What could possibly go wrong?
(Unlike my usual posts, all the car pictures are of my 928) In 2011 I was the happy owner of a 2009 Kia Rondo that was fun to drive, and eminently practical with seating for 7, enabling me to carry my three kids (at the time) and any friends they might care to bring along, as well as my new girlfriend (soon to be my wife, praise God). I had lost most everything, financially speaking, in my divorce in 2008, and felt that I was just beginning to recover. Then one day, as I was dropping off the kids at their mother’s house, her fiance was in the driveway with either his BMW 3.0CS or his Mercedes Benz 500E and I got JEALOUS. I had been planning on trying my hand at flipping a car or two, and seeing if I could break even or make $100-$500 per car by picking up some low value classic cars, fixing an item or two, and selling them forward as I had my BMW 2002 and 633csi. My heart very quickly settled on a 1983 Porsche 928 S in Bronze Metallic with 128,000 miles on the odometer.
Room for 4, as long as 2 of them are little people!
It was the perfect car (in my mind) for a second car: fully depreciated, all original, iconic (see Risky Business and Scarface), rust-free and with seating for my three kids as well as me. The only knock was the automatic transmission. The test drive was a success with a very willing engine and responsive transmission, no errant smoke or noises, and most every power feature worked. I bought the 928 from an old used car specialist in Virginia for $4,300 and drove my new car home!
Mercedes Benz sourced 4-speed automatic transmission
When I was a teenager, the father of my buddy had two 928’s, the first was a 5-speed 928 and the second was an automatic 928 S. I only rode in the automatic and when I said I wish I could ride in the stick, he said actually the automatic is better. I remember reading much the same in the car mags at the time and a quick search of the internet reveals that in 1982, Car & Driver said:
Five nicely spaced transmission ratios help keep the underhood spirit alive, but here you find the 928’s Achilles’ heel. The 928’s shift linkage generated widespread bad reviews to the extent that most of us are avowed 928-automatic fans.
In fact the automatic was a 4-speed transaxle derived from the Mercedes Benz transmission (it was originally a 3-speed, but upgraded to 4-speeds for 1983), and was really quite nice, especially if one used the comfortable and easy to control t-bar transmission lever to control the gears. In normal usage, it started in second gear like the Mercedes, but by selecting 2, the car would start in first and hold the gear until nearly redline and then rip off a very fast shift into 2nd. Then I would shift into 3 and then drive to control the gears. I could accomplish controlled powerslides easily, as long as I shifted the automatic manually, and if the other controls were any guide, the clutch and shift linkage would have been quite heavy.
So I settled in with my car and got a few things fixed on it here and there. I considered fixing the air conditioning for $2,000 and decided against it, instead using the very small sunroof at every chance, and dealing with suburban Maryland’s heat and humidity by only driving the car occasionally.
Hatchback surprisingly practical for a GT
Otherwise, everything worked, and I could even fit my ice hockey bag comfortably in the hatchback. I got the car nice and clean and in good working order, listed it on Craigslist for $6,500 if I remember, and sat back and waited. Nothing, no interest.
Not to worry, I loved the car and I was happy to keep driving it. Once fall arrived, and the heat subsided, I began commuting in the car, and getting to know it better. A few things I discovered: the seating position on the floor was so low that after about an hour in the car, my legs would begin to fall asleep a little at a time. The controls, including steering, gas pedal, transmission lever, everything, were really heavy compared to modern cars. This was the Porsche GT, and yet, it was not light or luxurious in any sense that we would recognize today in my view. And the 928 was thirsty! I got about 9.5 mpg highway!
Then, stuff started happening…
Pontiac Tempest version 2: Torque tube driving rear transaxle
First, as I was driving in to the parking lot at the RIO in Gaithersburg MD, there is a ramp up into the garage, and at the top it has a hidden speed bump that blends in to the pavement. As I entered the garage, the underbody of the car slammed down on the speedbump, and the impact was quite hard. After that, the 928 developed a shake at greater than 75 mph that my mechanic identified as a damaged torque tube. I asked him about replacing it, but he said the only option is a used part, and we won’t know if it perfectly straight until after we’ve bought it and installed it, so it’s a high risk effort. I decided to pass and to keep my speed to 75 or less.
As an aside, the design of the 928 was a widely heralded 50/50 weight distribution approach accomplished through the location of the transaxle and battery in the rear of the vehicle, and as Paul covered here, it was not the first production car in America to use such a structure, but the second, following the design of the 1961 Pontiac Tempest.
It wasn’t a model of precision and quickness, but Porsche had to have something left to improve when it adopted a highly similar torque tube rear transaxle for their 928 and 924/944/968. The 968′s three liter four was only slightly smaller than the Tempest 3.2, and its ferocious torque showed to best advantage the benefits of a large displacement four with balance shafts.
Common Rail Fuel Injection
Then, one day I was driving along, and suddenly I smelled gas. I was able to get to the mechanic right away, and the diagnosis was the common rail of the fuel injection system failed, pouring gas all over the engine. Apparently, I was lucky my engine didn’t catch fire!
So anyway, I took it back to my mechanic to be fixed. When I got the car back, it had developed a hesitation in the throttle that had never been there before. The next day the engine died on me and I had to get a flat-bed to take it back to the mechanic. Their diagnosis: I had run out of gas. I still don’t believe that’s what happened, but of course anything is possible. They got the car back running, but the hesitation remained.
The disadvantage of integrated bumpers
Then (yes I know this is getting repetitive), I was driving to the market and when I was accelerating from a stop at a stop light that had changed to green, a guy in a CRV came flying up behind me and misjudged my speed and slammed into the back of my 928 (whammo!) and pushed me through the intersection. It felt way worse than it looked but he busted up the rear integrated bumper quite a bit. You can see the blistering paint above. I adjusted my online ad and price, now down to $4,000 and showing the damage to the bumper. Still no interest.
Then, when I took the 928 to the drive through insurance adjustment location, they had a dugout section of the floor to simplify examining the underside of vehicles. As I drove out of the area, the underside of the 928 didn’t quite clear the floor set up, and the edge of the opening tore a hole in the exhaust system. So I received an insurance check for $1,250 but I had a new problem to deal with.
It’s all downhill after this…
I decided to see if I might have better luck getting the hesitation fixed at a different mechanic. I searched out a new mechanic, and they said sure, bring it over. I hopped in the car and started to drive. Part of the way there the 928 stalled again. I was able to get it restarted, and as I was near the original mechanic, I quickly took at U-turn to head there. I gunned it up the overpass pictured above, and made it 2/3rds up the hill, and then the car stalled again. I put it in neutral, and rolled up to the top of the overpass. From there it was about 5 blocks to the mechanic. With the help of the downhill grade of the overpass, and some well-timed green lights, I was able to roll all the way to the mechanic, and into their parking lot.
Final resting place
And that was it. The car never ran again for me. I pushed the mechanic to find out the problem, but they couldn’t figure out why it was dead with 130,000 miles, and said they’d have to charge me to do additional diagnostic work.
Well I lowered the price to $2,000 for the non-running vehicle and finally I started getting some interest. Eventually a nice man named Christian came to look at and offered me $800 cash for it. I gave him the keys, and signed over the title, and together with the insurance money, I got out of the car for about $2,000 after having invested about $8,000 in it all told. It was an experience, but measured in fun per mile, it was terribly expensive. I haven’t bought a classic car since.
Always thought the 928 was a gorgeous machine, but stories like this were way to common to consider owning one.
Given the value at the time, I am surprised the CRV’s insurance did not total the car out for you. Maybe the new owner could get a second $800 parts car and get one running well.
Until the values go up, cars like this are hard to keep going, even a 928 with so much technical interest. By the time an E type was this old, the values had long bottomed and were rising rapidly. I wonder if us younger folks just have less money or the high end cars just got too complex. Thanks for the interesting read.
I have a theory that modern classics are like baseball cards. My dad told me stories of Micky Mantle cards in his bike spokes, and of course today they’re ultra rare and expensive.
We all heard that story. It’s urban legend. So we all kept our Jose Canseco cards thinking they’d be worth a fortune someday and now they’re as common and worthless as they were then.
I don’t see a lot of ’57 Chevys cruising around because most were junked decades ago and few could afford such a cool toy, despite the fact that they were once everywhere. Ironically, now everyone’s got a 928 falling apart in their backyard.
Alternatively there are just so many other interesting cars about ( ref: John C ) all doing approximately the same thing that makes the costly to maintain 928 less desirable. Most attention seems to focus on the rear-engined 911’s where values are high.
With Porsche gradually turning attention back to the 911 and letting the 928 wither, there is a failed view of the future that the 928 represents. Joseph showed us a 78 Eldo in Detroit a few posts up also probably down to scrap value. Two great but very different coupes, one starting in 78 the other ending, both now potential scrap. Sad.
Not sure that this is the type of car to flip. I love this car, but the 944/968 is going to appreciate sooner than these because these are ‘all exotic and no real track pedigree’. I commiserate with you, Matt, but don’t let this turn you off a classic.
Looking at the cover pic, I just noticed the keyhole in the door. Positioning appears quite arbitrary. Very un-Porsche-like.
Matt, I am sorry to say that your experience is not at all unusual (although the degree of diverse crises is in the upper layer of the “autmosphere” where all those seemingly gold plated OEM replacement parts twinkle in the sun). Our tendency to believe we can control outcomes puts us in a vulnerable position, and the media encourages it with shows and articles about flipping this and that, and commercials for courses on how to do it that make at least one person money (the guy who sells the courses). The outcome is that it’s put you off owning, which is a bit sad. Like our love affairs within our species, there are dangers in an old car relationship planned to be short lived from the outset. It will almost always cost a lot more in dollars and time than we imagine. I must honestly say that of the score of old cars owned, I have never sold one for more than I bought it for. This is not to say that all my motor marriages have been failures. They were great, or great teachers. The best course for car guys is marry for love, and enjoy the ride for its own sake. If nothing else, we get some great stories to share over a beer with our buddies.
I hadn’t realized before just how small the sunroof for a 928 is, makes you wonder why they bothered.
My experience with watching Craigslist ads tells me $6500 for a 928 with over 125,000 is/was very optimistic. $5000 for your car with inoperative A/C would have been optimistic.
You were the “victim” of a lot of bad luck, had you never hit that speed bump, been hit by that CR-V and visited that insurance adjuster’s office you would likely have eventually sold your car for almost twice what it sold for.
As the driver of several older cars over the last 10-15 years, your near fire is one of my biggest nightmares. I’ve never seen a fiery crash like those you see so often on tv or in movies, but I have seen nearly 5 or 6 engine fires on the side of the road.
Regarding the small sunroof, there is an interesting story that has been told about it.
Supposedly the producers of Magnum, P.I. originally intended to use a 928 as Thomas Magnum’s ride, but didn’t likethat the small sunroof would have made it difficult to film the main character during driving scenes. They asked Porsche if they would build a special 928 for the show with the 924/944’s larger, removable sunroof, but Porsche refused.
So in the end, Magnum ended up with a Ferrari 308 GTS…
I think Magnum got the better end of that bargain.
This is a really unfair review of a 928 that was owned by someone who admits they cut corners on service (using agents that never fixed problems!), and was careless while driving the car – failing to take into account the lesser ground clearance compared to an ‘ordinary’ car.
I don’t have a lot of sympathy, even for a fellow 928 owner.
While you can’t legislate against clowns crashing into you, the loss of value from such an incident is not the 928’s fault either.
I drove mine (1985 UK) as a daily driver for 5 years, including winters (real winters, in Scotland) without a hiccup, and even got to laugh at my then boss, as his Jaguar XJS V12 5.0 was stuck in his driveway, unable to get enough traction to even get onto the road.
The only real problem I can report was not even down to the car as such, but the original relays used (and it has a lot of them). After 20 years or so, they seem to like to become intermittent, and fail to operate at random.
Cheap fix, replace them with generic items.
Hugh: calling this article a “review of a 928” made me pause. It is not a review of a 928 in my eyes. It is an account of an experience with an old 928.
I wouldn’t call your account a “review of a 928” either. It is an account of an experience with an old 928.
I think Matt’s mistake was trusting mechanics too much instead of using 928 forums to find out about trouble shooting. I do this with my mainstream mobiles and save thousands. The damages that occurred while driving the car show you the main risk of classic car ownership: exposure.
I fall on the opposite end of trusting mechanics–after buying an 80’s Volvo last year, I have steadfastly refused to take it to a mechanic for anything, for fear that I’ll have the same experience of paying a lot of money for them to not fix the problem. It does seem a lot more reasonable to do some online hunting and attempt to ID and fix the problem myself.
Sadly this has resulted in a car that is no longer driveable, so I’ve arrived at the same location, but at least with less money out of pocket. But at least, thanks to forums, I know what I need to do to fix it. Whether or not I can, now that’s an open question…
What Wolfgang said, that’s the purpose of the COAL series afterall.
I do share your sentiment that one shouldn’t let this experience discourage others from buying a car like this, and that you mistaking it for a review of the car and not their personal experience can easily be done b others and have it used as gospel in why not to buy a 928. The reality is the vast majority of issues this car had can happen to literally any other car of similar age on the low end of the scale of depreciation. Obsolete parts, shops unfamiliar having trouble troubleshooting, ect could happen with Toyota of the same year.
I would like to respectfully suggest that a vehicle that has had a failed or split fuel rail and afterwards is intermittently ‘cutting-out’ simply needs a fuel pressure check and a set of brand new Bosch fuel injectors more likely than not. .
Sad story, not least as I’ve a real soft spot for these.
Speaking as a (relatively) small person (174cm & 60kg), the 928’s back seats are among the most comfortable places I’ve ever ridden in a car – it’s good to fold up small 😉
And this story makes me want to buy an old Corvette just because the engine/transmissions are generally pretty tough and reliable.
Every successful sport model was built that way when you blew the guts out of the motor.trans,rear axle there was a sedan in a nearby wrecking yard to harvest for parts, Jaguar, Chevrolet, Ford Mustang, MGB, all worked that way.
9.5 MPG on the highway seems huge.
I guess something was already wrong with your Porsche’s fuel system when you bought it.
By the way, here in France, the common advice is to only buy Porsches with a full history, no matter what prive and mileage are.
Yeah that’s really bad, considering the aerodynamics, the OD transmission, the power and engine design I would think mid to high 20s should be obtainable.
I just think of the Lincoln mark VIII – fuel injected DOHC V8 of similar displacement and power, 4 speed overdrive transmission, very aerodynamic but much heavier than the 928, ad those can easily get 25mpg on the highway, up to 30 even.
I had lusted for a 928 ever since a neighbor brought home a brand new one around 1981-1982. Same bronze color too. This guy had been buying Corvettes and stepped up to the Porsche.
Then I drove one about 5 years ago and was left cold. Ruined the whole fantasy…low mileage automatic 928S4, interior parts felt poorly assembled, didn’t like the driving position, felt heavy and unathletic on the road. Not impressed.
On the subject of problematic old heaps, I have tinkered with MB,BMW, SAAB, even one Jaguar that was remarkably trouble-free. I am bedeviled by a Volvo C70 that is currently sitting in my garage…this thing has had a cascade of electrical and electronic gremlins that befuddle me, and irritate my mechanic. The mechanic drives an S80 and has done well for me otherwise, but this car is bad news. So, in short, I feel your pain!
David,
What year is the C70? And how much do you want for it if you were to sell?
The C70 is a 2000 model…great black paint, worn top and rough front seats…I am going to throw an ETM on it and if that doesn’t fix it, it’s gone. I’m open to offers…
That’s a magnificent color on that car, I’ll bet you felt like a king when you first got it. I’ve long lusted after a 928 myself, if nothing else at least you can say you owned one. The secret to successfully and profitably flipping cars (and houses for that matter), is to do much of the work yourself. Once you start getting others involved, you still have to know what you are doing in order to be sure that you are getting good value for the money spent. And of course to buy it right in the first place.
True that.
Matt’s story and the outcome was predictable. There’s no way to buy and own a car like this and come out ahead when paying others to do the work, unless the market for the specific car happens to be in a major updraft. But that’s not something to bank on.
Life is about lessons learned. And by sharing them, as Matt and many of the other COAL writers have done, others may possibly learn them the easy way. 🙂
The only way it makes fiscal sense to own an older, high-end car is to be able to do diagnostics and repair yourself…at least smaller things. If it has to go to the shop for every little thing your mechanic’s 401k will be full, and you’ll be in the poor house.
I still think the 928 is beautiful, and I associate the bronze color with Porsches of that era…I just don’t want one anymore.
Having a classic car is not the problem. It is the choice of brand that is the problem. After my Volvo 245 and Audi Fox ownership, I will never own another European car again. I will stick to Ford, thank you very much.
I might argue that just getting lucky (or unlucky) with a particular car is more important than the brand. I have a 97 Volvo with 199,000 miles on it that I would feel perfectly comfortable climbing in, and driving to Florida. My ’00 Volvo, on the other hand, I wouldn’t drive up the street to Dunkin Donuts without my cell phone and comfortable shoes.
Yes. My ’97 850 was dead reliable so I tried by luck at an ’01 V70 T5 and wow, what a costly and short-lived affair that was.
Yes. My ’97 850 was dead reliable so I tried by luck at an ’01 V70 T5 and, wow, what a costly and short-lived affair that was.
There’s someone near me who has a 928 on their lawn with a for sale sign. Every time I drive by it, I think “hmm, that would be a cool car to buy”
I probably won’t think that the next time I drive past it. Instead, I’ll probably think “well, I guess I know why it’s been sitting on his lawn for so long”
I wonder if a Corvette driveline could be made to fit in that car? With the rear-mounted transaxle I doubt there’s room for the transmission…much more complex than the old Jaguars with the 350 Chevy dropped in.
Check out renegadehybrids.com. They have kits for swapping in Chevy small blocks into all kinds of Porsches.
Sigh, I was rather hoping for a litany of the thrills of owning a Porsche and how it contrasted with a . . . Kia Rondo . . . and the agony of four figure repair bills.
I used to flip cars and then suddenly the bottom fell out of the cheap used car market. I didn’t specialise in classic cars, but basic, everyday transportation; the kind of car I could buy for $1000, have the mechanic put $500-750 in, and flip for $2500. 10-12 year old Buick Centurys and Maximas and such. You could make decent money every so often, even with having the mechanic doing the work because the mechanic is inexpensive and honest, and a lot of people either don’t know where to take the car or don’t want to be bothered and will dump a car cheaply just not to have to fool with it.
That being said, I did once try to flip a Saab convertible and very quickly discovered that the price of parts and fixing the top reached defense budget figures. I wouldn’t try anything remotely exotic unless I was certain there was a market for the car and I could do the work myself.
The author lives in Maryland and no one is going to buy a car without functional air conditioning.
That being said, some of the maladies that affected the car weren’t related to the car itself really, someone hitting it isn’t its fault, and then I don’t know how long he had the car, but the fuel rail issue could really happen on any older car (and I dare say a newer Porsche as well) and then I do know I wouldn’t have abandoned it because it mysteriously died.
If 1983 Porsche 928s had the same reliability and cost of repair as a 14 yer old Camry or Impala, we’d see a lot more of them on the road, but there are compromises to be made in dealing with an elderly exoticar. He sounded frustrated by the end of the ownership experience, although it frankly didn’t sound like too much of a money pit.
Of course Saab part costs reach defense budget figures. They were born from jets!
I think the lesson that we can take away from this is that, not only is there no such thing as a cheap Porsche, there’s no such thing as a cheap premium car in general.
Buying a cheap car from a premium manufacturer is a money pit waiting to happen the vast majority of the time. I should know, I have one, and it is the first car I ever own.
Back on last Halloween, my dad and I purchased my first car, a black 1998 Cadillac Eldorado ETC. It was 78k, it was well kept, and it was only 5 and a half grand. Now, I looked at various cars before settling on the Eldorado, I knew that the Northstar might be an issue and that I had to keep a close eye on it, and I figured I got off relatively scot-free in terms of problems.
Oh how wrong we were.
First thing we noticed, the HVAC system was busted and needed to be fixed. One of the speakers wasn’t working to full capacity, and the car has just now started to lose it’s clear coat (although that’s partially the SoCal sun beating down it every day.)
But then there was the big one, we both noticed the ride was super harsh and not up to snuff. Well, it turns out we needed the stock air-suspension replaced because it had given up the ghost. I never realized that Cadillac’s of that vintage had air suspension (I only thought that was a Lincoln problem) and when I found out the OEM parts where 3 grand online, I knew I’d gotten myself in too deep. Ultimately, we just converted it to springs and coils to save the trouble (a decision that caused some bad blood between me and my dad) but I learned a very important lesson.
If it cost a lot when it was new, and your getting it for a tiny fraction of the price, it will drain you of your wallet like that. I still have the car, and despite all the problems, I do like it, but this along with the story of your Porsche ownership just confirms a very important lesson I’ve come to learn.
If you’re going to buy an old luxury car, buy one with low miles and know what you’re getting into.
Such a shame, especially considering the 928 is one of the few Porsches I actually like and consider seeing myself driving.
I’ve been eyeballing late 90’s-early 2000’s Jaguar XK8s on Craigslist recently and keep seeing nice ones in about the $5K range. Also see a lot of 90’s Mercedes SL 500s for even less money.
The price is right, wonder if the experience would be any better. Stories like this keep scaring me and I don’t know anyone else who’s had one.
Beware of those late 90s Jaguar V8s they have head gasket problems. I see tons of them on CL cheap. Ususally the seller will admit to overheating. That is a blown head gasket already or around the corner. Stay away from those.
I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. I made a pact with myself a long long time ago that I’ll only own cars that appeal to me, even if it is just a daily driver, no matter the compromise. Running cost? Meh, beats car payments. However, I am mechanically inclined, and I do try to foresee things, like what if I can’t find parts that fail? what if they fail while driving through a far away or bad area?
I go to self service wrecking yards somewhat recreationally, it’s a $2 car show where you never know what you might find, I can actually touch the cars, sit inside, and if I want take a part off and buy it. Joking aside, I tend to observe what’s there, and in the instance I come across an odd higher end car it’s almost always like this 928(which I have found), usually in pretty decent cosmetic and interior shape, pretty much meaning what lay underneath sent the previous owner to the poorhouse. What’s also telling, when I find them, they’re usually picked down to the literal bones by people – meaning parts are rare, hard to find and worth someone’s entire day stripping a complete car down at a junkyard, and wheelbarrowing the parts out into their truck in stages – I neither want to be “that guy” desperately waiting for the day he finally found bargain priced parts for his money pit exotic, and/or definitely don’t want to be “that guy’s customer”, who is surely going to be putting “that guy’s” kids through college from the markup he’ll surely pad on.
In my observations the cars tend to be 80s-90s models, and the problem unique to them vs. similar regular cars is everything became unique to the model, with little to no interchange. You can’t just interchange a broken part in a 928 with a 911, it’s all distinctly unique. Electronics are even worse, since manufacturers aren’t even close to standardized with them, especially pre OBD-II systems. As much as improvements like fuel injection variable cam timing and whatnot have improved regular cars, the high tech advancements ultimately have made exotics more disposable. I’m not sure I’d go so far to say a Weber carbed 911 is cheaper to own but there is a certain sense that it’s mostly mechanical and widely cross referencable parts can always keep it driveable.
Damn, the Porsche fanboys came out in droves for this.
Old Porsches are old cars. They break, just like old Hyundais, only more expensively. The only people I know who drive old exotics and are satisfied with them are either insanely wealthy or are themselves qualified mechanics with their own tools. For the rest of us, this article captures the typical experience of buying someone else’s worn-out bauble.
A guy I knew was a lifetime Porsche nut. His litany of woes went on for hours. His was an addiction — one which he had learned not to rationalize.
For those not mechanically and electrically inclined (and with a decent set of tools), it is hard to avoid this outcome with any make of this car’s age and complexity. The economics of paying a mechanic to work on something like this just aren’t there and likely will not be for a long time to come. I drove a 944 as a daily driver for over 15 years and did all of the work myself and it was a very reliable car. But I did not cut corners. Buying something like this with the intent of flipping it at a profit was a big risk (imho) that might have been avoided with some research into user forums, etc. Use your broadband folks….
I agree with others in that this car probably always had some sort of fuel problem especially with the gas mileage you reported. If the only way to be able to afford a classic like your Porsche is to work on it your self then count me out of the German car market. I don’t have the time or equipment. I have had better luck getting older sport cars that are pre-1979 that are simple to work on and diagnose for me and the mechanic.
I manage a parts store and we hear stories like this all the time, 25 year old guys who buy 10 year old BMW’s and Mercedes and find they got expensive replacement parts. There is a reason the previous owners got rid of the cars.
There is a 928 in the area where I reside. I had heard about this car as it had a reputation among a circle of local gearheads since it’s twin turbo.
I finally got a chance to check it out one summer evening last year. I talked with the guy, and although the car (’84 GT4) had its original and faded paint, it appeared to have some real ingenuity applied (a machinist by trade). I was expecting 6-650 HP, to my amazement he should me his dyno-jet (chassis dyno) printout to the tune of 948HP!
Now I am really interested. The transaxle is stock (bulletproof Mercedes Benz), he bored the block and Nikolsil plated the bores (no sleeves) stock cams, ported heads (4 valve) and allot of boost with huge intercooler! His experience is building big bore Superbikes, and thats how he tackled the 928 as 2 big bore fours!
While it would be hard to duplicate his efforts since there is so much that is unique and one off, the obsessive engineering (ahead of its time) of the 928 by Porsche does make it one impressive hotrod when modified.
A wonderful but sad story. The CC effect was alive and well, as I passed one of these on the interstate on a weekend trip from Indy to St. Louis. I have always had a thing for the 928, but your memories have splashed my face with a blast of cold water. Thank you.
I will echo the need to do at least some of your own work. Even a Ford can get expensive when you need to pay to have things done. For those of us who lack a lot of free time, something like this does not make much sense unless you buy the nicest one you can find and pay the piper when it breaks.
The older I get, the older my ideal toy car gets. Older = simpler, and simpler = better.
The older I get, the older my ideal toy car gets. Older = simpler, and simpler = better.
Which is why my only old car is a ’66 Ford F100 with a six, manual, and no power anything. One of these days, I’m going to have to do a proper report on my almost 30 years of owning it, and the costs of doing so, which have been incredibly low. I have not had a repair in about 10 years, although the water pump is sounding a wee bit noisy. But that’s a very quick and easy fix, and a rebuilt pump on these starts at $18.99. 🙂
I’ve always loved the 928 since having several toy versions as a child, but any stray occasional thought of buying one as a classic is annihilated by stories like this. I simply don’t have the money, and when rational thought returns, I know that.
Sometimes rational thought abandons me, too, and those times at least provide the good stories. To the author, at least you got to drive it for a time, and what a feeling that must have been!
Throw in L/67 SERIES 2 3800 and call it good. That overwrought Audi, as beautiful as it was, happened to be doomed from day 1!
Assuming that no one was injured, it might have been better if the engine had caught fire and your insurer had totaled it at that point.
Another tale of woe! A love story that was doomed from the start! High end cars are high end cars. The high cost of their parts. Their complexity, and the available mechanic’s lack of familiarity and the inherent difficulty of repair, conspire to make these machines very expensive to own and run.Still many car enthusiasts are fatally drawn to cars of this type. Being an experienced DIY guy and relying on the available forums and websites can make the ownership experience possible. You could educate yourself in the same way that a dealership mechanic does, but the need for a dedicated garage space and sometimes special factory tools make it difficult to complete needed repairs and maintenance.
But what would you expect? These cars were priced well (very well) above most of our available finances when they were new. They were an unattainable dream when new, and they probably should remain an unattainable dream when old. Chances are they will not begin to increase in value for a long time, if ever.
If you buy yourself a dream car, be sure that you have a good reliable daily driver to get to work. Take your time and expect to walk away sometimes when you need a break.
I would also try to go for a pre smog test age vehicle. It’s hard enough to get one of these things running, let alone pass a smog test!