Discussion
daytona365 said:
Just saw an Mot'd and roadworthy 928s2 for sale in reasonable condition for 3k. Will these ever go stellar like 911's in PH's opinion 3k now, 50k plus in a couple of years anyone ?!
Decent 928s are already selling for in excess of £50K, though like any used car there will always be the tat at the bottom end advertised on auction sites that will cost a fortune to fix. And I guess this is the same for the 911 or any other car for that matter if it has been badly neglected.As for the 928 catching up with the 911, this was never an issue because it was always well in front in terms of technology, handling and comfort from the day it was first unleashed.
Just think about the weight distribution for one moment, will your car handle better with near 50/50 weight balance as the 928 does, or having a great big lump of metal hanging well back of the rear axle aka 911 style - is a tough decision to make - wait, lets add some weights to the front end to try and balance it all out!!!
The values of early 911s are based on nothing more than nostalgia, and yes the 911 Turbo is a monster, but so is the 928 GTS in the right hands, would be interesting to see which is the fastest around the likes of the Nürburgring in Germany.
Be honest, if all you want is a making money on your purchase then surely buying a Ford Escort would make a better return! You should be buying a Porsche 928 or 911 because you enjoy looking at it and driving it, not for the potential return you could make on it.
rich888 said:
As for the 928 catching up with the 911, this was never an issue because it was always well in front in terms of technology, handling and comfort from the day it was first unleashed.
Just think about the weight distribution for one moment, will your car handle better with near 50/50 weight balance as the 928 does, or having a great big lump of metal hanging well back of the rear axle aka 911 style - is a tough decision to make - wait, lets add some weights to the front end to try and balance it all out!!!
I've thought about it for more than one moment and actually I'd rather have the rear-engined layout over front engine. Better traction, better braking, lighter steering. 50/50 weight distribution in itself is not the holy grail and especially not for road use. How often do you max out your lateral grip capacity on the road at both ends simultaneously? Either never or once or twice before you die trying. The inherent advantages of a more rearward weight distribution are more useable on the road i.e.braking and traction. Only the very very early SWB 911s really had the weight a step too far rearward, but the myth is still alive and kicking today!Just think about the weight distribution for one moment, will your car handle better with near 50/50 weight balance as the 928 does, or having a great big lump of metal hanging well back of the rear axle aka 911 style - is a tough decision to make - wait, lets add some weights to the front end to try and balance it all out!!!
uktrailmonster said:
rich888 said:
As for the 928 catching up with the 911, this was never an issue because it was always well in front in terms of technology, handling and comfort from the day it was first unleashed.
Just think about the weight distribution for one moment, will your car handle better with near 50/50 weight balance as the 928 does, or having a great big lump of metal hanging well back of the rear axle aka 911 style - is a tough decision to make - wait, lets add some weights to the front end to try and balance it all out!!!
I've thought about it for more than one moment and actually I'd rather have the rear-engined layout over front engine. Better traction, better braking, lighter steering. 50/50 weight distribution in itself is not the holy grail and especially not for road use. How often do you max out your lateral grip capacity on the road at both ends simultaneously? Either never or once or twice before you die trying. The inherent advantages of a more rearward weight distribution are more useable on the road i.e.braking and traction. Only the very very early SWB 911s really had the weight a step too far rearward, but the myth is still alive and kicking today!Just think about the weight distribution for one moment, will your car handle better with near 50/50 weight balance as the 928 does, or having a great big lump of metal hanging well back of the rear axle aka 911 style - is a tough decision to make - wait, lets add some weights to the front end to try and balance it all out!!!
I'm pretty sure that Porsche ran an official race series for several months back in the 1980s using both the 911 and 928 on the track, but discontinued it due to internal politics conflicting with actual race results.
Would be very interested to see any race times for the 911 and 928 lapping the Nürburgring, and even better if anyone has posted dashcam videos of the 911 and 928 on the track, especially at the same time
The 911 and 928 cars were extremely well designed and engineered cars in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s compared to the tat churned out by most other manufacturers of the era, and I have great respect for Porsche for that. They may not be perfect by modern day standards, but they certainly know how to put a smile on your face without all this namby pamby nappy changing safety control nonsense. Do you really need a warning to close the door or put your seat belt on?
rich888 said:
Interesting that you say that, and not being a track racer I don't have the necessary knowledge to say otherwise, but surely if the front end is too light you will lose directional stability and rely totally on power input from the rear wheels, requiring a very fine balancing act to compensate
No, it's not really like that at all. Probably too heavy for this thread to get into the physics of it all, but I am a very experienced race engineer (many years in F1 and BTCC before that) and have been through this debate many times over. It is sometimes counter intuitive, but less mass over an axle improves its lateral grip capacity, but reduces its traction (longitudinal grip). Which is why it's never a good idea to add mass at either end to improve balance - especially if you add it at the wrong end as many amateur racers often do! All other things being equal (and they rarely are!) a car with 50/50 weight distribution will be neutral handling, a forward weight distribution will understeer and a rearward weight distribution will oversteer. But there are so many other factors that affect the resultant balance, weight distribution is just one of them, although pretty fundamental. Anyway one of the benefits of having a light front end is that the steering is usually very good. 911s have always been praised for great steering feel and this is fundamentally due to the relatively light front end.One weight distribution dilemma you face in F1 is at the very start of the race! If you optimise weight distribution for cornering balance, you normally end up compromising traction off the line. There was a period of time around the mid 2000s when one team was running a significantly more rearward weight distribution than the others and their starts were blistering! It took other teams a while to figure out what was going on. At first it was presumed that their traction control was better than everyone else's, but it was simply weight over the rear axle.
The 928 was a step in a totally different direction. In many ways it was technically better than the 911 of that time for obvious reasons, but certainly less fun to drive. I've only ever driven one 928 and it wasn't very memorable to be honest.
daytona365 said:
Not necessarily if you're just a bit handy.
The engine is very easy to work on and parts are relatively cheap and still available OEM. If it is an Auto - the MB sourced gearbox is simple and robust, plus parts are plentiful. HOWEVER!!!!If it is a manual - the gearbox is Porsche's own attempt to emulate the work of the devil. Parts are very expensive.
Lots of interior parts are no longer available. As more of these cars - contrary to what people are saying on here - catch a bid, second hand parts prices tend to go up too. For £3k it will most likely need a re-spray. Unless you are lucky, and the previous owner has chucked money at it, the two doors in seals alone are about £1000. Sadly the two biggest and most expensive seals are Porsche only. Add the cost of paint, prep and labour and you are facing £5k bill in the face before you have even addressed the other issues.
In summary, unless it is a rare model - a manual - I would stay away. if you want a 928 that will continue to appreciate and is better to drive than pretty much any contemporary 911 - seek a manual. And don't buy the cheapest, unless it is an absolute steal...
P.S. For all the ignorant 911 fanboys on here - (hehe, says the man with the 996GT3 CS at home) - go to Stuttgart and visit the museum. At present the only 928 Werks racer is out there amongst the other race cars that Porsche made. It was campaigned in the VLN in 1983. It held the VLN lap record for the year at 8:06 - 5 starts, 3 wins, one 2nd place and one DNF. It also finished 15th overall in the Daytona 24hrs in 1984. Another semi-works car, based on the old K-jet 4.7 300hp engine came 7th overall in the Nurburgring 24hrs in 1987. The very same car now runs in the Zurich 24h Classic and usually places in the top 10, mixing with the full on factory RSRs...
Edited by Cheburator mk2 on Tuesday 4th August 21:15
EricE said:
no
SEE YA said:
No.
Slippydiff said:
No.
I'm interested to know exactly what 'No' means in this instance.Are you saying that 928s, even rare and well-maintained examples, are unlikely to ever increase in value as substantially as many special-edition 911s have? If so, I'd value your opinions as to why not. If, on the other hand, you mean no, a £3000 rot box will never be worth anything like £50,000 in 2-3 years time, then I can only agree entirely.
Cheburator mk2 said:
P.S. For all the ignorant 911 fanboys on here - (hehe, says the man with the 996GT3 CS at home) - go to Stuttgart and visit the museum. At present the only 928 Werks racer is out there amongst the other race cars that Porsche made. It was campaigned in the VLN in 1983. It held the VLN lap record for the year at 8:06 - 5 starts, 3 wins, one 2nd place and one DNF. It also finished 15th overall in the Daytona 24hrs in 1984. Another semi-works car, based on the old K-jet 4.7 300hp engine came 7th overall in the Nurburgring 24hrs in 1987. The very same car now runs in the Zurich 24h Classic and usually places in the top 10, mixing with the full on factory RSRs...
Nice bit of selective reasoning there! Let's just completely ignore the 911's history on road and track! The 928 was a dead end for Porsche, you just cannot get away from that fact. But I wouldn't say no to a good example in the garage today. Probably one of the best bargains in the classic sports car market and I do think classic 911s are massively over-priced today in comparison.Hard to know what spoiled things for the 928 - undoubtedly it was a good car and I can remember seeing them (but not in numbers) as a kid and thinking they looked the dog's b
ks. Had some clever ideas too. I think on both sides of the Atlantic, the oil crisis was probably bad news for larger-engined cars generally and a bad time for launching anything new. Jaguar's XJS suffered similarly, although later perseverance eventually saw reasonable success.
As for the 911, I think the values are maverick, but there may also be plausible reasons. The 911 was well-established on road and racing by the oil crisis and the general lineage of road and race continues - okay the 991 is several generations of fairly significant evolution away from early 1960s cars, but is still ostensibly the same product. So there's a strong halo effect going between road and race and also back and forth between old and new. As good as the contemporary competition undoubtedly is, there are still none that have all of this in the same depth and breadth.
I think 928s can do well, but they won't see the same appreciation. This applies, in varying degrees, to all non-911 Porsche badged cars.
ks. Had some clever ideas too. I think on both sides of the Atlantic, the oil crisis was probably bad news for larger-engined cars generally and a bad time for launching anything new. Jaguar's XJS suffered similarly, although later perseverance eventually saw reasonable success.As for the 911, I think the values are maverick, but there may also be plausible reasons. The 911 was well-established on road and racing by the oil crisis and the general lineage of road and race continues - okay the 991 is several generations of fairly significant evolution away from early 1960s cars, but is still ostensibly the same product. So there's a strong halo effect going between road and race and also back and forth between old and new. As good as the contemporary competition undoubtedly is, there are still none that have all of this in the same depth and breadth.
I think 928s can do well, but they won't see the same appreciation. This applies, in varying degrees, to all non-911 Porsche badged cars.
uktrailmonster said:
Nice bit of selective reasoning there! Let's just completely ignore the 911's history on road and track! The 928 was a dead end for Porsche, you just cannot get away from that fact. But I wouldn't say no to a good example in the garage today. Probably one of the best bargains in the classic sports car market and I do think classic 911s are massively over-priced today in comparison.
Look, there is no selective reasoning going on here. It is a simple fact - when Porsche put its mind to it, they did produce a very competitive 928 based race car. Why they chose not to go further with it is another matter. But the basic platform is still very good. As to your theory about rear biased set-up - I like it too - but if it was really that good for Joe Public, what a bunch of morons those people at Porsche are! Trying to engineer it out for the last 30yrs, funnily enough, by ultimately adopting an evolution of the 928's Weissach rear suspension. They could have hired you from the start...Gassing Station | Porsche General | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff