928 was 911 replacement?

[tazzieman]

Believe what you want , but this is compelling and worth posting here :

 

 

Contrary to popular  belief , the 928 ( as an expensive low volume production GT car ) was never going to replace the early 1970's 911 , nor was it designed to for the following reasons ]

 

A ) The 928 was designed ( on paper & prototypes ) in the very early 1970's , it was a always designed to be a true GT , competing in the market place up against other civilised "expensive" high speed intercontinental Grand Turismo Luxury 2 door car Euro cars , like the Mercedes SL & the larger Merc 2 door coupes in V8 , the Ferrari 400 series ( large 2 door luxury GT )  , Aston Martin , Jag XJS  etc etc & up against the above cars in the late 1970's & 1980's etc , the 928S / S4 / GT / GTS did very well , it was easy to drive & handled probably better than the rest , in some cases very easily  & was on par to the Merc in maintenance , meaning a lot less expensive to maintain than the Aston & Ferrari & XJS , and with all its luxury features & fittings she was no lightweight as a small sports car has to be , meaning at time of the prototype stage the 911 / 911S , 911RS ( lats take the 1973 year types 911 series ) , small light weight sports cars with no creature comforts , no A/C , no power steering , no automatic transmission ( very big thing in the USA ) , the 911 also had some not so good 1960's crash safety concerns coming up for Porsche for the world markets from the mid 1970's( all metal/pressed, "with a seem" fuel tank at front of car ( Yikes) & Porsche knew full well that just having one model that catered to one market segment was not a good idea .

The 928 was at the forefront of crash safety( non metal safety fuel tank in rear ) , in fact it was light years ahead of most other GT cars in the market when it was released in the late 1970's 

 

 B )   The  928/  928S/ S4 / GT / GTS used a lot of expensive materials ( alloy panels ) & forged upper suspension control arms & from 1986 to 1991 very expensive Fuchs forged wheels as standard etc etc , this was never going to be a mass produced GT car with very good sporting abilities , it was always was a platform to allow Porsche  to show the world it can make a very user friendly high performance   GT with amazing features for the early 1970's 

 

 C )   Now this is where the confusion comes in ( lets say it was lost in translation from German to english ) , very good friend of mine Klaus Kaestner who worked for Porsche AG for decades showed me 15 or so years ago a German automotive magazine clipping he kept from the early/mid 1970's ( in German )he had kept , that was the article( I think) that got this whole idea going about replacing the 911with the 928 in the first place , it was an interview with a representative  from Porsche & talking about quite detailed technical aspects of the upcoming 928 series , the article touched on perfect weight distribution , the V8 engine in all alloy / alusil etc & went on to say that this car ( 928 ) will alloy Porsche to have a car that will appeal to more people , with its extra comfort( massive luggage space ( very important in a true Gentlemans Grand Turismo ) to being able to travel in complete comfort between cities at high speed more safely , A/C as standard & an engine that will alloy Porsche to comply with the upcoming emission regulations ( USA / Japan / Europe ) etc easily & will more easily comply with the safety ( crash tests ) with the engine up front just made this easier , but here was the clincher , it mentioned that this new water-cooled engine  a first for Porsche ( in house ) , remember Porsche did not design the 924 engine ,  will allow Porsche greater scope( experience ) to replace the 911 air-cooled engine with water-cooling if needed in the future( for emission , noise control , better fuel economy etc ) , there was no mention of replacing the 911 as a concept 

 

 

Note }

The 911 as a concept was in more danger of being discarded for crash safety regs & engine noise regs ( air cooled noise ), but Porsche bit the bullet in the late 1980's & created the 964 911 , this had many safety features from the 928 & 944 series , like the non metal fuel tank & better crash safety all round , but this could only be done by increasing the size & weight of the car = enter the heavy 911 & it just got heavier from there , also introduced from the 944 / 928 series was a much better CEB electrical system , better switch gear , better integrated A/C ,coil over shocks , alloy control arms  etc all the things learnt from the 944 & 928 series 

 

Even Klaus said at the time , the German article could easily be misunderstood by someone who did not read German all the time( as it was written in what Klaus refers to as technical German ) & the reason Klaus read it out to me( he had to pause a lot to translate into english that I would understand) was to show me all those years ago how he thought the myth started or one of the ways it started

 

Interestingly this worked out exactly as the article said , the air-cooled 911 engine was replaced by a water cooled engine ( 996 / Boxter etc ) , but this can only happen more easily / quickly where one has experience in building all alloy water cooled engines , again just like the article said it might 

 

And more interestingly the latest version of the 911 ( 991 ) is the same size/ weight as a 928  , but a lot less luggage space , but its a GT car now ( in my opinion ) & the Cayman S etc  is the true sports car with much better balance with its mid engined layout 

 

Remember , the 968 & 928GTS were discontinued at a time in history when we had a recession , but with very very very high interest rates & this was very hard to sell expensive vehicles & Porsche was by 1995 in quite a bit of stress & quick decisions had to be made to save the company , it was a pity , but things happen out that way at times

 

Regards

Bruce Buchanan

 

[hugh]

Good read, very interesting.................