In February 1977, I had a chance to meet Fuhrmann again and to try
the latest product of his shrewd discrimination and the skill of the Porsche
engineers: the 928. Other men joined us in Nice for the historic introduction:
Heinz Branitzki, Helmut Flegl, Tony Lapine, and Manfred Jantke were among them.
These were members of a new generation at Porsche. Like me, they had
grown up with the company. They were now ready to make their own
contributions to its progress. The 928 showed just how fine those
contributions could be.

"What's it like?"
The first journalist, who posed the question, expected a factual
answer from the second journalist, who had just returned from a
drive of several hours through southern France in a new Porsche
928. Instead, he heard a flat statement that he could not believe:
"It makes all other Porsches old-fashioned"
All other Porsches? How could that be? thought the first
journalist, who loved the lusty 911's and the velvet-gloved
mailed fist that was the Turbo. He had not driven the 928,
but he could hardly imagine that is might outclass the 911 in its
finest form. Later, he too drove the 928, and he too was asked,
"What is it like?"
He heard himself give an oblique answer:
It's as if all other Porsches have been just practice exercises
for the men who designed this car"
Such were the impressions the 928 made on some of the first
non-Porsche people to drive it at the end of February 1977. Fine
though the 911 was and still would be, the 928 clearly
represented a doorway through which Porsche would drive into a
new era. The car possessed an astonishing clarity of conception
and execution, from its superb engine to its ingenious suspension.
Invested in the 928 were all of Porsche's experiences with the road
and racing cars the company had designed and built since it was
established in 1930. And the Porsche engineers were able to put
that experience to work in the 928 for one surprising reason: the
928 was the first production car in Porsche's history that the
company had been able to design completely from scratch.

The team's next task was to build ten test cars for the
journalists who had been summoned by Manfred Jantke form all
corners of the globe to southern France to try out the 928 in
concentrated sessions beginning on February 23rd. Since
production had not yet started, many provisional pieces had to be
used in those cars, especially the interiors. The rush to get
them finished was reminiscent of the readying of the first 917's
for their homologation review. Finally, though, the cars were
completed - the day before the tests began.

Tony Curtis of Motor wrote "it handles magnificently,"
adding: "There is a sense, indeed, in which the 928 has no handling at all:
it simply goes round corners where the driver wants it to go without effort or fuss.
Reported the author: "The steering is not so precise and direct as a 911's -
but what car is? - but it is almost that good. Only a slight numbness hints at
its power assist. It controls road handling that's the definition of neutral.
It's so predictable that you simply track it through turns faster and faster until,
near the limit, the front tires shudder a warning and the rear rubber gently,
controllably slackens its grip on the road."
..."As might be expected from a car of this breeding," said Curtis,
"the brakes proved powerful and reassuring and did not show a trace of fade
during the fastest mountain descents we tried."
And the author commented: "the engine is stunningly versatile. It is capable
of paving the road in strips of rubber in first gear, yet it is so quiet that it's
inaudible above the sighing of air around the car at highway speeds. If you
want to drive it hard you can enjoy the way it revs past 6000, but you don't
have to, because its torque lets you drive all day in fifth, even, without
shifting. Its intake air is perfectly silenced and its exhaust is a smooth, deep
mumuring without a trace of V-8 blat."

Limit volume production of the new car began in May of 1977. By August
it was stepped up to twenty cars a day...