Scott M.

Cameron;

"1989 K 08/88 S4 2550 4200
GT 369 369
Total 2919 3618 3627"

This number looks to lump all 89 5 spds together. Gt's and regular 5 spds. Does Vilheur have figures seperating the two?

Cameron

I think that the S4 5 speeds are in the S4 number. Perhaps Vilheur can confirm.

AO

One of the benefits of working in the marketing department for an auto supplier is you have access to market data.

This is from a well know source for market data (Wards Auto)

These figures are for US sales and do NOT include tourist deliveries.

MY.........Unit Sales...........% w/ 5-speed

1989.......835.....................11% (92 Cars) - I think this is low, but it might be in refernce to % of GT's?
1990.......414.....................31% (128 Cars)
1991...... 263.....................32% (84 Cars)
1992(91).182.....................51% (93 Cars)

Total sales including tourist deliveries is a bit sketchy, but I did find 991 for 1989 and 620 for 1990. Unfortunately, there is no data as to what the equipment was on the tourist delivery cars.

I can find out for other years too, but not today.

Daniel Dudley

Thanks for the numbers, all. I feel better informed. Still a very popular move with the vette owners to go to big front meat. It couldn't hurt.

cobalt

I switched from a 225 40 18 on 8 inch wheel and 285 30 18 on 10 inch wheel on my turbo to 235 35 18 and 295 30 18. I also took the wheels off my turbo and put them on the GTS for S&G. They look great and handle better however, the steering becomes much heavier on both cars. If you drive your car a lot on the highway with long straights you will find it becomes more tedious to increase the front tire size. There is more than enough weight in front of the GTS to prevent understear with a 225 up front. Why increase the tire size for street driving if there is no real gain.

Eric91Z

I am glad that this thread was started. I am currently NOT a 928 owner and have never owned one. I read here now and then and am a subscriber to Excellence. I love Porsches and always have and will own one someday. This has been a great read. While I love the 911, I think I like the 928 even better, especially if it is something I would want to drive on a regular basis.

And being a "car guy", I would want something that I could have some fun with. To be honest, my choices would be between a C4 or C5 Corvette or a 928 for my next fun car. From this thread, if money was no object, I would get a GTS to just keep and enjoy and a GT to have fun with. Given that is not my financial situation and from what I have read on here, I am thinking I will look for a GT. Then enjoy my Porsche and have fun modifiying it.

And to those of you that currently do own, and especially those of you that have owned more than one over the years, I envy you. They are absolutely beautiful cars that still look good today with the newest one being almost 10 years old!!!!!

Vilhuer

'89 K model year production numbers are not one of the easiest to explain. Four sources mentioned in earlier mail do not agree on them. Main reasor for this is that some are model year numbers and others are calendar year. Sadly there is not set of numbers that would give ratio of manual and automatic gearboxes on model year basis, which is more important than calendar year. Sources I could find back then were:

K.L = Karl Ludvigsen's 'Excellence was Expected'
J.A = Jörg Austen's 'Porsche 928 - Die technische Dokumentation des Transaxle-Achtzylinders'
928 GT = 928 Specilists http://www.928gt.com/928specs/928specs.htm Worldwide Sales column
928 GTS = http://www.928gts.net

Only Austen gives all numbers as model years. Three others either are calendar years of mixture of both. Since Ludvigsen separates different models (except 15 odd '92 S4's and/or GT's) I think they can be used as guide to total production of GT's. Meaning 1620 (+ some) were made between 02/89 (or is it 03/89?) and 08/91 (or month(s) later?).

What those numbers do not tell is how many were made in each model year. We can only quess how they are spread over three (four?) different model years.

Austen gives out cut off point in ROW numbers when GT production began:

'89 5sp S4's should not be included in 369 Ludvigsen number. It's very likely even 60+ US GT's are not in it. If we take out 50% of the 369 as MY '90 production done between 08/89-12/89 end result is too small to leave enough '89 GT's for both ROW and USA. My previous calculationw were wrong I think. 02/89-08/89 is about equally long as 08/89-12/89 so 369 should be split in half:

2488-1584 = 904 total ROW S4/GT production between 02/89-08/89
50% of 369 = 185 (maybe between 150-210 in reality) total ROW and US GT production between 02/89-08/89
185 - 60 (or more) = 125 ROW GT production between 02/89-08/89
(125 / 904) * 100% = 14% GT's in ROW production between 02/89-08/89

Same calculation without US '89 GT's:
(185 / 904) * 100% = 20% GT's in ROW production between 02/89-08/89

This is highly unscientific method but second number sounds much more feasable considering traditionally larger percentage of manual cars in ROW than US production. Thus it's likely total GT production is 1620 + 60 (or more '89 US GT's).

Other thing that can be counted from those numbers is approximation of first US '89 GT VIN. Minus 60 in calculations is substraction of mostly unused 0001...0060 VIN's.
100% - (((1584 - 60) / (2488 - 60)) * 100%) = 37% of total ROW '89 MY production was done during time when GT was in production
(1250 - 60) * 37% = 440 MY '89 US cars produced when GT was in production
(60 / (1250 - 60)) * 100% = 5% of US '89 MY production was GT's
1250 - 440 = 810 approximate VIN of first US '89 GT

Since 810 is much smaller than lowest VIN in Chuck's site it is likely US '89 MY production was not spread evenly over entire model year. More likely it was heavily weighted to early months of MY and this is why first US GT came much later than VIN KS860810. This was due to quickly slowing sales I guess.

Quick answer to the question is, 369 do not contain any '89 S4 5sp's or US '89 GT's but it does contain more than 150 MY '90 ROW and US GT's. Confucing enough.

Andrew, please post everything you get your hands on. Very interesting data.

AO

Erkka-

I realize now that I only posted US sales data. I'll grab the global production data too, but I don't know if it will show the % of equipment fitted. Anyway, if I have time tomorrow I'll post it.

H2

"The worst 928 I ever owned was absolutely wonderful!" GTS or not, they're all great. Is that what I'm hearing here?

Harvey