History: Porsche 924 Forty years of the car that die-hard Porsche fans struggled to accept.

Originally snubbed by the Porsche fraternity, the VW-derived 924 went on to save the company from financial ruin and is now regarded as a rising star.

It’s 40 years ago since the Porsche 924 went on sale shortly after being officially unveiled in November 1975 at a motor show held at La Grande Motte Harbour in the south of France. Despite the 924’s stylish looks, it took quite a while for hard liners to welcome this capable coupé into the Porsche fold and even longer to mention the model in the same hushed tones as the hallowed 911.

A complex link between the Volkswagen Group and the 924’s development was probably the main reasons for this negative attitude from a few die-hard fans. Even today, uneducated types still dismiss the 924’s capabilities, claiming “It’s not a proper Porsche,” largely because it’s “powered by a 2-litre LT van engine’.” However, what many of these detractors fail to recognise is that the 924 was the model that managed to secure the longterm future for Porsche and went on to sell over 150,000 examples before it was discontinued in 1988.

In the early 1970s, Porsche was feeling the pinch financially and desperately needed to expand its air-cooled model line-up, which at the time only featured the 1969-introduced mid-engined, air-cooled 914 and expensive six-cylinder 911. The 924 was the model that broke the mould for Porsche power train layouts. This was because the model’s VW Group-sourced four-cylinder SOHC engine was not only mounted up front in a north-south configuration, it was also water-cooled.

Unfortunately many hard-to-convince Porsche enthusiasts considered raiding the VW parts bin to produce the 924 was a step too far. What they failed to realise, however, was the development of a new entry level Porsche continued long established historical links between the two companies as the legendary 356 was based mainly on Beetle underpinnings. For a long time Porsche had been carrying out the bulk of VW’s research and development and by the mid 1970s the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer was already working on project EC425, a new upmarket VW/Audi coupé prototype.

It had already been decided to produce the new design as either an Audi or VW as there were already 2000-plus dealers in West Germany alone selling these marques against a paltry 200 Porsche outlets already struggling to sell the 914. The departure of Rudolf Leiding from VW in 1974 paved the way for Toni Schmucker to take the helm. He promptly informed Porsche there was no market place for project EC425 after the OPEC crisis in the early ‘70s had virtually pulled the plug on the sports car sector.

Encouraged by the success of the new Golf, Schmucker and his fellow executives promptly canned the Porsche design for the new VW or Audi and went on to develop the Golf-based Scirocco coupé instead.

By this time, the Porsche 914 was coming to the end of its shelf life and not wanting to lose its investment, Porsche arranged to purchase VW’s abandoned design and struck a $60 million deal to produce the new model at Volkswagen’s under-utilised NSU plant at Neckarsulm. This turned out to be win-win deal for both companies. At the time VW was in dire financial straits and was in desperate need of the income it would gain producing the new Porsche. On the other hand, Porsche benefitted from the deal as it gained a replacement for the 914 range without having to invest in expensive development costs to come up with a brand new design from scratch.

Although the result of the design was badged as the Porsche 924, the project required the use of an existing engine to keep costs under control, which in practice meant fitting the 2-litre EA831 four-cylinder water-cooled engine as found in the Audi 100. In typical Porsche fashion, the engineers couldn’t resist putting part of the heavy drive train at the rear of the car and