Speedster in Shanghai

In the Chinese city that holds so much economical potential for Porsche, Total 911 test drives a narrowbody Speedster with a very rich past

We take a look round the centre of Asia’s global financial district from the petit window frame of a 3.2 Speedster

There’s a chuckle from the roadside as we hastily deploy the small soft top to protect ourselves from the sudden tropical rain, which is a daily occurrence in this part of the world. Akin to having a mere umbrella for its roof, this is not the only source of astonishment from my bemused passenger. “Why so few buttons?” Bo Tan asks as he absorbs the interior delights of our special Porsche Carrera. Of course, he is posing questions that pedestrians at the roadside would never think about because, more or less, only new cars can be found on these urban Chinese roads.

This is no modern Porsche, but one from comparatively prehistoric automotive times in China, which only ended around 12 years previously. Not only is this particular Carrera a rare sight in China, it would be a rare sight on any blacktop anywhere in the world. This is because this Porsche is the first 911 Speedster ever built, a prototype from November 1987. The car follows the tradition of the 356 Speedster which, of course, was borne out of the ideas of American importer Max Hoffman.

The first Speedster in 911 form was also the result of a man with American roots: when Peter Schutz succeeded Ernst Fuhrmann as Porsche Chairman of the Board in 1981, he immediately made arrangements to extend the 911 model range. His initiative made for a crucial moment in Porsche history, since the Board had already decided to expire the famous 911 model series earlier in 1981. Porsche wanted to build only the front-engined models (924, 944 and 928), which all featured more modern water-cooled engines.

Thanks to Peter Schutz, in 1983 Porsche offered a new Porsche Cabriolet after an 18-year hiatus, though this time with different boxer engines and power levels. It was at this time Schutz also asked to develop a new Speedster. The Speedster was duly developed and went into limited production in 1989, with the two-seater 911 now based on the Turbo, complete with its wide body and chassis, although a smaller number of narrow-body examples were also produced. It was powered by the regular air-cooled, naturally aspirated 3.2-litre engine and produced 230hp. In total, around 2,104 examples were produced during 1989 – 171 of which are known to exist with a narrow body, and only two of these narrow-body

examples are in the motherland of Germany – one of which is the Diamond blue metallic example you see on these very pages.

The Speedster’s unusual presence in comparison to the Cabriolet starts with the windscreen, which sits eight centimetres lower and is more steeply raked. Behind the two seats sits the clamshell, made of glass-reinforced fibre, which comes with two swellings that look similar to downstream flows behind the heads of race drivers from the early years. It is a one-piece item and covers the canvas top, including the two depressions in the rear where regular 911s offer two seats for children (or passengers with extremely flexible bodies).

To shut the soft top, the clamshell first needs to open – manually, of course! Balanced by a delicate arrangement of levers, the cover floats over the Speedster’s rear end while the roof is pulled forward to the top of the windscreen. After closing the huge cover, the rear part of the roof – inclusive of the small rear window – needs to be pushed down and clipped into position. Affixing the buttons on top of the cover is fiddly and bad for the fingernails. To finish the process, the side windows need to be wound up (manually again, of course). The window glass only just pushes against the canvas roof when done up. No wonder this construction does not prevent the passengers inside from getting wet during these tropical rainstorms in Shanghai!

While the pure and light Porsche 356 Speedster at its time was also driven on racetracks, this 911 Carrera Speedster is definitely not intended for such purpose. At 1,160kg it’s a little lighter than the 911 Carrera Cabriolet, but it is not a true lightweight version. This narrow-body Speedster is based on the identical, firm chassis of its Cabriolet sister, powered by the same engine and equipped with the same gearbox. The relatively short first and second gears enable us to be ‘Shanghai acceleration heroes’ as soon as traffic lights change to green, but for driving on tracks this adjustment is not ideal. More importantly, this Speedster cost around €60,000 in 1989, which is too much money for an owner to spend, only to then perish the car in races.

That’s why the special Clubsport cover offered by Porsche was not purchased too often. It replaces the two-bubble rear cover and is instead a huge GRP piece to cover the entire Speedster interior except the driver’s seat. Its function is to defend aerodynamic swirls in the interior, though it does somewhat go against the very idyll of the 911 Speedster to begin with. Its membership to the Porsche G-series family is shown by high-mounted impact bumpers. The mounts, which fix the bumpers to the chassis, are covered by convoluted rubber gaiters, which are the result of new regulations from the North American NHTSA (National Highway for Traffic Safety Administration). You’ll recall the institution demanded bumpers must be able to absorb impacts at up to 8kph (5mph) in order to protect the car’s body and, as such, the so-called Porsche ‘Faltenbalgstoßstange’ (German for rubber gaiter bumpers) remains a souvenir of both Porsche and the automotive history at large.

The story of the Speedster is legendary, and this narrow-body example boasts a very special history indeed. Built up in 1987 as one of the first prototype cars of the upcoming 911 Speedster series in 1989, it was driven by engineers from Weissach to verify the production quality of certain technical modules. On various test drives around the world the engineers gave it a very hard time.

After finishing its job in 1989, the car was driven into the Porsche Museum as it was intended to become a contemporary witness to the rebirth of Porsche’s Speedster. However, retiring the car was not yet on the agenda, as only a few months later the drivetrain of this extraordinary Speedster had been filled up with liquids again and, with the boxer engine awoken once more, the car was driven back to Weissach. This is because by this time a new series of 911 was leaving the factory in Zuffenhausen, the Type 964, and the marketing department demanded a new Speedster should again conclude this new 911 series in years to come. It was decided that, like the G-series cars, there would be two Speedsters: a wide body (Turbo look) and a narrow body.

In order to take on its new role as test mule for the next generation, this G-series Speedster attained new, bold bumpers and a fully covered underbody. It also received a new decklid, complete with a rear spoiler that raised automatically above speeds of 80kph. The interior remained untouched, especially as this prototype boasts the only set of textile seats in a Speedster of this G-series generation.

The Speedster did not get the new lightweight chassis with Macpherson struts in the front and coil springs in the rear, instead continuing with torsion bar suspension and no power-assisted steering. However, it did get the new 3.6-litre boxer engine

with dual-plug ignition, 250bhp and a three-way catalyst. Now highly upgraded, this automotive Chimera, based on the G-series and equipped with 964 trinkets, was used as a mule and test device during the ensuing years in the hands of Weissach’s development engineers. As soon as the 964 Speedster came onto the market in 1993, Porsche engineers returned this car to its original specification. The Speedster then enjoyed a more luxurious existence in the sanctuary of the Porsche Museum and only saw the light of day for special events.

So, what’s it doing in Shanghai? Well, this city is only a temporary home for this Speedster – it is not the right location for its purpose after all. This car deserves to be somewhere a little more exotic, not in a megacity of 23 million people where you can count the number of soft-top cars on your own two hands. Simply put, a Speedster is a rare sight in Shanghai

– or in the whole of China, for that matter. This is for good reason. The very few convertibles here are not used for transportation purposes or driving from ‘A’ to ‘B’, but for a saunter to a coffee shop in a fashion district like Puxi.

In general, locals in Shanghai do not like to drive convertible cars due to the hot and humid climate conditions in summer, and cold and wet winters. Don’t forget that spring and autumn over here only last for around two to three weeks. Besides, cars that are three years old or more are not allowed to be imported into mainland China – not legally, anyhow!

Our sightseeing tour in Shanghai is accompanied by an accoutrement of 911-specific traits, chiefly the harsh sawing of the engine’s radial fan from behind us as we drive around, which makes for the main acoustics of every air-cooled 911 engine. We’re raving about the immediate throttle response of the rear-mounted engine during load changes in the Speedster, but we also suffer: parking in the city without power steering is something we have to relearn since these days every car is equipped with assistance. The clutch pedal works us relatively hard throughout our journey and the stiff chassis hammers our backbone due to deep potholes on Shanghai’s roads. And, of course, the soft top is a point of contention! It makes our Speedster very entertaining since almost every minute there is a new action to take due to the weather.

As soon as we are used to the loud noise of the wind and a wet leg from a seeping roof, suddenly the wind opens a gap between the side window and canvas, reminding us that we are going too fast. As we know, a Speedster is not a convertible, readily changed to an open top during moments of sunshine. Instead, it is a permanently topless car with an umbrella-type soft top purely for emergencies – such as rainfall! But, as everybody knows, it never rains in southern California, the archetypal home of such a car. So, the great value of this Speedster does not come from its convincing functionality, but in the fact this is the first 911-series Speedster ever. Its historical significance is only heightened further on the discovery that it started as a G-series 911 and then became a 964 prototype, before being reassembled in 3.2-litre guise.

However, in this new world in Shanghai, this Speedster is not known for all these fascinating details. It is more or less just an exotic car. Only a few people here are showing passion for sports cars in general, and many are yet to taste the legend of the Porsche 911. They are, therefore, far away from feeling that this 911 narrow-body Speedster is much more than a piece of metal, rubber and textile, that it is in fact a sports car with a vibrant soul.

Weeks after our city drive, the Speedster was returned to its home at the Porsche Museum. If you come across it at the Museum in Zuffenhausen, be sure to say “Ni hao” to this fabulous Speedster, a

911 built in Germany to be driven in California, and which has now learned its lesson in Chinese.

“This narrow-body Speedster is much more than a piece of metal, rubber and textile. It is a sports car with a vibrant soul”