1-of-1 Street-Legal Porsche 963 RSP Hypercar Teased

Porsche’s First True Exotic Car Since The 918 Spyder

963 RSP, the badge says it all. This upcoming Porsche hypercar, thankfully, isn’t a concept, but a street-legal Le Mans prototype, and it’s real. Last month, during the 50-year celebration of the street-legal 917, the German sports car maker teased us with the silhouette of what appeared to be a 963, which Porsche said was coming in June, coinciding with this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Well, that is this car, and Porsche has dropped yet another teaser with a few more details and the name, of course, 963 RSP.

In the video, we can see carbon-fiber panels being wet-sanded by hand, alcantara for the interior being stitched with surgical precision, and a painter lying down what appears to be a can of silver paint, and a classic Porsche crest on the nose. At the end of the teaser, ‘963 RSP’.

1 of 7

- +

A red, black, and white Porsche 963 RSP exotic car is on display with people in the background; below is a dark silhouette of a similar car.

A person uses a spray paint gun to apply paint to a surface, with part of an exotic Porsche 963 RSP partially visible in the foreground. The image is in grayscale.

Close-up of illuminated "959" badge and thin horizontal light strip on the dark, exotic surface of a Porsche 963 RSP.

A person uses an electric sander to smooth the surface of a carbon fiber material, preparing it for use in an exotic car like the Porsche 963 RSP.

Silhouette of an exotic race car with a large rear wing, reminiscent of the Porsche 963 RSP, set against a gradient dark background.

Three high-performance exotic cars are shown: a silver 918 Spyder in the upper image, a white coupe in the lower left, and a black coupe in the lower right, each photographed in studio settings.

Now we know that RS stands for RennSport in German, which translates to Racing Sport, but we’re still unsure about the ‘P’. Perhaps it stands for prototype, we don’t know just yet? But what we do know is that the RSP is not a homologation special like the 911 GT1 Straßenversion of the late ‘90s, a race car that was tamed enough to wear license plates.

Unfortunately, for Porsche fans who were hoping for a McLaren W1 or Ferrari F80 contender, this is not the start of a series. Instead, it is a one-off street-legal car built around the 963 LMDh, Porsche’s current top-tier endurance racer that taakes part in WEC and IMSA and features an 800-volt hybrid system and a heavily re-worked 4.6-liter V8 that can trace its roots to the 918 Spyder.

Given that this is a low-slung, wide-tracked racer with little to no ground clearance and requires a pit crew to operate, it’ll be interesting to see what changes Porsche has carried out to make it compliant and usable for street use. Besides lights and turn signals, the car would require a completely reworked exhaust system to comply with current emissions regulations and athe powerplant would have to be recalibrated for road use.

But regardless, even if this is indeed a one-off, the fact that we’re finally getting to see a Porsche exotic at all in over a decade is worth celebrating. The Porsche 919 Street concept and the Mission X concept gave us hope, but the 963 RSP is finally happening, and we can’t wait to see what Porsche has in store in June. Watch this space.

View All Porsches For Sale