Warren928

Very funny Randy! I saw a 944 turbo the other day and it has quite a resemblance

Flott Leben

Randy,

You have my vote for Defender of the Faith and Moderator of the Year awards. Great stuff.

Paul D

I vote that Randy gets the '2003 post of the year' award. That is a classic!

Jim bailey - 928 International

I turned down buying a running driving 1980 924 for $500 , have a running driving 944 that anyone can own for $1,200 heater works great , too great on full all the time . Several years ago GM got in big trouble selling Buicks Pontiacs with Chevy engines it was determined to be fraud and much money changed hands to compensate the buyers for the lesser value ..... I often wonder how Porsche got away with selling 924s as Porsche cars especially with the Audi truck engine which was used . Porsche did design the 924 BUT it was to have been sold by VW . The mission was use anything everything off the VW shelf wrap it in a GT body .....it was a frankenstein car bits and pieces ....Audi engine , 411 VW wagon suspension....Audi transmission hung out back . The new central drive tube ( torque tube ) had the bell housing welded to the front .....makes changing the clutch or for automatic cars rubber drive biscuit ($$$ part ) very difficult as you had to drop the trans ,suspension , and central tube just to see the clutch . Fortunately the 928 has a lower bell housing cover to access the clutch for replacement and no rubber donut . The 944 finally got a Porsche engine but the last iteration 968 still has a lot of VW parts and part numbers in the mix . And no the 924/944/968 chassis is not nearly as strong as a 928 .

Jim bailey - 928 International

Does seem Porsche is back at the same game selling VW parts as Porsche cars

Jober

ha ha.... LOL !!

MM951

Ah come on guys...a 944 is a real porsche...a 356 is a real porsche a 924 is a real porsche

Cobey

I have to agree with Mike. Wouldn't mind a $500 running Porsche in the drive any day. (Unless it was parked behind the 928 and I lost the keys.)

Jim bailey - 928 International

Mike M ..... So if Porsche decided to sell the new Harley bike and put the name PORSCHE on it in big letters .....That would be a "real Porsche "motorcycle ? they did help with some of the design work .

Red UFO

Jim bailey - 928 International

Perhaps some more information would be helpfull ...."The engine choice was slam-dunked by the low-cost, high-volume requirement and was the VW built EA831 engine used in the Audi 100, VW LT van, and later in the American Motors Gremlin--no kidding! The transmission/clutch location went through all three possible combinations for placement with the result being a rear mounted transaxle gearbox with the clutch assembly mounted in the traditional location in the flywheel bellhousing. This arrangement provided for a large polar moment of inertia for the car about its lateral axis, which is what makes the 924-944-968 configurations so incredibly stable in corners. The location of the transmission at the rear meant that the drive shaft mounting, support and control was very important since the drive shaft turned at engine speed instead of gearbox output shaft speed. Many hours of trials and testing was done on a BMW 2002 "test mule" equipped with an Audi engine (front) and transmission (rear) trying out several candidates for the drive shaft design of choice. The final design was a hollow shaft (read torque tube) mounted solidly between the bell housings on the back of the engine and the front of the transaxle. The actual drive shaft, 20 mm in diameter and sixty-seven inches long, was mounted inside this tube on four ball bearing supports mounted in concentric rubber rings on the shaft and tube. Splined connections mated the drive shaft to the clutch and the transaxle at each end.

Suspension components were also found in VW and Audi factory parts bins. The rear trailing arm suspension was lifted directly from the VW Super Beetle. The half shafts connecting the transaxle drive to the rear wheels were from the VW Type 181 utility vehicle known in the United States as "The Thing". The front MacPherson strut suspension was cobbled from Super Beetle front coil struts linked to Rabbit/Scirocco lower wishbones. The rack and pinion steering gear from the Rabbit/Scirocco was employed with a slight modification in the steering ratio and kinks added to the steering column for crash protection. VW front shocks and Boge rear shocks were also specified. Optional Porsche designed anti-roll bars were a rare 924 unique suspension feature. The braking system selected was from the VW K70 sedan and was a front disc/rear drum setup which was a ten year step backward in time for a Porsche braking system. The EA425 (924) was fitted with fourteen-inch, stamped steel wheels with a rim width of 5 1/2 inches. Truly this was parts bin engineering at its best, if you were a marketer, or, at its worst, if you were an engineer.

A member of the Porsche styling team, Harm Lagaay, is credited with the overall styling theme of the 924. The hidden headlights, inclined engine and tradition of no grill gave the car the popular wedge shape rising to the large rear window/hatch at the rear. As with the mechanical components, the body and interior parts were selected from existing VW stock wherever possible--Golf/Rabbit heating and ventilation system and door latches from the Scirocco. The Lagaay team was able to provide an interior of Porsche design origin. Some unique features were the three large main instrument dials in front of the driver which housed the speedometer in the center, very un-Porsche-like, a fuel and water temperature gauge on the left, and, the tachometer on the right which had the red line portion of the tach in the upper quadrant of the gauge. Some early and on-going controversy has existed over the steering wheel shape which is somewhat eccentric when centered to provide more clearance with the driver's legs. The problem comes when the wheel is turned ninety degrees or more during cornering in that this nice clearance becomes real interference between steering wheel, hand and legs of the unsuspecting driver...................

....in early 1975, the new Managing Director of VW met with Porsche leadership and reached an accord which would see the 924 built in a VW factory in Neckarsulm, which was on the block for closure and was located twenty-seven miles north of Stuttgart. It was a win-win solution. Porsche would own the design, the tooling built so far and be the responsible manufacturer of the Model 924. Volkswagen employees would build the car, order and/or supply the parts, keeping their jobs after all.

The Model 924 was first offered for sale in the USA in July of 1976 as a 1977 model at a base price of $9395. The Audi four-cylinder engine was rated at 95 SAE HP @ 5500 rpm. This engine produced 110 HP in European tune. The four-speed manual transaxle provided for an overall weight distribution of 48-52 per cent front to rear which made for well balanced handling. "
References:
Ludvigson, Karl, Porsche Excellence Was Expected, 1977
James, Drayton, Editor, The Porsche Family Tree, Published by PCA, 1995
I really do not see much PORSCHE in this .....Vw Audi parts , built in a VW factory , by VW workers what am I missing ?

John Veninger

Jim,

This is the Internet...... stop posting facts!

tuk_928

Tom and Jim,

Tom -
Thanks first for the nice morph sequence...at least the 924s had a 944 engine...not an VW/Audi truck engine ;-)

Jim -
Thanks for the history lesson on the 924-944-968 chassis...always enjoy your posts.

Best,
TK

Mel928944

Jim B,

Isn't Harm Lagaay THE 928 design chief? And isn't the 928 the first true, clean- sheet Porsche? (The 911 having descended from the 356, which in turn came from a tweaked VW engine). The 944, 944 Turbo, I recall, also were made in Neckarsulm, not Stuttgart.

saphriel

Tony Lapine was the 928 design chief.
Harm Lagaay was a junior member of the design staff at the time of the 924 development period.
Harm Lagaay was however Lapine's successor and went on to design such beautiful things as the 928S4/GT/GTS, 993, Boxster and 996!

So it is reasonable to say that the current modern Porsches owe some of their design heritage to the 924!