Watch Jay Leno And Beau Boeckmann Drive A New ‘bb’ Porsche 911 Outfitted With A Badass Hybrid System

“In A Sea Of Re-Imagined Porsche 911s, Nothing Is As Fun As The Porsche bb-Auto Targa Hybrid,” wrote our Jason Torchinsky last summer. He’s right; the Singers and Gunther Werks of the world are cool, no doubt, but there’s just something extra wacky and fun about bb-Auto, which was founded by Rainer Buchmann, a German electronics wiz who wasn’t afraid to give some truly bizarre but innovative things a try. In that same vein, modern bb-Auto has put a Vonnen hybrid system between a ridiculously powerful Ed Pink engine and a tough Porsche G50 transmission. Here’s what Jay Leno thought when he took the bb for a spin.

Here at The Autopian, we’re always keen to champion our team, so when we saw that our cofounder Beau Boeckmann, who runs bb-Auto in North America, was on Jay Leno’s Garage, we knew we were going to share that with you, dear readers.

First, a bit about bb-Auto, which was founded by Rainer Buchmann (whom I’ve met multiple times; great guy!). Here’s a blurb about some of his aforementioned wacky electronics innovations in the 1970s, courtesy of the German 911 website/marketplace Elferspot:

At the end of the 1970s, [Buchmann’s] think tank developed a parking distance control system. Based on camera sensors from Polaroid, the distance could be determined with centimeter precision and displayed in the cockpit. A voice output was also already included. In addition, bb-Auto developed radio remote controls for the central locking system. No manufacturer (at the time) wanted to put this into series production.

bb-Auto was also the first to have a functional computer system with digital display of all relevant vehicle data and warnings in case of deviations in the program. Because of this digital information system, Volkswagen had ordered a series of 40 Polos from Buchmann. Even the multifunction steering wheel, a worldwide patented development from bb-Auto, met with rejection. Volkswagen considered the idea too expensive and feared too much distraction for the driver. Buchmann himself suspects the reasons lie elsewhere: “At the time, there was resentment among large manufacturers against anything that was not developed in-house, i.e. ‘not invented here’. That’s called the NIH-syndrome.”

The modern bb that Jay and Beau drive in the clip below is based on the famous Porsche 911 Turbo Targa, aka the Rainbow Porsche from the 1970s; Jason talks about why it’s painted the way it is:

The 1986 bb-Auto Targa Hybrid is a re-creation of a fascinating car, one originally crafted in collaboration with Polaroid for the 1976 Photokina photography show [shown in the photo below]. That’s why the car is covered in those rainbows; the rainbow was a key part of Polaroid’s logo and identity.

As you may have expected, bb Auto didn’t just slap some rainbows on it and knock off early; there’s actual Polaroid technology in this thing, in the form of ultrasonic back-up sensors taken from a Polaroid SX-70 camera, something I’ve written about before.

Of course, Rainer and bb were all about cutting-edge tech, so today’s bb builds upon that brand identity by including a Vonnen hybrid system.

“Boy you get instantaneous response; it’s actually better than a turbocharger because there’s no lag!” yells Jay Leno as he absolutely hammers the bb-Auto through the streets of Burbank.

“What I love about Jay is that he’s a driver, so you get in the car and he puts it through its paces. He wants to get the full feel of the car,” Beau told me, saying the combination of driving skill and humor makes riding passenger to Jay Leno a truly one-of-a-kind experience. “Right off the bat — bam! He’s in there and hitting it; every time I’ve been with him, he’s right off the bat; he’s a driver!” reiterated Beau.

Since so many of our readers are enginerds like I am, it’s worth talking about the Vonnen hybrid system. The small battery is up front in the frunk, somewhere in here:

And the actual hybrid motor (or “MG” — Motor Generator) is wedged between the engine and transmission, replacing the flywheel. Jay actually put the bb on a lift, and he and Beau took a look at the hardware:

That’s so classic Jay Leno. When I went to visit him a few months ago (see below), it was remarkable to learn that his love of cars is truly multifaceted — he loves the history as much as he loves the actual driving as much as he loves the engineering. That’s his thumb above pointing to the hybrid unit between the engine and transmission.

I like the idea of a hybrid system on a car like this. You can maintain the manual transmission that makes a 911 a 911, but you can bolster it with the instant torque of an electric motor.

The video above, by Alex On Autos, gets into some of the details on the Vonnen system, which adds 150 horsepower to the bb’s absurd 4.0-liter Ed Pink engine (more on that soon). You can see Alex holding the unit here; it’s not very large:

The reason why it’s such an odd shape is that it has to match up with the bell housing bolts-hole locations:

The way I understand it, the round central disk (which bolts to the engine’s crankshaft, replacing the flywheel), is the rotor of an electric motor, while the stator is in the outside piece. By holding the stator fixed to the transmission bell housing, the rotor can generate a torque that – in addition to whatever torque the Ed Pink air-cooled flat-six is making — gets transmitted through the clutch disk into the transmission and ultimately to the rear wheels.

Autoblog dug into the Vonnen Shadow Drive system a while back, writing:

Rated at 1 kilowatt-hour, the Vonnen’s battery capacity is about the same as that of a Prius. But that’s where the similarity ends. Moreland says this battery is optimized for power density instead of energy density, and so it can deploy or absorb electricity at a healthy 110 kilowatts. He wouldn’t divulge many details, other than to say it uses a proprietary lithium-based chemistry of a sort that isn’t susceptible to thermal runaway and is the single most expensive part of the system. This pricey piece is sandwiched between two liquid-cooled “cold plates” and occupies the bottom half of the frunk, leaving enough room above for one roller bag laying crossways.

All three of these main components generate copious heat, so Vonnen adds two cooling circuits, each with its own bumper-mounted heat exchanger mounted behind the standard Porsche radiators. One circuit handles the battery and the other takes care of the MG unit and the power inverter. The final main component is a virtual one: the Vonnen smartphone app. This must be running at all times, as it displays system status and allows the driver to select from three operational modes via a live Bluetooth connection to the VCU.

The Autoblog story continues:

The first thing they do is remove the engine and transmission, and separate them. The flywheel and starter are removed because the MG unit serves both functions. But the motor’s rotating elements weigh far less than the flywheel, so a supplemental inertia disc is bolted to it. This extra disc also replicates the external flywheel teeth the engine’s crank angle sensor needs to function normally.

The MG is 2.75 inches thick, but it only jacks the motor and transmission apart by an inch because much of it protrudes into the transmission bellhousing. The engine and its mounts remain in the stock location, so it is the transmission that must move forward. One of its mounts can be modified and reused, but the other is replaced with a Vonnen-designed substitute. The drive flanges scoot 1 inch forward, but Moreland says the CV joints can easily cope with this, and that’s still the case if you also run a 1-inch suspension lowering kit.

It’s fascinating stuff! Also fascinating is the Ed Pink engine found in the bb. Ed Pink is an absolute legend in the world of racing engines, and — fun fact, as Beau notes — his late uncle Paul founded the world-famous Pinks Hot Dogs back in 1939.

Hot Rod has a whole piece on Ed Pink here; here’s a good quote from that article:

Drag racing was raking in the crowds and new racers. Ed needed to attract a much larger pool of customers who were already racing with competitors’ engines and get them to switch over to his. “I decided the best way to do this would be to get a dragster again and go race against them to prove they needed to be in my stable, not someplace else.”

[…]

The 1965 U.S. Fuel and Gas Championship were where an astounding 128 Top Fuel cars had assembled when Ed and Snively arrived to do battle. Only 64 of the 128 dragsters were able to run on Saturday. “We were one of the 64 cars and we got down to the last round on Saturday, which I think we ran six or seven rounds. We were going to race Don Garlits and my engine wouldn’t start. Garlits made a solo run to win.

“We came back Sunday. There were 32 of the quickest Top Fuel cars from Saturday, which we were one of them who returned. We got down to the last round on Sunday and raced Garlits again and he beat us.” (The next weekend was the big Championship Race in Fremont where Snively beat Garlits in the last round.)

The Old Master ran with the same engine both days at Bakersfield and never had the heads off. After that meet every racer and fan had “Think Pink” on their minds. “That dragster was the turning point in my business. People saw how well it ran, plus the engine never came apart in between rounds. I started getting an influx of business, in fact I got so much business, I had to sell the car. I only raced it for two years.”

Ed Pink is a legend, so to have his motor in any car is just cool. Here’s the one in the bb Leno and Beau drove:

And here it is in the car:

I should be driving the bb here fairly soon; I’m pretty pumped. The idea of a 400-ish horsepower flat six and a 150 horsepower boost from a hybrid system — all transmitted through a stick shift — just sounds epic.

Expect a video from us soon!