Friday 27th March 2009

SOTW: Porsche 924S

Finally, shed is back in a Porsche. It's no 911 but it's good enough for us.

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Ah, 1986… what a year. The Smiths declared The Queen is Dead as Johnny Marr and Morrissey went their separate ways. Duran Duran were still just about Notorious, while Wham, The Boomtown Rats and Madness all split up.

Actually I didn’t remember much about any of that, but I do remember motoring writers up and down the country taking the piss out of the Porsche 924. It was the archetypal hairdresser’s car, the un-loved, underpowered, bastard lovechild of a failed relationship, a puny weakling with a VW engine at the wrong end. Not worthy to wear a Porsche badge, they said.

Then in 1986 VW stopped making the 924’s engine and Porsche slotted-in the punchier 2.5 litre engine from its new 944. Badged the ‘S’, it turned the 924 into a sort of stop-gap 944 entry-model with 150bhp and performance more akin to the much more admired 924 Turbos. The reviews of the 924S were kinder, as I recall, but the car never really shook off the stigma of those early attacks in spite of its many likeable features. Perhaps it never will.

But I was a teenager at the time, and I didn’t give a monkeys about any of the reviews. One of my schoolmates had a fine looking mother, and crikey, did she look glamorous behind the wheel of her 924 S coupe.

So I offer you this week’s SOTW as a kind of sleazy tribute to sordid teenage memories. It’s the wrong colour perhaps, because in a perfect world it would be metallic blue. But in a perfect world it would be 1986 again, and my mate’s mum would be giving me a lift home from school…

Fast forward to 2009, and I’m not sure where a low-mileage 924S would fit into my life. A low-cost entry into the Porsche 924 Championships perhaps?

Autotrader ad says: 1986 Porsche 924 S, FH, 2dr, 2+2 S coupe. 67,000 miles, bronze, manual, 2479cc. 67,000 miles, 2 Door Coupe, Bronze, Petrol, Manual. Slight Dent to bumper see photo. Suiperb condition. New MOT. £999.

[Neomagic]

Great cars, still very underpowered though.

[Neomagic]

shoestring7 said:

Neomagic said:

Great cars, still very underpowered though.

150bhp and 1300kgs isn't too shabby, especially when it handles as nicely as a good 924S. I tracked one and enjoyed hunting down Caterhams in it.

SS7

They go alright, my dad had a later 160bhp one which I found alright.

The 2.5 4 pot does sound nice though, it reminds me of a mk2 XR2 type of sound strangely.

The 924 should have look like the later 944 IMO.