to the engine cover, handily preventing the interior from becoming a swimming pool if the Bergspyder was parked outside in bad weather. There were plans afoot to replace this with one big chunk of carbonfibre.

Power came from the 370bhp 3.8-litre naturally-aspirated flat-six used in the aforementioned second iteration of the Boxster Spyder plus the Cayman GT4. Plenty of poke for a car weighing just 1099kg. Yep, the Bergspyder is around 300kg lighter than a 981 Boxster S.

0-62mph was tipped at just over four seconds, and a 7min 30sec Nurburgring lap time was thought to be possible. None of this was for the sake of it - there was, it seems, a will to put the Boxster Bergspyder into production.

But there was a problem - in multiple markets, the chances of being able to register such a car for road use were slim. With the business case hampered the project had to be cancelled, although Porsche did get as far as building a one-off, driveable prototype.

It was displayed for a couple of years at Porsche’s Weissach development centre, before being transported to the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. The car made its first ever public appearance at the Gaisberg hillclimb this past weekend, neatly mirroring the competition debut of the 909 at the same event back in 1968.