tifosiman

Pardon me.

944S2NUT

NeedPorscheSpeed

Wow, this is new information to me. In the 12 years of following and the 5 years of owning my 1989 Turbo, I have never heard of one not having the M030 package... I had always thought that all 1989 Turbos were built to the exact same specifications as the 1988 Turbo S, hence, the reason for the 1988 Turbo S buyer's rage when Porsche decided to not make the Turbo S a 700 car limited run after all... Or so I thought. Any 944 Turbo experts out there who can shed some light on this topic?

Waterguy

Thats funny. The factory service manuals identify all the M030 components (928S4 front brakes, 26.8 mm front sway bar, 160lb springs/25.5 mm torsion bars, Koni height adjustables front/single adjustables rear) as being standard on MY 89 cars and optional on MY 90 and 91. Club Sports are also listed as the standard wheels in 89. The one difference is the reduction of the rear sway bar from 18 mm to 16 mm in mid-89, which was done for all cars (951 & 944S2) whether they had M030 or not. Because the equipment was standard, 030 may not have shown up in the option codes, although it does on my (US model) car.

Cyrus951

Umm.. out of all 1,385 89 951's produced, they all came with M030.

Epic2112

Well, mine has M030 suspension and brakes. That's about all I can contribute to this conversation.

tifosiman

Well, I just spent some considerable time this past weekend looking at and driving Wade's 89 951 and it does not have the 928S4 calipers, and the front struts appeared to be the normal 951 units. I can take photos the next time I am there.

As far as the 951S people getting hacked off back then, I think it was because they made more than 700 units in 1988, not 1989's cars that were not called specifically "TurboS".

GOBOGIE

Does Wade know for sure that his car has not been modified? As in things haven't been changed since it was new? Hard to believe that someong would take stuff like that off, but I've seen wierder things!!!

Just a thought... as I don't know much about how long he's had it and previous owner and such.

tifosiman

Dunno. I know of another 89 as well that only has the smaller standard 951 front calipers (and thus no M030 spindles) here in town, it was at the TajMaGaraj show last year.

I could be mistaken about Wade's car, but that was one of the things that stuck out in my mind from that day. (I wasn't drinking anything other than water either, I promise, so no alchohol can be blamed) I guess I will need to email Wade to verify.

My "Excellence Was Expected" will arrive here tomorrow, gotta pull that out for reference on this as well.

Friendan

I can also vouch for this car...I saw it before Lance bought it...what an absolutely gorgeous automobile, my dream car too...a black on black 89 Turbo, totally flawless!!!
Someone BUY THIS CAR!!!

MachSchnell

Weren't there a few 'comfort' ordered cars that were M030 delete for MY89? I thought that had been an explanation put forward back some time ago for this phenomenon...am I mis-remembering?

K27

Could it also be they are built in 88 registered in 89 ?

Bill

Porsche originally planned to make 1,000 1988 Turbo S's. This amount grew to 1,635.

The 88 Turbo S does differ from the 89 in specific ways. All 88 TS's were intended to be painted the same metallic silver/pink color of Silver Rose. The interior was the custom design featuring a bright "Studio" pattern in shades of pink for the seat inlays and door panels, over a burgundy solid color. However some complained about the color scheme and so some 88's were made to the standard color chart as a special order. I have not seen any official counts on the non-silver rose 88 cars but there are very few. The Silver rose color scheme was not available on any other model year.

Also the stylised "Turbo" decal for the top of the right front fender was originated for the 88 TS.

Dmitry S.

Isn't Efren's 88 an S model? It's red too.

NeedPorscheSpeed

Regarding the confusion about the 1989 Turbo (S), I dug up this excellent information that I first read about 5 years ago on the St. Louis PCA website:

"The initial run of 339 1988 Turbo S cars were painted a special "Silver Rose" color with an ordinary plaid burgundy interior. They had no sunroof, air conditioning or power windows in order to save weight. Dealers sold those so fast the factory increased production to a total of 1000 cars, 716 of which ended up in the United States. However, the silver rose color was dropped and all standard Porsche colors and options were now available. Most of the later "S's" were loaded with air, leather seats, sunroof, premium sound and power windows."

"In 1989, all 944 Turbos came with this "S" package so that's why you don't see a 1989 944 Turbo "S". The only thing they dropped was the "S" designation!"

My guess is that Wade's car and any others that are without M030 that year must have had parts replaced that were not M030 spec. Wade's car, for example, has 250K miles, and I would imagine those original S4 calipers have had to be replaced. I imagine that when it came time to replace those calipers, a mechanic erroneously put regular '88 Turbo/'89-'91 brakes instead of the original S4 brakes. It could be that a previous owner wanted to save money, as well.

Also possible, although less likely, is that a few buyers wanted a softer ride and had the M030 option deleted. With Porsche's reputation for building cars any way the buyer wants, I'm sure they would have honored a potential buyer's request. If this is the case, those cars have to be quite rare, because I have never heard of a non-M030 1989 Turbo.

Just my thoughts.