Porsche has confirmed in its house magazine Christophorus that the long-awaited production version of the 918 Spyder hybrid will only premiere at the 2013 Frankfurt auto show.
That means most of the customers who've already paid for their 918s will have to wait until 2014 before they take delivery - which will cause a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but fear not, Spyderisti, we think the wait will be worth while.
You see, instead of the 3.4-litre engine that graced the 918 concept we saw at the 2010 Geneva show, the production cars will have the 4.6-litre V8 from the RS Spyder LM2 racing car, with forged lightweight pistons, a higher compression ratio, a variable-pressure composite oil pump and scavenge pump and a central oil feed to the crankshaft.
It will also be the first Porsche ever with variable valve timing, all of which will muscle-up the LM2 V8 to an intimidating 410kW, not to mention the three (count them, three) electric motors that will bring total output to 537kW - good enough, we reckon, to spank any production hybrid on the face of the planet.