Did you hear? Last night, Porsche showed a series hybrid vehicle (analagous to the Chevy Volt) with a radically different design from any of its latest line of hybrids.

Its pair of 1.7-liter single-cylinder engines powers a generator that flows electric power to a pair of front wheel motors, each one almost two feet in diameter.

That's the specification of the Semper Vivus, the 1900 vehicle designed by young Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche that's widely considered to be the world's first hybrid-electric vehicle.

To celebrate their new line of hybrids--the 2011 Cayenne S Hybrid sport utility and the 2012 Panamera S Hybrid four-door sedan, which was officially unveiled in the U.S. last night--Porsche executives fired up the Semper Vivus and drove their oldest hybrid across the floor to their newest.

It got them a standing ovation, too, as the video below shows.

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