The ultimate....

[Jonny944CS]

... road legal front-engined Porsche Weissac ever produced?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Porsche-924-Carrera-GTS-1-of-59_W0QQitemZ140348765207QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=item20ad703417&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245#v4-17

Discuss...

 

[944 man]

Its beautiful, but it keeps not selling.

 

[Mike_Pollock]

Museum exhibit - what would you need to spend to use it on the road, rubber, pipes, seals etc...
but it does look fantastic, so purposeful!
Mike

 

[Mike_Pollock]

Guess you'd only put Gaz dampers on then?
Mike

 

[Pastry]

bit high maintenance for me.

ultimate front engined? debatable, what about the 968 turbo S? that's keeping it standard; there are some modded cars that surpass anything that came out of the factory.

 

[944 man]

Id say that the C-GTS is the ultimate factory road registered car.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: 944 man

Id say that the C-GTS is the ultimate factory road registered car.

I agree, I have seen a couple in the flesh. Definitely the ultimate and a car with genuine racing pedigree unlike the 968 turbo (did it race in anything?), even more so then the mad prices asked for many of the 911 RS variants.

I can recall about 10 years ago Henry Firman had a 964 RS for sale at £25K, now those cars are 3x that price. It makes that car look like the bargain of the century.

If I hadn't spanked so much building a race car and buying a money pit 968 I would be very tempted by that or a plain 924 cgt.

Only problem is the urge to take it on the track would be very high. In many ways it would be a travesty to not put such a car on the track, likewise the urge to just polish it and look at it would be very difficult to overcome. A bit of a temptress a car like that.

For once though I agree with Scotty. No one should ever mod or muck about with one of those cars, it should be a shooting at dawn offence to start mucking about with anything as rare as a standard cgt and rarer.

 

[944 man]

The RS didnt race in anything: the proposed series was cancelled and the Turbo S was an unmitigated sales disaster. The car was massively over-priced and virtually no one bought one as a result. This is something that people overlook (or are ignorant of): Porsche built every 968 Turbo S that it could sell. Ive lost count of the times that late-comers ask why Porsche didnt build more. It was an over-priced derivative of an over-priced car and no one wanted one.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

It was an over-priced derivative of an over-priced car

In the middle of a recession as well.

I'm not sure the 968 was overpriced, necessarily. Just priced to close to the 911 for comfort, even though it was arguably the better car. [8|]

 

[Jonny944CS]

I agree; definitely a museum piece unfortunately. I believe there is a club sport residing in a famous US collection with just 50km on the clock.

For me, I think it is the seemingly endless depth of modifications these cars carry (above and beyond a serial production 924 Turbo of the time) that make them so special. Maybe it stems from the FIA homologation requirements of that era? Perhaps it was political, a desperate need to get a result at Le mans with a front engined water cooler???


From the pictures I have seen and poking around the odd car, the vast majority of the suspension and drivetrain are components are unique to the GTS/GTR cars (all for a total run of less than 80 vehicles).
For those of you that already know the details, sorry for boring you.

- Lightweight aluminium torque tube
- Cast alu trailing arms + replacement torsion bar carrier/beam
- Solid mounted, rose jointed suspension pickups
- Uprated gearbox with LSD
- Coilover struts front and rear
- 935 brakes?
- bespoke turbo/intercooler/injection/exhaust/cylinder head systems

- enlarged and re-located fuel tank
- dry sump remote oil reservoir (maybe GTR only - not sure)

- Fibreglass bonnet, doors and extra wide front wings
- Lexan windows + rear hatch
- Lightweight aluminium roll cage
- 935/934 factory racing seats
- 1060kg

What is impressive to me about all these mods is that they look to have been implemented with series production levels of quality, even the dashboard is modified with special inserts to fit around the roll cage. Here are some shots from under the rear of a 50km club sport.

 

[Jonny944CS]

pic 2

 

[Neil Haughey]

Proper quality, like I said and I believe all of us on this thread agree, the ultimate no question about it.

IMHO this car just existed at the wrong time, remember they managed to do pretty well at Le Mans but it was never going to be the best Porsche as it didn't have enough power for the long straights. Put a car like that on UK tracks with a nice wide set of slicks, can you imagine how amazing the performance potential would be? Even today at its price is there anything apart from kit car type stuff that could touch it?

 

[944 man]

I defy anyone to bore me talking about 937s: GTS and GTR especially.

 

[Suffolk944]

A lovely and stunning looking machine, apart from that rear bumper. [&o]

 

[ronsurf]

What's with those holes in the seats? Is that where you put your beer?

 

[Diver944]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

remember they managed to do pretty well at Le Mans but it was never going to be the best Porsche as it didn't have enough power for the long straights.

More than just pretty well. It managed to finish 6th at Le Mans in 1980, its first 24Hrs and had done the same number of laps as the lead 935. The other 924s finished 12th and 13th

In 1981 they finished 7th and 11th

In 1982 they finished 16th on road tyres made by BF Goodrich as a marketing exercise.

The 968 Turbo RS did race on a limited number of occasions, the most notable of which was Le Mans in 1994 where it did 84 laps before having an accident - more info here http://968turbo.homestead.com/

I'd absolutely love that Carrera GTS [8D][8D][8D]

 

[Pastry]

968 turbos RRP as new is totally irrelevant, the point I was getting at was it was the endpoint of factory front four development and thus represents the ultimate (both by the dictionary definition and possibly perfornance-wise) road registered, factory produced version of the vehicle. Of course later is not always better so it would be interesting to drive both and then decide, rather than base it on looks alone.

 

[Hilux]

Even today at its price is there anything apart from kit car type stuff that could touch it?

Saw it at Le Mans and later there were GT class Boss 2.0 litre GTR`s and 2.5 litre GTP`s and Canon GTR`s derivatives that ran at subsequent Le Mans and 6hr endurance races at Brands and Silverstone which I saw also. IIRC a young Martin Brundle drove a Canon but I may be wrong.

Andrew S is halfway through building a 924 with a 944T engine I understand [8D] Now that WILL be interesting

Power to weight is what its all about.

I love the add-on arches and seem to recall that there is a supplier for 944`s as a car appeared on PH with some (but no screws showing) I liked them but IIRC a lot didnt.

 

[944 man]

I think that theres a little confusion about which car is which: although the Le Mans 924 (sometimes referred to as LM944) is brilliant too.

 

[Hilux]

I think that theres a little confusion about which car is which: although the Le Mans 924 (sometimes referred to as LM944) is brilliant too.

I`m on about the developments surrounding the 924 Carrera.

1st photo is 1st time out, 2nd and 3rd are the 81 and 82 cars.

Richard Lloyd racing (Canon) .............cant remember who ran the Boss cars.

The works team then concentrated on the group 5 935 (Silhouettes) and the group 6 (Open) 956 (both Martini I think) although I seem to recall Martini migrated to Lancia after 82 and Kremer/Jost/Jaegermeister started to run 935`s with works backing as Porsche then concentrated on the Rothmans 962 as Lancia and Renault were challenging hard in that class.

You`ve got me going now......................I`m going to research all this, I`ve got time, I`m at home off work following a hernia op []