You are probably familiar with the McLaren P1, the insanely fast $1.56 million dollar hypercar that none of us will ever get a chance to drive, but what if we told you that the real P1 is a lot older and probably worth a lot more money? In 1989, Ferdinand Porsche designed the vehicle above: the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton, also known as the P1. The unrestored ride was unveiled recently at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany after sitting in a warehouse since 1902.
Porsche built the 3hp ride when he was 23 years old while he was working for the Lohner carriage company. According to the Porsche Museum, it used shock absorbers to protect the suspended electric motor, a single-speed differential to transfer power, a 12-speed controller, and 500-kg batteries that ran the "car" for three to five hours. A year after creating the P1, Porsche became Lohner's chief designer and later went on to build the company and iconic vehicles that we are all familiar with.
