Ah, 1986… what a year. The Smiths declared
as Johnny Marr and Morrissey went their separate ways. Duran Duran were still just about
, 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.