MODERN CLASSIC
FOR SO LONG THE UNLOVED PORSCHE, THE 924 CAME VERY GOOD WITH THE CARRERA GT. RESPECT IS MOST DEFINITELY DUE
The Carrera GT brought the beleaguered Porsche 924 the respect it was sorely lacking
THERE’S A received wisdom that has long enveloped the Porsche 924. It was the rejected Audi project with a van engine, championed by Ernst Fuhrmann, the misguided Porsche CEO who tried to obliterate the 911. The 924 was the unloved Porsche; the vehicle that traded on, rather than embellished the badge and which put the engine at the wrong end of the car, cooled by the wrong medium. The truth? Well, there’s a lot wrong with that lazy summation.
In fact, Professor Fuhrmann was a pragmatist, and a very clever one at that. His 928 project was a canny hedge. A front-engined, rear-drive V8 GT car was a form factor that its largest market, the USA, would never be able to outlaw. Likewise, he was able to tease the 911 into a new and more profitable sector with the 930 Turbo flagship. And Fuhrmann knew better than most that the histories, as well as the familial DNA, of Volkswagen and Porsche were inextricably linked.
The 356 and the 914 models both owed much to Volkswagen, so the 924 was, to a certain extent, business as usual. A Porsche design, developed by Porsche for Volkswagen and then bought back at huge cost when Wolfsburg decided on a front-wheel drive future for its sports coupe, it was critical in shaping Porsche’s fortunes in the 1980s and helped sculpt a narrative pivotal in Porsche’s history. The 924 was an admission that the 911 alone could not float the boat. It needed some heavy lifting from more popular models. Where the 924 went, the 944, Cayenne and Macan followed.
It took Porsche 15 years, between 1973 and 1988, to shift 198,414 units of the 911. In just five years to 1981, the 924 sold 100,000 units. Its successor, the 944, added another 135,040 through to the end of 1988. Without the four-cylinder transaxle cars to give buyers a first step into Porsche ownership, that figure for the 911 would have been considerably lower, Porsche’s data showing that better than 35 percent of 924/944 buyers subsequently graduated to the rear-engined icon. Those who view the 924 as a failure miss the point. Without it there would be no 911.
Not everyone at Weissach bought into this philosophy. Porsche’s ex-head of R&D Helmuth Bott always saw the wisdom in retaining focus on the 911, ultimately developing the 959, in his eyes a ‘super 911’. Upon viewing the 924 GTR racing car he was reported to have sniffed, “If I wanted to make a Black Forest gateau, I wouldn’t start with a bucket of sand and a bucket of water.”
The standard 2.0-litre 924 was indeed spawned from proletarian ingredients and, with its drum rear brakes and emissions-crippled power output, was an expensive means to a limited end. Porsche began to rectify this in 1979 with a 125kW turbocharged variant that was faster, stronger, and more focused. From these roots came the unveiling at the 1979 Frankfurt motor show of the 924 Carrera and the 1980 production debut of the car we have here, the 924 Carrera GT, a homologation special that remains one of Porsche’s most intriguing cars of the ’80s.
By today’s standards, its 154kW doesn’t sound a whole hill of beans, but perspective is key. The Carrera GT’s 2.0-litre powerplant, boosted by a KKK 931 turbocharger, comfortably eclipsed the 140kW power figure of the contemporary 911 SC, with only the 220kW 911 Turbo 3.3 and the newly announced 221kW 928S sitting atop it in Porsche’s hierarchy. Its power-to-weight figure even bettered the later 944 Turbo; a serious car by any measure. What’s more, a combination of thermal efficiency, aerodynamics and gearing made it the most economical 924 of the lot.
Aside from the lighter Kolbenschmidt pistons and the Langerer and Reich intercooler, the engine was broadly similar to that in the 924 Turbo. The 924 Carrera GT also saw a custom Siemens digital ignition-timing computer, a 911 clutch plate, beefier 911 synchromesh rings, Fuchs wheels from the 911 SC (front) and 911 Turbo (rear), while the brakes and the Koni front dampers are shared with the later 944. Porsche gave the left-hand-drive Carrera GT model designation 937 (the shorthand that is most frequently used for the car) with right-hand-drive cars dubbed 938, contrasting with the 924 Turbo’s model designation 931.
The wider polyurethane guards and aggressive hood scoop are the most obvious visual differentiators to the 924 Turbo, but the Carrera GT also rides lower. The front tyres are 215/60VR15 as standard, but most customers took the option of a 16-inch front wheel with 205/55VR16 boots. The rears, using spacers to help avoid the 924’s undershot track width, measure 225/50VR16. The dampers were either Porsche’s own, Koni or Bilstein B6 Sport units, the latter the most preferable replacement. Another desirable option was the limited-slip differential which, when paired with the bulletproof Getrag G31.013 dog-leg five-speed manual ’box, made for a seriously burly driveline.
The transaxle set-up introduced on the 924 wasn’t anything particularly novel. Look at grand prix cars of the 1930s and you’ll see a similar architecture of engine at the front and a solid tube running back to a transmission and differential at the back. Alfa Romeo featured such a set-up on its Alfetta, so Porsche examined the Milanese engineering but concluded that the floppy shift linkage and propshaft inertia which put stress on the synchromesh was a design compromise too far. Porsche kept the clutch attached to the engine’s flywheel, with power being sent rearwards by a slim 20mm steel bar, supported in an 85mm tube by four annular bearing races. This rigid structure resulted in zero driveline shunt and a near-optimal 49:51 weight distribution for the Carrera GT.