Notice all the 928 videos on YouTube?

No I haven't. But I love the car, especially the S4. I even have a story about one I got to drive once.

The 928 was just so...different. Not only was it unlike any other Porsche, but it was unlike any other vehicle. Headlights that lay down, rear mounted gearbox, De Dion rear axle, a hatchback, a smorgasbord of features.

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Almost any vehicle Germans make is...different.

From the Bf-109 in WWII, to the VW Beetle...the Porsche 911...BMW motorcycles...outside-the-box engineering is the norm.

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Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins

Back in the early eighties, I thought there was nothing cooler looking than a 928. Then I had a friend that bought two of them non-running and spent three fortunes and they still weren't running.

He got rid of them and said "never again"...After several years, I think he ended up buying a basic 912 at the big car show in Chilhowee park in Knoxville TN.

Who’s the U Boat commander?

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213th FBINA

That's just on your feed.


I liked 928s until the dealership I worked at got one in on trade. For a 40K mile car it had all kinds of issues. Then, I drove it - yeah, no. It was a 5.0 stick - what a dog!

That car and a BMW 750, also on trade, soured me on euro cars.

When euro cars are new, or have issues sorted, they're great cars! But as they age, and/or out of warranty, they're expensive maintenance pigs. No, thanks.

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Thread Killer.

Folks have done some small block Chev swaps into them, eliminating a bunch of issues.....still not going to be buying one. Cool Looking cars though...

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Even older, even crankier....

Oh yes. Get a good one and you're golden. Get a dog, and it's a money pit.

There's an episode of British Top Gear where Jeremy and Richard both bought flash German cars for the price of a cheap, new hatchback, about 7,000 Sterling. Richard got either an BMW 840 or 850, while Jeremy got a Merc CL 65. Their cars seemed to run fine, but James (AKA Captain Slow and Sensible) bet them both at the end of the show that one or both would require some major work within a week. It was Jeremy's Merc that went wrong, and it was beaucoup bucks to fix.

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Back in the 1980's I belonged to a Corvette club in CT. One of the members owned a 928 as well as a corvette. The club used to put on autocross meets, and one time he brought his Porsche. Pretty much any competent driver in a corvette beat his times. Looked kind of cool though. A couple guys had 944's, and they did better at avoiding cones; gave some of the corvette guys a good run.

Larry

I expect I was bored to tears for me to watch Risky Business. Two scenes I'll never forget was when all the techs gathered 'round the lift with buckets when they opened the doors (all the water and fish falling out) and the service dude (in the obligatory white coat) going into the waiting room and delivering the U boat commander line.

I recall in college being horrified when I found out the E type Jaguar on campus had a Chevy small block. When I later owned a Triumph Spitfire, I understood.

I drove a 1985 928 for about 3 years.
I seized it from a drug dealer and used it as an undercover car.
Interesting machine.

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John

There's a whole lot of truth in that, with the operative word "different" not always meaning better!

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

People put small block Chevies in everything, including motorcycles, lawn mowers, snow blowers and even chain saws. They are plentiful, cheap, easy to work on and if you kill it, you aren't out much, comparatively speaking.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Back in 1965 we put a hot .327 Chevy in a Austin Healey. No traction till you got up to about 50. Easy to do a wheel stand in! Was more dangerous than fun to drive!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I had a friend who put one in a Corvair. Problem was, he ended up with four speeds in reverse and one forward because the engine ran in the opposite direction.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

The 928 was the only Porche I thought looked good. The 911s do nothing for me.

Took a prom date out in her daddy's 928 many moons ago. Date and 928 were both fun. Was a big car for a Porsche.

Knew another girl who drove a 944 turbo and that was even more fun in my opinion.

Since then, have had several cars that would handily beat the pants off either of those old Porsches for far less expense and maintenance.

I always found those old Triumph pushrod motors quite robust in its variants up to 1300cc. I have no experience of the 1500cc motor with its long stroke, nor the emission hobbled US version. Many of my generation in England learned in Triumph Heralds and owned them and Spitfires later. If we couldn't kill them, nobody could. Now, synchronizing the twin carbs could be a game for the impatient, but I had an airflow measuring gadget that made it dead easy.

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The 928 was originally scheduled to replace the 911, until the plan was changed by Peter Schultz, who was born in Germany in 1930, and emigrated to America in 1939 when his Jewish parents left to avoid the Nazi's. Very interesting fellow, ran Caterpillar for a while among other accomplishments, and became CEO of Porsche in 1981. Here's his recollection (from Wikipedia) of the meeting that saved the 911:

The decision to keep the 911 in the product line occurred one afternoon in the office of Dr. Helmuth Bott [de], the Porsche operating board member responsible for all engineering and development. I noticed a chart on the wall of Professor Bott's office. It depicted the ongoing development schedules for the three primary Porsche product lines: 944, 928 and 911. Two of them stretched far into the future, but the 911 program stopped at the end of 1981. I remember rising from my chair, walking over to the chart, taking a black marker pen, and extending the 911 program bar clean off the chart. I am sure I heard a silent cheer from Professor Bott, and I knew I had done the right thing. The Porsche 911, the company icon, had been saved, and I believe the company was saved with it.[18]

If they had depended on the 944 and 928 they surely would have sunk....

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Even older, even crankier....

OOPS! Minor design oversight!

I had a buddy in high school who put a 327 small block in a Vega coupe. He also put wheelie bars on it - because it NEEDED them to keep from dragging the rear bumper every time the front wheels came off the ground.

Something that happened with almost alarming frequency...

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LOL, I feel just the opposite.

The 911 shape always looked great to me - from the original long-nose version right up to the whale-tail Targas.

The 928? Meh. My wife described what they looked like from the the rear as resembling "a woman who's hips are too wide".

I actually thought the 924/944 was more attractive than the 928.

JMO and YMMV...

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I bought a new one in 1984. Loved the car...until it became summer in Dallas. None of the European cars knew how to build an ac unit for hot weather. Finally sold it in 1988, took a beating. There was no market for used 928s.

Happened oten in rural Tennessee...I had a 72 Vega and a 76 vega...A now deceased acquaintance put an Oldsmobile 350 Rocket in a 1973 Vega...i would barely clear a speed bump at 2mph without scraping, but it ran well...I remember the price he wanted for the car was $400

A friend of mine LS swapped his 944. He's a retired automotive professor.

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'Merica!

"If they had depended on the 944 and 928 they surely would have sunk...."

They almost went bankrupt anyway, it doesn't matter how good or desirable your product may be, if you're not making a profit you won't stay in business. Porsche had to get some help from the Japanese production experts:

https://theageqld.wixsite.com/autoth...f%20production.

It's a good article with lessons for any company.

"The 928? Meh. My wife described what they looked like from the the rear as resembling "a woman who's hips are too wide"."

Not possible.

As a proud owner of a 1500 Spit, I can honestly say British cars need you, more than you need them.

So you like 'em "wide abeam" eh?

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Regrettably, I can understand this. IIRC the 944 and the 928 both used aluminum blocks with some fancy coating to create the wear surfaces in the bores. Once that coating went south, the motor was toast. The name Nikasil springs to mind.

Loved the looks of the 944 and its successor, the 968. They were less fussy than the 928 and not as bulky.

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Waaaaay above my pay grade.

You are 100% correct about the name of the coating.

Nikasil was an "atomized" nickel-silicon spray coating applied to the inside of aluminum cylinder bores of Porsche engines - in order to make the wear-surfaces of the cylinders harder and more durable than plain, un-treated aluminum cylinder blocks (like the early Vega/Pinto engines).

When applied by the factory to an OEM-built engine, the Nikasil cylinder coatings were great. Unfortunately, the coating was nearly impossible to reproduce outside the factory, which meant that rebuilding an aluminum-blocked engine that relied on the Nikasil coating process, was an exercise in futility. Because they wouldn't hold up long-term after being rebuilt.

So basically, they were a great "one off" solution to the problems inherent in building an all-aluminum (light weight) engine. IIRC, Porsche eventually offered replacement steel cylinder "jugs" for the engines with aluminum Nikasil cylinders.

FWIW, a similar solution was eventually implemented to make the Vega/Pinto aluminum-block engines rebuildable. The solution was to install thin, steel, cylinder "sleeves" into the aluminum engine blocks.

With steel cylinder sleeves the Porsche, Vega, and Pinto motors became both reliable and rebuildable.

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A quick search on the Internet revealed alloy block motors with no mention of liners on today's market. I guess most, if not all, those engines are not considered suitable for rebuild, unless there is some clever way of getting liners in there..

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… and Fords.

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213th FBINA

At one time sticking a Corvair engine in a Karman Ghia was a thing. IIRC, one had to flop the ring gear to the other side of the differential casing to get it to work. Possibly custom ring & pinion.

The problem with those carbs (can't recall the brand) was the steel throttle plate rods in a pot metal body. The rod bores wore unevenly and made fussing with the carbs almost a weekly thing to do. Then I ran across an ad for a kit with a drill bit and 4 brass bushings for $10 that solved the problem-with a wee dab of Loc-Tite.

Triumph used Stromberg carbs, which were SU carbs with added complications, maybe to avoid patent infringement. The SU is the Kalashnikov of carburetors for me. No accelerator pumps, vacuum driven secondaries or other frippery.

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That reminds me of a carb I had on a 1970 HD XLCH....It had a huge rubber mount and the carb was made by "Mikuni"...I think it was a gravity downdraft style carb.....It actually worked really well until the rubber mount split and allowed air behind the carb. This was due to the standard HD vibration of the time.

Yeah, I should have been more specific.
Ford and Chevy didn't sleeve them, but some aftermarket rebuilders did back in the 1970's

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Sho enuf, they do:

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SU!!!!!! Well, I thought the vacuum controlled fuel metering rods were strange. Weird to watch the cap on the carb go up and down as you exercised the throttle. Setting the distributor advance was also, ah, different.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friends all have Porches, I must make amends.

My first car was a '61 Triumph TR3, it had the 1991cc converted tractor engine with wet cylinder liners as I recall. I knew next to nothing about mechanicals at the time but the TR was a wonderful teacher. It had twin SU carbs, I got a Unisyn tool and figured them out. There wasn't another English sports car in town that could run away from that TR-3, unless it was a big Healey or a Jag. Canyon roads were it specialty and there were plenty in Utah. I could push a V8 powered Mustang or Camaro dangerously fast but did not have the power on a short straight to overtake one, great center of gravity and Triumph was the first economical British sports car with disc brakes on the front. A friend of mine had a Bug-Eyed Sprite and wanted to trade cars for the day, I no more than got in that bucket of bolts than I wanted my car back. Gutsy little engine with gobs of low end torque, my first gear was previously chipped with reverse completely blown, that was part of how I got such a great car as reasonably as I did. We all know why the English drink warm beer.

I owned a Porsche 944 for 23 years. It was the “little brother” to the 928. It had a 4-cylinder engine that was essentially one bank of the 928’s V-8, and it was laid out like the 928 with a front water-cooled engine, a rear-mounted transmission combined with the differential, and a large glass hatchback opening to commodious trunk. It was also reasonably affordable, listing for about $20,000 new.

Buying was a real adventure. I purchased mine in 1983, in their first year of production, but it wasn’t easy. They were selling faster than Porsche/Audi (they were assembled by Audi) could produce them, and buyers had to put in orders and wait up to six months to take delivery. Of course, dealers were taking advantage of the supply-demand situation. The three DFW dealers were all charging 25% over sticker. One salesman actually yelled at me when I responded to their price by saying that I wanted to consider some options. “What options?”, he bellowed, “Tell me about your options!”. The option I chose was to have nothing more to do with that dealer. I ended up driving 100 miles to Wichita Falls and buying from a Volkswagen dealer that sold me my 944 for list price, and ordered it exactly the way I wanted. After ordering our car, Mrs. swsig and I went to a local steak house to celebrate. We happened to mention to the waitress what we’d done, and she comped us our wine because our salesman was her cousin. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that cabernet sauvignon is not supposed to be served ice-cold. Oh well, that’s small-town Porsche buying for you.

After 23 years’ experience, I can comment on the plusses and minuses of 944 ownership.

Plusses:
Handling, handling, handling! With the engine in front and the transmission in back, the 944 was perfectly balanced. You had to do something extremely stupid to put a wheel wrong. Additionally, 1983 models were manual steering only, so you always had perfect road feel. Later models came with power steering, but in my opinion it wasn’t needed.

Comfort. Despite the superb handling, the suspension didn’t beat you up. It was excellent on long hauls. I drove as far as 800 miles in a single day without difficulty. Comfort was enhanced by excellent supportive seats and low levels of wind and engine noise.

Air conditioning. Previous Porsches had been notorious for their feeble air conditioners. Mine blew strong cold air the day I took delivery and strong cold air the day I sold it, without requiring one single bit of maintenance over the 23 years I owned it.

Highway fuel economy. While in-town fuel economy was mediocre, 30 mpg on the highway was readily achievable, and it required only regular gas.

Engine. Nikasil cylinder liners or not, it never gave me any problems. At 143 hp, it was far from a drag racer, but its flat torque curve provided instant power when you needed it, unless you were in the wrong gear. Zero to 60 was less than 8 seconds, which was pretty good in those days. It was also extremely smooth, thanks to dual balance shafts.

Transmission. The 5-speed stick shift was smooth and positive. I’ve read complaints about the shift feel caused by the long linkage needed for the rear-mounted gearbox, but I never understood those gripes. I had no complaints about mine.

Trunk. For a small sports car, you could put a lot of stuff back there, making it a great touring car.

Minuses
Digital Motor Electronics (DME). My 944 had an early version of a computer controlled engine management system, controlling all aspects of fuel supply and ignition. 944 owners were the beta testers. When it worked, it was great, but parts of the DME system were subject to premature aging. As a result of DME failures, I was left stranded three different times, twice in my garage, and once just west of Las Cruces, NM. At the time of the Las Cruces breakdown, Porsche was nearly out of business in the US, and there were no dealers between DFW and Tucson. I had to have my mechanic air ship the part from Dallas to El Paso before we could continue our trip.

Plastic radiator tank. Radiator tanks used to be made of brass. The 944 had a plastic tank which cracked at the filler neck and dumped much of the coolant onto the ground. To be fair, it was 20 years old at the time, but brass wouldn’t have cracked.

Paint. While my 944 was generally well-assembled and remained tight and rattle-free during my ownership, the paint job would not have passed inspection on any model at any current car manufacturer. There were dirt lumps in the paint on the hood, and globs of runs on the door pillars. I suspect it was painted on a Friday after the Audi workers returned from an extra long beer break.

Resale value. Compared to other Porsche models, it has always been poor. Porsche’s front-engined water pumpers generally get little respect in the marketplace. Most 944s have been stripped, hacked up, and turned into cheap track cars, as there is not much interest in street driveable versions.


I sold it because my knees had deteriorated to the point that I had great difficulty getting in and out of it, and I wasn’t driving it. I’ve since had my knees replaced, but I don’t regret selling it. I’d had a lot of fun with it, but it was time to move on. Here it is, just before I sold it:

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What, me worry?

Oh my! I knew the emissions regs here choked cars badly back in the day, but that's a 20 bhp drop on the European cars.

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Yup. In those days, there were US spec cars and ROW (rest of the world) spec cars. US spec cars were always down on power compared to ROW spec cars.

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What, me worry?

Some years back there was an EPA emissions exemption for a single car per person. DOT safety specs had to be complied with. I imported a 1978 3.3 Liter 930 Turbo. I wish I had kept it. I still remember the VIN 9308700211.

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Paul
Salome, AZ

Back in the day, I saw tractor trailer truck trying to cut a corner in a parking lot one night, and the trailer went right up and over a parked 928… Messed that car up!!

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