Speaking of getting a membership.
So, if for example, a OB 928 with headers and a 5 speed , isn't an example of a german version of an American muscle car what is?

 

A counterpoint: I submit that it is easier - for a manufacturer - to take a road car, remove bits and pieces along with structure to reduce weight than it is to take a designed-to-the-racing rulebook race car and re-engineer it to meet safety standards. We are talking about road racing cars here. Cars that had to be sold in some numbers in some part of the world. Not open-wheel F1 cars.

 

The original 500E Mercedes, built by Porsche

Or better yet (closer to the period) 6.9 Mercedes sedan.

 

What about arguably the greatest sport car of all-time, the Porsche 911?

Here one can find the weight of various 911's, including 1972:

http://www.porsche.com/filestore.asp...letype=default

Goto the bottom of this page for more 1972 911 info:

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z7978/default.aspx

According to those pages, a 1972 911 weighs anywhere from 2,300 to 2.400 lbs which is about 1000 lbs, or HALF a TON less than a 928.

There must have been some disconnect between what Ferry stated and the resulant outcome. Or maybe the people who designed the 928 were not involved in Porsche's racing program. I mean, how else can the supposed 'ultimate' sport car from Porsche end up weighing nearly 1000 lbs more than their 911? It just coudn't have happened that way, thus why the 928 was designed to be something else.

 

The Germans are not so one dimensional that they would build a road car that was only fast a 1/4 mile at a time. To be a muscle car you needed 335 HP to 450hp depending on the brand of car many had drum brakes , and 6 inch wide rims were thought to be HUGE. The 928 was more like a Mustang or Camero which are pony cars although when fitted with big block engines 390-427-428 Ford ,396 427 454 chevy they did crossover into the muscle car format since the extra weight on the front end nearly 70 % made them handle horribly. The mustang as I recall had several hundred pounds of frontal lift at speed. So what is a early 928 with headers ?? a loud rather slow car which goes around corners much better than any muscle car. About the only good thing about muscle cars is they have been selling for a lot of money and many people who have never owned one or even driven one recently think they are neat cars. The 6.9 Mercedes was very popular with the american magazine writers of the time they loved doing smoking burnouts with that torque monster 415 cubic inch V-8 . Mercedes should have jammed it into one of the SL Roadsters now that would have been a German Muscle car if they could have made it handle like a horse cart.

 

That was my point. Porsche was looking around at other cars of that day, looking down the road to a time when the 911 would be way obsolete. So they set out to design something different, a more modern sports car for the new era. Nobody at Porsche back in 1970 thought the 911 would still be the #1 sports car in the world in 2007.
It was designed to be a more modern, updated for the times, sports car.

Every sports car was gaining weight back then. That was the trend in the automotive world. The Hyper exotics were just getting started with the Lamborghini Miura (nice headlights....). Porsche was aiming for a different car market they thought was coming. What they didn't count on in 1971 was the oil embargo and the emmissions regulations.

What they set out to make is not what they ended up with 10 years later. That doesn't change the fact that in 1971, the game plan was to dump the 911 for the 928. A more modern, updated sports car for the 80's. It just didn't work out that way so the marketing team set out to find a home for the 928.

It's an oddball in automotive history. A car that nobody (including Porsche) ever totally figured out. This thread pretty much proves this.

I could are less what the car is called. Make it a station wagon coupe and I'll still love'em.

When I was growing up my father told me: "Sports cars do not have back seats". When I was 5, what made a sports car was pretty simple.

 

Why would it be compared to the 1972 model when the reality of the world of 1978 required the much heavier bumpers and smog equipment which dropped 911 horsepower down to 172 hp for 1978 and the weigh was 2740 lbs ! maybe that was why Porsche thought the 911 concept was in trouble. They also realized their aircooled engine could not be fitted with 4 valve heads and meeting the engine noise restrictions in some european countries was increasingly difficult while the emmisions requirements was causing numerous relaibilty problems with the magnesium cased 911 engines pulling head studs due to the heat. Which is also part of the weight increase since the 78 SC used a heavier alluminum engine block. The 1978 SC carried about 15.9 lbs per horsepower while the 928 was about 15 lbs per HP. Porsche could no longer sell 1972 911s in 1978 and they knew it. Had the 300 plus HP been made availble the power to weight could have been about 11 lbs per HP That was the original design ! all that was missing from the greatest sportcar they could design was the bigger high output engine. But that compromise came near the end of the development program.

 

Hacker-Pschorr wrote: "... I could are less what the car is called. Make it a station wagon coupe and I'll still love'em.
When I was growing up my father told me: "Sports cars do not have back seats". When I was 5, what made a sports car was pretty simple."

What makes a sports car or GT is a generations old discussion - never been settled. I don't know Hacker's age, but in 1952 and for most of the fifties, iirc, sports cars were assumed to be open cars (convertibles). Having a roof was one of the signs of a GT.

Ferry was twenty years older in '72, too. Maybe what he wanted to drive had changed some.

BTW, my 356's had rear seats. So did my Dad's '55 Speedster.

How many sports cars can dance on the head of a pin? How many GT's?

 

The 928 project started in 1971 - 1972. They had running test dummies by 1974-1975.
Just turned 30, my father is 65. He's had a long line of sports / gt / luxury cars starting with a James Dean copy Mercury sometime around 1958.
BINGO!!
What we consider a sports car is constantly evolving.

I guess that is why I often hear the tearm "pure sports car" when cars like the Elise or Boxster are mentioned. Lets face it, the 911 has been a GT car for quite a while now. Hell, ever since the Boxster came out. IMO there are not many "true" sports cars available today. Most are just too damn heavy.
The replica Cobra in my avatar is what I consider my first sports car. A Light nimble roadster - the way it should be

Bringing up the 356, why is that a sports car and the VW Beetle is not? Horsepower has never been a qulification for a sports car, or the bug-eyed sprite would get kicked out of the club.

 

Everyone knows that the screaming chicken is the only true sports/muscle car in the world. Everthing else is jsut an attempt to match perfection!

 

I will own one of those some day, I'm not kidding.

Lorelei wishes I was kidding. I told her she has to wear a wedding dress evertime we go somewhere. Now to start working on the moustache.

 

AND the 5 hubcaps that came off the Stang too!

 

I spent the weekend with quite a few hard core muscle car guys. Most are in the business of either buying / selling or rebuilding them.

According to them no car with an IRS was ever considered a Muscle car.

Before you say it, the Cobra & Corvette are NOT muscle cars to those in the muscle car world. Neither is the 928.

 

Point taken. Many into Muscle cars have that point of view. However one could hardly argue that they werent at least Ameican Muscle.