Early this morning an unnamed Porsche engineer died after losing control of a prototype Porsche 911 on the A5 Autobahn in Germany. Porsche spokesman Dirk Erat told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (or FAZ) that the 51-year-old engineer, “was one of the most experienced test drivers” and has been employed by Porsche for 25 years.

The unnamed engineer apparently lost control of the vehicle at a high rate of speed and slammed into a guard rail at approximately 2:45 a.m. The location of the crash is between Frankfurt and Heidelberg on a stretch of road where there is no speed limit.

Porsche says that the accident was not as a result of a high speed test but rather that the company was putting the car through endurance testing in which three different drivers piloted the car around-the-clock. The company did confirm that the vehicle was a next-generation 911 Cabriolet, known as the 991.

[Source: MotorAuthority & Ynetnews]