**Ryan Reynolds Fires Up ‘Widowmaker’ Porsche 918 Spyder for First Time in 5 Years, Brokers Immediately Wet Themselves**
HOLLYWOOD, CA — In a move that sent shockwaves through the car community and made every mechanic within a 50-mile radius clutch their pearls, Ryan Reynolds, the human embodiment of a witty marketing campaign, has decided to resurrect his Porsche 918 Spyder from a five-year-long slumber. Yes, the same car that famously has the nickname “Widowmaker” because it will absolutely murder you if you look at the throttle wrong. The same car that cost a cool $845,000 when new and now costs about the same as a small island nation’s GDP. The same car that has been sitting in his garage, collecting dust and existential dread, like a forgotten gym membership.
According to a video posted on his Instagram, which is basically the only place where celebrities are allowed to be funny without a PR team having a stroke, Reynolds walked into his garage, cracked his knuckles like he was about to defuse a bomb, and turned the key. The result? A glorious, mechanical roar that sounded like a demon being exorcised from a vacuum cleaner. But here’s the kicker: the car fired up on the first try. No trickle charger. No cryogenic preservation. Just a dead battery and the sheer force of Ryan Reynolds’ willpower.
Now, before you go thinking this is just another “rich guy does rich guy things” story, let me stop you. This is the most relatable thing Ryan Reynolds has done since he made that terrible Green Lantern movie and then spent the next decade apologizing for it. Because let’s be real: if you had $1.5 million dollars worth of German engineering sitting in your garage, you’d probably also forget to drive it. It’s like buying a high-end treadmill and using it as a coat rack. Relatable.
The internet, as it always does, immediately lost its collective mind. Reddit’s r/cars, a place where people argue about the merits of a 1996 Mazda Miata versus a 1998 Toyota Corolla with the ferocity of a presidential debate, exploded. The top comment? “This is the automotive equivalent of waking up a methhead from a coma and handing them a credit card.” Which, honestly, is the most accurate description of a 918 Spyder I’ve ever read. The second top comment was, “I’m not saying he’s a bad person, but he’s definitely going to crash it into a ditch full of paparazzi within the next 72 hours.”
But let’s talk about the car itself for a second. The Porsche 918 Spyder is not a car. It’s a physics-defying, carbon-fiber-wrapped, hybrid-powered, four-wheeled death wish. It has 887 horsepower, a top speed of 211 mph, and a 0-60 time that is faster than your ability to process the regret of buying a used BMW. It’s called the “Widowmaker” because, historically, high-powered, rear-engine Porsche 911s had a tendency to swap ends faster than a politician changes their stance on tax cuts. The 918, however, has all-wheel drive and a hybrid system that’s more complex than the plot of a Christopher Nolan film. It’s a car that requires a PhD in throttle control and a therapist on speed dial.
Why did Reynolds let it sit for five years? Who knows. Maybe he was busy making Deadpool sequels, buying a soccer team, or trying to figure out how to make Aviation Gin taste like anything other than a pine tree. Maybe he just forgot. I know I’ve forgotten where I parked my car at Target, and that’s a 2012 Honda Civic with a bumper sticker that says “My other car is a horse.” The man has three kids, a wife who is objectively out of his league, and a net worth that makes Scrooge McDuck look like a broke college student. He’s allowed to forget things.
The real question is: what does this mean for the rest of us? Absolutely nothing. But it’s fun to speculate. Is he going to sell it? Is he going to track it? Is he going to use it to pick up groceries and then accidentally teleport to a parallel universe? The world may never know. But the video has already spawned a thousand think-pieces, a million memes, and at least three lawsuits from insurance companies who are now terrified that their premiums are going to go up.
Of course, the car community has already split into two factions. There are the “Porsche Purists,” who are currently weeping into their overpriced coffee about how a “true enthusiast” would never let a 918 sit idle. They’re the same people who complain that the new 911 is too digital, too heavy, and too comfortable. Their opinion is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Then there are the “Realists,” who are like, “Dude, it’s a car. He’s probably busy. I haven’t driven my 2005 Ford Focus in three months because the check engine light is on and I’m scared to look at it.”
Honestly, I’m with the Realists. Let the man have his moment. Let him fire up his carbon-fiber unicorn and pretend he’s a race car driver for three minutes before he remembers he has to go to a meeting about a movie script that’s 90% fourth-wall breaks. This isn’t a crime. It’s just a rich guy doing a rich guy thing. And we’re all here for the popcorn.
The only real victims here are the brokers. You know, those guys who spend their entire existence refreshing Bring a Trailer and Hagerty valuation tools, waiting for the moment a celebrity’s garage queen hits the market so they can write a breathless article about “investment-grade assets.” They were probably halfway through drafting a headline like “Ryan Reynolds’ 918: The Holy Grail of Low-Mileage Collectibles” when the video dropped. Now they’re just sitting there, impot
Final Thoughts
After digesting the report from *Motor1*, it’s clear that the automaker is walking a tightrope between honoring its heritage and appeasing modern regulators—a balancing act that often results in a product that pleases neither purists nor pragmatists. The real takeaway here isn’t the horsepower figures or the styling cues; it’s that the soul of the machine is increasingly shaped by compliance departments rather than engineers. If this trend continues, we risk seeing another iconic nameplate diluted into a generic EV, stripped of the character that made it legendary in the first place.