There’s a lady with a walkie-talkie employed by Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway to sit in a tower above the track’s uphill straight and use an instrument to measure the noise levels of passing race-cars below. It’s all part of ensuring a certain decibel limit isn’t exceeded, and that the noise-pollution gods (and nearby residents) remain happy.

So, I’m with Richard Hull, a Porsche Driving Instructor, getting some pro tips ahead of a blast of the new Porsche 918 Spyder around the circuit. And while I’m listening to him tell me how to use the gear shifter, how to switch from the 918’s E-Power mode to Race Hybrid mode once we’re out of the pits, and how it’s probably faster to just leave it in full Drive than to paddle-shift, he mentioned something, apparently, about “takin ‘er a little easy” near this sound control lady’s tower, so she wouldn’t get upset.

This is the new big Porsche. Not Turbo S big, no. Performance wise, this 918 Spyder would rip up a 911 Turbo S and leave it looking like a Tyrannosaurus used it for a chew toy. It also costs as much as four of them. The 918 Spyder is a supercar, and a very big-deal of a rig that forms a sort of technological gene pool from which future products will draw.

2015 Porsche 918 Spyder, dashboard. Click image to enlarge

And though it’s a plug-in hybrid that you can juice from the same outlet you plug your weed-whacker into, this thing’s loud. Loud and fast and extremely expensive. So much so that when you walk up to the swooping carbon-fibre-reinforced shell stuffed with racing seats and batteries and this really next-level bit of tech bolted beneath, recalling the numbers in your mind causes nervous pang in your stomach. 887 horsepower. No less than US$845,000. The better part of a thousand lb-ft of torque. A thousand. And that’s the sort of right-now torque generated in part by a pair of electric motors, so there’s lots of it, everywhere, all the time.

But it’s loud. Loud, loud, loud. Even accelerating on electrons only out of pit lane in E-Power mode, the car leaps forward with alarming urgency when the throttle is pressed. And, in the same way a sports car shows off the sound of its engine, the 918 Spyder proudly floods the cabin full of noises from the electric propulsion system in the form of clicks and whining and whirring away as electricity is generated, stored, and dispensed to all four wheels at the driver’s command. It’s the sort of high-tech aural symphony you’d expect to hear in the engine room of the USS Enterprise – especially during regenerative braking. This isn’t one of those ghostly quiet hybrids.

There’s a drive-mode dial on the steering wheel, similar to the picture-mode dial you’ll find on a digital SLR camera. Race Hybrid mode comes online with a two-click twist, firing up the 4.6L V8 the instant the dial sets into its detent. It’s abrupt and instant and nearly startling as it barks loudly to life and settles into a quivering and uptight idle, waiting for further instructions from the throttle.

Should that instruction be one of the full-throttle variety, there’s a horrifying reaction. With on-demand all-rpm electric torque boosting the high-strung thrust of the 9,100-rpm V8, acceleration is truly instant, and violent in intensity. There’s no building up to a power peak: the 918 Spyder just leaps forward with immediate ferocity. Fighter jets accelerate this fast, I think. You picture a sort of invisible pulley system attaching the front of the 918 Spyder to some point far in the distance via the throttle pedal. Push it down, and you’re there, right away. God, it’s fast.

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And that’s accompanied by a jagged growl-turned-wail from the combustion engine, which sends spent gasses out of a mere foot-long exhaust system with a pair of tailpipes that exit the top of the engine cover, almost vertically, and send the sound straight up into the air, right towards sound-lady’s tower, while I hauled the 918 Spyder towards the crest of the uphill climb at the back of the track in second gear, doing about 8,500 rpm, with my foot to the floor.

Hopefully, sound-lady was on lunch somewhere far away – because I was thinking so much about lifting the throttle that I forgot to lift the throttle. I’d know if sound-lady’s instrument had heard me when I pitted a few laps later.

The brakes are as massive as the acceleration, and lack much the typical spongy, inconsistent feel delivered by hybrid brake systems as I know them. Braking capabilities with the ceramic rotors and monstrous, fluorescent green calipers are absolutely crushing – and the pedal tells you that with decent feel. You’d go through the seatbelt if it were any thinner. You can hear the braking too, via the collection of noises generated as the regeneration componentry converts some of the braking force (all of it in less urgent stops) back into electricity stored for future blasts of acceleration that would coax sequential F-bombs out of your church-going grandmother.

2015 Porsche 918 Spyder wheel, steering wheel, gauges. Click image to enlarge

But beyond the rule-violating sound and rocket-thruster levels of forward acceleration, this big super-Porsche is super-flattering to drive. Though the numbers, pricing and especially acceleration and cornering G’s are among the most intimidating you’ll find in something with four wheels and a warranty, the driving experience isn’t.

The steering ratio and effort and feel are not unlike a Boxster or Cayman – direct, smooth, quick and tidy without being hyperactive or nervous. Gentle and smooth inputs are rewarded, meaning less stress on the driver. Handling limits are too high for anyone other than veteran racing drivers to exploit fully, though as mid-engine Porsches tend to be, the 918 Spyder feels like a forgiving, flattering and supportive partner, with a sense that each system is carefully calibrated against all of the others.

That’s part of the Porsche mid-engine magic. Whether it’s a Cayman, Boxster or this new 918 Spyder, the underlying sensation is one of expert tuning of its driving dynamics towards performance that’s easy to tap into for drivers of virtually any skill level. You might say the 918 Spyder feels sort of like a Boxster or Cayman to drive hard – just with a far higher level of speed, grip, braking and handling.

And after a few hot laps, stepping back out over the wide carbon-fibre door sills for the first and, likely, last time, your writer felt strangely fine. I’d imagined a fight, struggle, numerous startling moments and exhaustion, and instead found an experience that backs drivers up with an overall sense that they’re not fighting with the car, but that they’re working in sync with it. So, this big-dollar, big-power supercar should prove surprisingly easy to access, performance-wise, for the 918 lucky folks who will get to own one.

2015 Porsche 918 Spyder, exhaust. Click image to enlarge

If you’d like to be one of them, make tracks to your local Porsche dealer with the $200,000 deposit ASAP – as at writing, much of the scheduled production had already been spoken for.

Hull walked up. “You forgot to back off, didn’t you?” he asked.

Before I could explain about how I figured the torque flat-spotted my brain a little and caused me to forget, he held up his walkie-talkie. It was the sound lady.