yellow9ll

You will have to excuse my ignorance but the other day my wife asked me what the numbers meant on Porsche models E.G. 911,944,924 etc. I didn’t know the answer. So I figured someone here would certainly know. Is there any significance in the numbers for Porsche models? If so what do they mean?

sasilverbullet

Wow, that's a tough question to answer because the answer is a mile long!

Best thing to do is mosey on down to the nearest book store and buy one of those big informational books on Porsche. There you will learn all there is to know about the different model numbers and the cars that are associated with them.

Short answer is each number is a 'series' of car. Most of the time the series are very different, most, not all of the time.

Yabo

well the 9 is because all porsches are a 900 something.. well does the carrera gt have a number?

Royal Tiger

The 356 was the first one. There was also the 550 and the 704. 9xx is the way they like it now. The Cayenne is the 955, don't know about the Carerra GT. The last 2 911's were the 996 and 997. That only leaves 2 generations left!

M758

In the old days the numbers were engineeing jobs. So engineering job 356 produced the 356.

Job 550 produced the 550 spyder. Over the years this logic has deminished, but even to the is day the number represent the internal code for the car. Sadly this internal code is no longer used for the main name of the car. Intestingly th 95 928 GTS and 968 were the last road cars to used the internal model number as the public name. Remember the 993, 996, 997 are still just "Carrera" s or 911 by name.

Rich Sandor

They are design numbers - not just for cars, but for gearboxes and other things too.

I believe that when Porsche senior left daimler and opened his shop in 1930-something, the first "porsche design" was actually #7 or #14 or something like that.. he wanted to make it look like he already had some experience!

The first ever cars to look like a Porsche were the Typ 64 wagen, and then the 356, and then, the typ 901 (which was the prototype 911)

They actually introduced the 901 as the next Porsche, but Pugeot had the trademark on all 3-digit numbers with a zero in the middle... which is why there are no Porsche road cars with a Zero in the middle. (With the expection of the 904/906/908 which came before the 911..)

The number itself doesn't particularly have any real correlation to the model. It may be a little bit more than just coincendence that 924/944 are 4 cyld and 928 os an 8 cyl, but other than that, there is no relation at all.

M758

Actually the 901 (911 to the world) came before the 906/908 and possible before the 904. True that the type 901 was introduced in 1964, but in was in design long before that so it may have sarted even before the 904 race car project. The 904 would naturally hit the roads frist being a race car design.


Then again the 928 was started before the 924, yet the 924 has the lower number. Could be due to the way it was originally an VW/Audi design.

interestingly teh 910 pre-dates the 908. Not sure why.

testarossa_td

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_944

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche

Rich Sandor

Joe, the numbers are design numbers, which dictate when the idea was thought up and the pencil hit the drawing board - NOT when the car made it to the showroom!!!

You could have a design #10 that takes so long to finish, that it winds up coming to market after design #15...

95Juan

i think the CGT is a 980.....

not positive though..

M758

True, but over the year Porsche has deviated from that. (more reciently that in the past, however)

Example
993 is older than 986 and 987 (boxster)
996 is older than 987 boxster
955 cayenne is newer than 964, 968, 993, 996, 997,etc

It is rumored the new 911 replacment for the 997 will be the 998.

Really it is kind of sad since in the old days just like and egineering company why give a NAME to any project when a number works so much better. Now a days the numbers are still there, but don't seem to be from the old mold. My guess is they would be well in to the 1000's if they just kept on counting from 901 etc

PuttingThePoorBackInPorsche

980 is the production code for the Carrera GT.

Rich Sandor

Joe, that's right. When Porsche thought up the Boxster, they realised that they were running out of 9xx numbers quite fast. That's when they started the switch over to names instead of numbers. They rolled back to unused design #'s in order to satisfy their existing system to accomodate Boxster production. Obviously they are still using that system with the Cayenne, Cayman, and CGT.

I'm not sure what Porsche will do in the future, but I think letters will start rolling into the part numbers database pretty soon after all the unused design numbers are assigned, and the 998/999 models come out.

eohrnberger

I believe the 9xx numerology is best explained by this quote from Wikipedia:

At the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung in Frankfurt in September 1963, Porsche presented the 901. Yet, French car maker Peugeot objected to Porsche using any three digit number where the middle number was 0, having already sold many models with that scheme, and owning the naming rights.

So, Porsche simply replaced the middle 0 with a 1, and called the new car Porsche 911 before the first cars were delivered.

At: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_901

JEC_31

More trivia! I read in Excellence (but cannot remember which issue - doh!) that another car company had already trademarked the name 901, so Porsche changed the marketing name of their Type 901 car to 911.

Edit: new information has come to light that it may have been Peugot who owned "901"... damn I take forever to post...