odurandina

in my opinion, the first truly-great Porsche ever built was the 944 Turbo. the body had been around for a few years, but they really showed up for work when they built that car.... the 924's were "944-in-development cars." and the 931s, little more than an en evolutionary stop along the way, and probably, never should have gone into production..... the '87 and '88 924s have decent motors, but again, they're fugly pieces of crap, w/ dated interiors and AC ducts so small, the air almost doesn't even come out.... so why continue to build an "in-development" car with an ugly, detuned body when you already have a gorgeous, superior design that costs only pennies more to build ?

this just doesn't make any sense to me.... they should have scrapped that poor design the moment they had their real car..... luckily, the first good 924 did get built (in 1983) !! it's called the "Nine-four-four"..... incredibly, they're still pulling this **** with the Cayman and Boxster ! the Boxster S and Cayman S engines cost just pennies more to build than their smaller-displacement siblings...

in 1970 you could get a Plymouth Duster with a nice 340 engine for only a few hundred dollars more than the cost of the same car with the base, slant-six.... Porsche never obliged with making it so easy to have the "better" cars.... but, in the afterworld with the 944 long-forgotten, you can pick up the "good stuff" for next to nothing.... a guy down my street had a nice '87 944S in guards red hanging around for months with a for sale sign and ad in craigslist. he couldn't give the car away... in Massachusetts there's just nobody interested in old, dusty, P-cars. the kids are way too spoiled driving mommy and daddy's hand-me-down BMWs and Subaru Foresters.... the ambitious kids (if there even are any) put forth the effort to keep cars like that running. i've never seen a 944 on a new england road since the 1950s.

so why bottom-feed with 924 junk when you can easily have so much more ? .... save a couple of extra paychecks and start in the year 1987 with 944 "S," next, consider a 968 "Cab," or move up to 944 "Turbo," or 968 "Coupe... " don't stop there.... with a few more bucks, you can move all the way up to a 2.7 litre Boxster... that's a very nice car that won't cost that much more than some ****box 924 once (you'd have that car) properly sorted. (see 4:45 of the video):



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riGejPAqNVw
/

Arominus

Ord, While i agree that it didn't make any sense to use the early stuff on the 924s i imagine they were using up old stuff, and it was cheap to make by that point. The A/C works ok, but it is primitive. That said, i don't mind my car. It feels like a lightweight compared to my dad's S2 and while slower it forces me to be a better driver.

I dig it.

bonus12

That's quite a harsh bashing, odur! The 944 is clearly a better-looking car; it's far more refined, modern, beefier, etc. and it's design is holding up much better over time IMO. The 944 is much more CAR. The 924 is simply older-looking and period-representative. That's a cool thing!! It might appreciate in value sooner than the 944, after all. It was indeed the first water-cooled, front engine Porsche ever made.

As a wise man once said:

"A classic in due time
is a Porsche of any kind"

odurandina

both posts are well stated.

i dig the 924s for one thing. weight and thin c.d. they can be made to go very fast....

but i'm not going to buy one when i can have a gorgeous, '80s classic in the form of a 944S for basically, the same money—be able to bolt on some 8.5"/10"—245/285s and have a very potent performance upgrade all in a single afternoon, and have the thing looking great in hardly anytime at all.... then be able to build the rest of the car to destroy almost everything else on the road... and know that every time i do something to the car, it's going to be "worth the effort," knowing that at any point, i can either trade up or "plug in" a "turbo" or "LS" engine, and approach the practical limits of the car's design.... if you ever get the chance to drive a good one past 155 mph....

the 924 is a niche car. what ever you do to a 944, you can do to a 924S, but who cares ? when you get done, the car still basically, looks like horse manure, (Tim L's former beast, notwithstanding. i loved that car)... we gotta have those "J-lo hips" and the wonderful hourglass shape that all modern sports cars have... (i see quite a bit of the 944's dna in the Infinity G37 and Nissan z-cars).

that's a big part of what makes the 944s great.

even the 968 lacks some of the perfect, hourglass figure that really "makes" the 944.

i can turn a Chevy Vega into a 175 mph beast with just a well-built 377 small block, 4 speed transmission and 2.29:1 rear end that can be sourced right from GM, but who's going to do that ? at 2,400 pounds, that thing will be fast, but it's still gonna be one fugliest cars ever.... that's my problem with the 924. if you have a good one that runs ok, great, but i would never go out of my way to discover, buy and then sort one.


for just a little more effort i can drive a turbocharged, 2.7 liter Boxster.

a car like this is not far out of reach.... some potent bang for the buck in a car that is already near-perfect.

http://www.teamspeed.com/forums/boxs...rt-finish.html



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOunWKqkh80

M758

The 924S was sold in the USA at least as an entry level car. The 944 of the same model year had the revised interior making it apper more valueable. However that also priced it out the entry level catagory.

So Porsche chose to revive the 924 entry level by using the current production 944 running gear, but with older 944 interior. Probably because it was cheaper to produce. It also appeared like a good value from a consumer perspective. The 944 Turbo was superior in every way to be sure, but sales proces also reflected that. Even Porsche has never been in business to make only the best cars. They need to make cars to fit certain price points. The 924S is a perfect example of that.


Now I love the 924S because there are alot of nice parts on those cars and because they Merely 924 which most people don't like visually they tend to be cheaper to buy. However since all the parts are newer you can get 87 or 88 engines at the prices cheaper than some 83's. So you get more refinement of less money and for me those parts work perfect in my 84 chassis. It has same gearbox mounts as my 84 tub. Same dash layout and my 84 has a 924S dash in it since my 84 one was readly damage. Rear control arms are direct swaps for the right offset and I run same front suspension too.

whalebird

I see it in a broader sence. The 924 (77) was a stillbirth of the 928 program that started in the late 60s. The development of the 4cyl program was intensive - one afterthought on top of another. The 951 is a developmental nightmare. The 924S was an example of a proven engine in a proven chassis at a nice price point. Cosmetically the 924 is a lovely tribute to the Ferrari Daytona. The 44s crinkle cuts were a weak attempt at 80s fashion. As the platform evolved, the turbo was phased out, and the S2 was a comfortable combination of performance, simplistic design, and proven technology. Porsche finally got it right...the 968. Over a decade of hit and miss development birthed the right combination of modest power/chassis and an uncluttered design execution. This had only been seen in the past in the form of the 924S. In all of the watercooled development(28,24,44,&68) Porsche seemed to produce only a couple of cars they KNEW would work..924S, and the S2/968.
A 924S has a lot going for it really, and Porsche knew it. They are sneaky fast and quite fun to toss around.

odurandina

i've heard it mentioned a few times (one of the guilty might be the previous poster) that Porsche had planned the 924 cars rather carefully, knowing full-well, their dealers would be able to get back some of money lost from the difference in the price of the more-expensive 944s, simply via scheduled visits to the maintenance departments and by selling high-priced, replacement parts....

the old adage being, "if they walk through the door, why not sell them a car ?"

from that perspective, the 924 may have turned out to be a winner for all involved, if it increased revenues both to Porsche and their dealers via customers who would have, otherwise been lost.... if this helped Porsche move forward to where we are now including our abundant access to parts, then, it's all good !

bonus12

Just a couple of updates here so I don't have to start a new thread.

1) I went and looked at this 1979 924

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/ctd/2182351726.html


it didn't start (guy said it was the cold start piece)
there was nasty corrosion + rust under the bonnet bra
he said he had records for $3500 of very recent maintenance including belts, pump, etc

2) I went to the Moss Landing pick-n-pull to check out the 1987 944 there, and it turned out to be an S! A lot of it looked OK. 250k miles on odo. Engine still there (but looked like ATF was in the air filter? I had never seen this before...what could this mean? ...better question: how would this happen?) Some body parts still good, etc. black interior, dark blue exterior. A coolant hose under the radiator had a big cut in it.

Thought I might as well would post this. Enjoy!

white924s

If I had to guess, I think that ATF in the air filter means that the piston rings are hosed and whoever tried to fix them is lazy.

I've heard that ATF can be used to improve the seal around the piston skirt if a cylinder loses compression. Usually, though, I think that you're supposed to squirt it in through the spark plug hole - sounds like someone tried to just spray some in the intake