1987 Porsche 944S - Reifen Kicking

I haven't seen a Porsche 944 in years. I mean, years. This 1987 popped up on my Marketplace feed this morning for sale out in Willoughby, Ohio, just east of Cleveland. Asking price is $2,900. What could a prospective buyer be getting themselves into? Let's virtually kick a reifen or two—reifen is German for tire—and see.

First, some backstory on what the 944 was.

The Porsche 944 was a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive 2+2 sports car built by Porsche from 1982 through 1991. It was based on the 924's platform but received extensive mechanical and styling changes, including a Porsche-developed 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and the wide-body styling that made the 944 distinctly different from its predecessor.

The idea was to offer a relatively accessible Porsche sports car that was less expensive and less exotic than the company's flagship 911 and 928 while still delivering legitimate sports-car performance.

Like the 924, the 944 was powered by a four-cylinder engine.

Just like some Honda Civic or Chevrolet Celebrity.

Ha. Right. We're talking Porsche here, people.

The original 944, introduced for 1982, used a 2.5-liter overhead-cam inline-four developed by Porsche. In its original form, it produced about 160 horsepower. It was hardly your garden-variety economy-car four-banger.

And here's the really interesting part: the engine was essentially half of Porsche's 4.5-liter V8 used in the 928. In other words, Porsche didn't simply grab some ordinary four-cylinder off the shelf and slap it into a sports car. The 944's engine shared its basic architecture with one of Porsche's most sophisticated engines of the era.

This was heady stuff back in the day, kids.

In 1985, Porsche introduced the 944 Turbo, which turbocharged the 2.5-liter four-cylinder and bumped output about 217 horsepower. In 1988, Porsche introduced the limited-production 944 Turbo S with about 247 horsepower. For 1989, that 247-horse engine became standard in the regular 944 Turbo.

That kind of power from just 2.5 liters today isn't impressive; 40-years-ago, it was the stuff dreams. 

The 944 S arrived for the 1987 model year with a high-compression, naturally aspirated, 16-valve version of the 2.5-liter engine. Porsche rated it at about 187 horsepower. It sat neatly between the standard 944 and the Turbo in both performance and price.

And this is where the 944 gets particularly interesting. It wasn't just a Porsche with a four-cylinder engine. With its front-mounted engine and rear-mounted transaxle, the 944 had nearly ideal weight distribution, which helped give it the balanced handling for which these cars became known.

This car, though.

Hoo-boy.

The big-little engine isn't running; there are issues with the body seemingly all over; and the interior is a train wreck. In fairness, it may just need a deep cleaning, although this looks nasty.

Someone swapping out the Blaupunkt radio it was born with, got lost in the wiring maze and give up? 

The poster of the ad claims this car is a perfect project for that "special Porsche enthusiast" and, at this price, won't last long.

I beg to differ. To me this is a parts car. 

But what do I know?

Frankly, if you have to have a Porsche 944, while you'll spend upwards of four times more for one that's not this side of a roller like this one is, I think that money would be better spent. A running, reasonably sorted 944 S is a whole different proposition from a $2,900 non-running project with questionable cosmetics and an interior that looks like the German army in the days, weeks and months after D-Day. 

1979 Porsche 928 - Risky Business

Call me bourgeois, but when I was younger, I found rear-engine Porsche's too similar to Volkswagen Beetles for me to take them seriously. That and I used to think that a proper automobile, particularly sporting ones, should be front-engine and rear-wheel-drive. That and to-die-for, space age styling more than explains my lifelong infatuation with the front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, Porsche 928. So, when I saw the movie, "Risky Business" when it came out in 1983 with a then Tom Cruise obsessed girlfriend, I totally got what the 928 in the movie was all about. 

"Risky Business" is a 1983 movie about a high school senior who takes full advantage, and then some, of the opportunities before him when his parents go out of town. Much of the mayhem involving his father's 1979 Porsche 928. The movie, which is quite good if not excellent, save for the ending, not only made Tom Cruise a star, it helped to push the Porsche 928 into the mainstream. Although it probably did little to persuade die-hard Porsche cognoscenti that the 928 was in fact a "real" Porsche. 

I had no idea, nor did I care that Porsche-files considered the 928 blasphemous. Up until the 928's debut in 1978, all Porsche's were powered by rear-mounted, air-cooled four and six-cylinder engines. Another movie star named James Dean became famous for his association with a Porsche although the poor guy died behind the wheel of his rear-engine "550-Spyder" in 1955. He may have stood a better chance of surviving that accident had been behind the wheel of a 928. 

With 911 sales fading and engineers within Porsche believing that the rear-engine, air-cooled, flat-six powered sports car had reached its' performance limits, the 928 was slated to be the 911's replacement. Fine by me. Porsche, though, continued to make the 911 alongside the 928 adding subsequent models as well over the years diversifying Porsche's portfolio. Something I wish General Motors had done with the Corvette; keep the "old" front-engine model along with the new mid-engine one. Drop "Chevrolet" and market Corvette as a separate brand too. If you think I'm still sore over the C8, you'd be right. Great car but do we have to call it a Corvette without some sort of suffix? 

Anyway, back to Tom Cruise and his, ahem, "star vehicle". Like I said, save for the ending, "Risky Business" is a really, really good movie. My appreciation for the film comes in part because Cruise and I are close in age, and us humans tend to identify with protagonists we, in theory at least, emulate. Or wish to emulate for certain there's a lot of Cruise's character in the movie, Joel Goodsen, that's intrinsically me. Or who I wished to be seen as (oh-my-god) forty-years ago. For the record, Cruise is three years older than I am, but the son-of-a-gun looks five to seven years younger.

There's also a universe of differences between "Joel" and whom I was all those years ago. While dare I say, he and I are or were equally handsome, the life Joel lived was as far from what I was living at the time the movie came out as a Porsche 928 was from any Corvette made before 1984. So, seeing myself in Joel and everything he went through I could see myself going through, as absurd as that was, you can begin to fathom my fondness for the movie. 

I was also fascinated how well-off Joel's family was. To some degree I thought it bunk but it wasn't until I met the woman who would become my wife that I understood that some people really did, or do, live that way. Joel lived the life of my dreams in a big, beautiful house in a wealthy, leafy suburb of a fabulous city, he had parents, albeit demanding and firm, that adored him, and he had a path, albeit somewhat muddied, to a college or university of his choosing (or one that he could get into). Lastly but hardly leastly, his father owned a 1979 Porsche 928. 

Producers of the film chose a Porsche 928 not because it had a liquid cooled, front-mounted V-8 and rear wheel drive, but because it was seen at the time to be an obtainable Porsche whereas 911's seemed out of the reach of most people. Even folks who were as well off as the Goodsen's. Thats a bit of a mind flex since compared to my hand-to-mouth upbringing, the Goodsen's seemed as wealthy as the Rockefellers. Perspective is everything. Then again, when you're looking up at everything like I did when I was growing up, it doesn't take much to appear better off than you actually are. 

Legend has it there were three 928's used in the filming of the movie and the one involved in the famous chase scene recently sold at Barret Jackson for $1.9 million. Get this, it sold ten years ago for $49,200. There's been a run on famous "prop cars" of late but that kind of appreciation is truly insane. Any still you see here that's not from the movie is of the car in the movie that sold at Barret Jackson. 

I'm still digging to find the 928 that took a bath in Lake Michigan. That car had the engine and transmission removed. Fun fact, Joel's father's car came from Stuttgart optioned in white, it was painted gold for the movie. Another fun fact, Porsche wouldn't loan the producers any cars because they didn't want their brand associated with a film involving a prostitute. 

I should do a deep drive on "Guido the Killer Pimp's" 1975 Cadillac next.

     

Here's the original ending of the movie that was dropped because it was seen as too dark and forboding. It does have an ominous feel about it that, in my opinion and I know many others share the same sentiment, seems much more fitting with the overall tone of the movie.