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Very interesting thread, always great and interesting to read about possible rare cars.
Just out of interest I have an orginal 1987 ROW 944 turbo cup (see below) which raced here in the series in South-Africa. I am in the process of tracing all turbo cup cars here in SA from their original owner with full race history to their current owners. There is apparently 19 cars that were part of the orignal 88 ROW cars made in1987 here in SA. So far I know of 10 cars and and just getting all the information together on them to confirm they are all orignal 1987 cars. I will eventually do a thread on the process.
Very cool Johnny I was just looking at Asarus site the other day and talking with a Rothmans cup car owner about tracking down all of the cup cars from around the world like the South African ones you speak of. Keep us informed and any sort of registery you put together would be great to check out.
9th digit is check digit if entire VIN is valid or not. Its there just to prevent anyone from changing any other digit. For example it wouldn't take many changes to convert same MY 944 NA VIN into 951 VIN. When all other 16 digits are added up in correct way its possible to see if such change has been done. Whoever does the change must know how check digit is calculated and change it too to make believable change. All this without leaving any signs to VIN that it has been tampered with.
On average, every 11th 951 made will have 951 in 7-9 digits and also every 11th will have 957. Which ever number 0-9 or letter X is in 9th position doesn't make car any more special or common. Nor does it have anything to do with what safery equipment was installed at factory. As as sample, these are first 10 '95 MY US model 928 GTS made.
Notice how 9th digit jumps around semingly randomly from VIN to next, 8-X-1-3-5-7-9-0-2-9 and so on. Owner of WP0AA2928SS820061 might think number 8 in 9th digit means 928 but other owners would not make same assumption. Same thing in 951 and 957 in VIN's 7th to 9th digit in 951.
Very interesting thread. My 951 has a build date of 7/85 with a serial number of 0479. Nothing too questionable in my car besides little things a PO could have changed, like late style exhaust and no VINs on body panels.
heres photos posted on here. https://www.facebook.com/ziggy.zanzo/photos the sport seat pic was taken before I installed my new momo steering wheel but you can see the hard top pic, no sun roof there. just wondering if there's anything special about mine. or what exactly it is. Ive own many 944s never seen one without a sunroof besides this one (in person I mean).
Last edited by mahoney944; 04-13-2015 at 09:24 PM.
What a great thread. It certainly brings back memories. I raced in the Escort series with Ken Williams in '86. As the eight (?) cars that Porsche prepared weren't in the States, Bob Snodgrass sold me the first 944 Turbo they received to use for "training" and comments. It was a stock car, white with grey/beige interior and was a real eyeopener after having driven 944's.
The cars were first taken to Road Atlanta for a shake down. Our first race with these cars was at St.Louis and was it a treat. It gave me bragging rights to say I had actually raced with Stirling Moss, Innes Ireland, and others. It became obvious that although very quick cars, the support the Corvettes received pretty much put us on the back foot.
As in most cases, serial numbers and car details were not very important. There are many interesting stories about these cars and the races, but best shared over a beer. Thanks for sharing all of this information.
01-02-2009, 07:58 PM
