So I made my rs doorpulls out of upholstery webbing, double stitched. My early door cards are now 2 pieces. I cut the lower part off and replaced with a piece of coreflute upholstered with micro suede. Lower portion screws in place. Upper portion tucks behind at the top. I have pics on here from somewhere a couple of years back.

 

968 door cards all the way. They have a nice arm rest feature and look way better. More or less the only part of 968 I like better than it is on original 944.

 

968 panels dont work on early cars.
bad_monkey, heres your thread, cool!

https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-...tml?styleid=13

 

https://rennlist.com/forums/9469126-post1241.html

This one.

The fibreglassed doors were too heavy, plus I retrimmed the whole car.

 

I'm a big fan of that door style, Bad_monkey and will likely blatantly copy it.
Looks great.

 

Do you miss the armrests

 

you've left out/

3.0 Variocam, TURBO S OR RS engine vs 944 engine. lmao.
6 speed transmission w/ lsd optional... vs 5 speed.
968/944 Turbo brakes vs 944 brakes
M030 option vs ________
teardrop/aero side mirrors vs not so nice bordering on fugly.
modern hood and fender design/profile vs old....
modern, integrated bumper cover/header panel vs old '70s style.
968 rear bumper cover vs '70s style bumper.
968 rear spoiler or Turbo spoiler vs 'wtf is that garbage?
968 modern front bumper cover vs.... having a '70s style bumper.
968 turbo front splitter vs....
993 seats (late 1994/1995) vs old style.
cup style 17" wheels, y or z-rated tire options vs early '80s, h-rated fugly.
late style collapsible spare vs 'Geebus that's a huge donut you got there Momma Bear.'
all leather vs ________
bi-amped stereo vs ________
modern headliner vs omg make it go away.
improved instrument panel vs 'God that's horrid.'
180mph or 300kph speedo vs stuck wayyyy back in the '70s.
air vents that actually allow air to pass through vs 'momma just passed out.'
993 style headlamps (development stage) vs 'oh dear that's one seriously ugly headlamp assembly you got there...'


look, we ALL love the 944, but look at KENNEDY'S HEAD... BACK AND TO THE LEFT.... BACK AND TO THE LEFT....

SORRY, BUT I'VE MOVED YOUR POST TO THE FICTION SECTION....
yeah, you'd say 'Oswald did it,' if would help sell another 944.....

 

A lot of what you just posted is subjective, not factual, and not everyone will agree with it.

For example, all the styling notes. I happen to think the 944 looks better than the 968. You characterize the 944 as "'70s style". Well ok...let's roll with that for a moment...the 968 took the '70s style foundation and added '90s style bits to it. The end result is a hodgepodge, a Frankenstein, if you will. It just doesn't look right.

Oh, when the 968 first came out, I thought it looked great. I thought the styling was a huge step up. But now...20+ years later...I think it looks odd, while the 944 looks classic. The 968 looked great at the time, but did not age well. The 944 still looks good.

But that's just my 2¢...

 

good post....

'just doesn't look right' and most everything else you said about the 968 – is absolutely TRUE. I can't fault your reasoning – i mention this often on the 968 forum..... with poor S2, 928, and 964 sales, added to generally, their huge cost of production (left over from the '80s - before Heinz Branitzki's sweeping changes), and big R&D in awd 964/993 development, Porsche's money problems peaked during the time leading up to unveiling the 968. Porsche was reeling. with 928 and 944/968 sales suddenly getting hammered by the new Japanese offerings, and with money scarce – rather than coming up with a BIG upgrade – the 968 was left, as you say; a curious mix of forward engineering, yet simple, but also with amount of cheap junk (see; rocker panels) mixed in.... and an opportunity to create a true classic (like the 993) – was missed.

it's obvious they were already putting all their eggs in the awd/964/993/Boxster development basket.... this may have forced Harm Legaay's team to leave the front of the 968 in such a poor state... and while I think conceptually, 'Porschey' fenders, nose, and triangular hood, represent the proper evolution from the 944.... the finished 968 is looking like they were several steps into the designing the car and were stopped....

when you watch Jeremy Clarkson's review of the 968 from back in '91, the car looks pretty good; especially in Polar Silver.... but as you said, it looked well enough back in the day.... but, 23 years later, you do a walk around, study it, and it too appears dated and kind of odd.


still, if much of those parts of the 944 were so great, why did Porsche replace them? the 944 doesn't resonate in the collector market... that being said, the 968 isn't doing much better as the latter day, forgotten Porsche.

but Clarkson had it right in 1991: no revolution; just evolution;

then, whatever wow factor was eclipsed by Porsche's pricing the cars up near $50,000 at the outset.


perhaps we're left to wonder, 'if they could make the front of the 993 look so good, how did they fall short with the 968?'

the answer has much to do with the high hoodline forced by the front engine design, and then the difficulty with loading what was then, the early fixed headlamps, leave plenty of space for the radiator and taper everything to the lip spoiler.... a challenge to be sure, but they could have pulled it off.... but for whatever reason, Porsche failed. the final look of the 968 isn't great...

if Porsche had made the fenders and front to appear as nice as the 993, they might have sold a good number more.




.

 

I think, along with the E-type and 240Z, the 944 showed what was going to be possible. but, in all, I'm not very sentimental about the '70s and '80s
cars. i don't think they're aging particularly well, used to love the 288GTO, F-40 and 959 in the '80s... but nowadays, not so much. my eyes are being
polluted by Zonda's, Ferrari's, Maserati's, Moslers, Noble (M600s), Alpha 8c.... and down the line to Infinity's, Nissans... all the way to 2014 econoboxes.

the first car I ever went nuts over was the F-40, then the 355.... but the front of the 355 doesn't look so good now.

aero be damned; I wish the Ferrari 360 had kept the 355's ***.



what i do love about the 968s and 944s is that they can be tuned to become incredible cars... so, I'm in.....

unfortunately, the front of the 968, is so bad,

THAT I LITERALLY TOOK A SAWZALL to my fenders and bumper cover in an attempt to improve the looks...

i did well with the fenders... but, you all have been very polite not to point out that the nose still isn't right....
so, it would be wrong to call it done. but, i think i can improve things the second time.

so, I'm going to do a new one. I'm going to have to get up for it though...


i'll draw back in the area circled, and then, bring the bottom area forward a more.

hopefully, that will alleviate the harsh steep/90° contour somewhat...

and allow for a smoother, sloping drop down to the splitter.


then, all i'll have to do is change the driving lamps to smaller Xenons.


.

 

Personally, I think the weakest part of the 944's styling is the rear end, specifically the lower rear end. It's very weak. There's not much there, it doesn't go low enough. The rear splitter helps; thankfully, there's one on my '86. But even that looks like an afterthought. Compare the rear bumper of a ~1990 RX7 to that of a 944, for comparison.

What the Porsche designers did with the front end, regarding the turbo bumper vs. the original bumper, they should have done with the rear end as well. Some could argue that's what they tried to do with the 968's rear bumper, but in my opinion, they missed the mark. It still has a "weak chin" look about it.

I do agree with the statement that got us off on this tangent in the first place, and I'm now referring back to in an attempt to get back on track, which is that the 968's interior door panels are nicer than the 944's.

 

get under the back of a 968.... if I plan on reaching 190 mph, I'm going to have to fab a rear belly panel... otherwise not only will the cover continue to function as a brake, but, the bloody thing will be ripped off the car by 170~175mph.... which brings us to another point; the gas we'd have saved if Porsche had bothered to install functional rear panels in the first place.

so why didn't they? probably, to keep the transaxle awash in cool air.


five years ago, an OT adventure such as the one i invoked, would have needed it's own thread. nowadays, not so much. this isn't a hugely busy forum anymore. wish it was.... a few years ago, this thread would be topping 6 or 7 pages. but these days, we can go a bit off topic without getting much out of whack... or even upsetting the uber-congenial op. but this one has been up for 3 months now, and it's like the boreal forest.



on the door cards, even if a bit of fabbing is required, I'd just incorporate 968 door panels for a 944.

 

Once more into the breach...

What exact wheels are those in your pictures? They look 18", is that correct?

They look nice on that car. On the other hand, I usually think 18" wheels look a bit strange on the 944, probably because they obviously weren't what the stylists had in mind. I'm going to need new wheels soon, I was thinking of Cup II wheels I think. I like the five-star look but I don't like "twist" type wheels. They look ok on one side of the car, but on the other, they look backwards.

 

yes, they're cheap, 18" SSR knockoffs. i'll probably change to real ones in a few years,

or get a set of Speedlines or knockoffs.

here's some authentic SSRs....


.