Fixing up old cars is good for the soul. It might not always feel like it between fixing old bodges and shovelling bulk greenbacks into the parts counter furnace, but it’s a slow and methodical process in a world full of instant gratification. The flipside is that it usually isn’t an investment, in the sense that you’ll almost never see the money you spent return to your account. Just ask Kia Chief Designer and Autopian podcast guest Tom Kearns.
He recently sold a strange and special project on Bring A Trailer, a wonderfully weird Porsche that often slides under the radar. It’s an oft-forgotten model from the 1990s that’s both very much if-you-know-you-know and relatively cheap for how rare it is. It’s definitely the car you fix up because you adore it, and that tracks with what Kearns wrote on Instagram:
It was a passion project and I spent way more on it than it will ever be worth. My loss is your gain! These are incredible cars, drive one to find out.
Off the bat, a Porsche 968 certainly isn’t an obvious choice for a project car. Essentially the final evolution of the 924 coupe, this re-jigged ’70s machine for the ’90s wasn’t a massive commercial success. Thanks in part to unfavorable Deutsch Mark exchange rates and the early-1990s recession, only 4,665 of these flip-forward-headlight sports cars ever made it to North America. The split between coupes and convertibles? Pretty much even.
However, take a second and look at the lineage: The 968 built upon the 944, which was once lauded as the best-handling car in America. Indeed, balanced weight distribution and a high polar moment of inertia thanks to a rear-mounted transaxle makes any of these four-cylinder water-cooled cars sweet treats to enjoy today. And that’s before we get into the relative firepower under the hood of this 968.
How much displacement must a four-cylinder engine have to be considered big? Anything over 2.5 liters is usually enough to do the trick, but the 968 took things a step further with a three-liter inline-four. To be precise, that’s 747.5 cubic centimeters per cylinder. Enormous stuff, yet it sort of makes sense. A four-cylinder engine worked best with the harmonics of the car’s torque tube, and a combination of 16 valves, two camshafts, variable valve timing, and an 11:1 compression ratio resulted in a strong 237 horsepower. Mitsubishi-licensed balance shafts kept everything smooth, and a six-speed manual transaxle converted rotation into forward motion. The result was zero-to-60 mph in about six seconds, enough to put a naturally aspirated Nissan 300ZX in its place.
Tempting stuff, but of course Kearns didn’t settle on just any 968. First, he managed to find one of the best colors Porsche offered. Called Wimbledon Green Metallic, this lovely shade of teal pulses with post-Cold War optimism as it shifts from near-blue to green depending on light and shadow. Then Kearns found the single U.S.-spec 968 in Wimbledon Green Metallic with a Light Grey leather interior. While that sounds a bit dreary, Porsche’s Light Grey leather of the time was more of an off-white, meaning the ambience inside is simply superb.
Of course, it would’ve been one thing to simply enjoy an older car for a couple of seasons, but it seems that Kearns wanted it done right. As the listing states:
Over $20k of work under current ownership included reupholstering the seats and portions of the interior, dent repair and paintwork on the left quarter panel, installing replacement 17″ Cup I alloy wheels, tires, front control arm bushings, tires, timing belt, engine mounts, door lock solenoids, window felts and outer seals, knock sensor, heater valve, accessory drive belts, and assorted air conditioning components.
That might seem like an insane amount of money to spend on a 108,000-mile car normally worth between $20,000 and $25,000, but weirdly, I understand. Refreshing rubber bits like bushings and window seals makes a car drive tighter and quieter, taking care of the cosmetics makes it look nicer, ensuring everything works makes it more pleasant to live with, and knocking out the major maintenance items adds huge peace of mind. In some ways, it’s not dissimilar to what I’ve been doing with my Boxster, a true labor of love.
However, perhaps because Kearns found a unicorn spec and because he lavished so much attention on this 968, the hammer price came out to a tidy $43,218. Still a lot of money for a non-CS, non-Turbo S Porsche 968, but again, love makes us do funny things. There’s a certain sincerity about this 968. It’s not a car you restore for Instagram likes or cars and coffee flexing or any sort of clout, and that’s part of what makes it cool. Kudos to Tom Kearns for taking this 968, making it really nice again, and putting a few thousand miles on it in the process.
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
That’s a lovely and interesting car for the price. Not for my lifestyle, but great for the buyer, and in a fantastic color too.
This is one of those stories I get. Not crazy money, just a pretty car in a pretty color.
The big brother to this car just sold yesterday on BaT. A Wimbledon Green 1992 928GTS with a Wimbledon Green interior. $80K gets you an interior that will not quickly be forgotten.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1992-porsche-928-gts-9/
If I was retiring with a full 401K at the time of this auction, I’d be sorely tempted. This must be the pinnacle of 4 cylinder NA sports cars. Sure, the styling is a touch bland (I think the rear end is a little too smooth), but I’d still drool over this bugeye beauty.
The 968 is one of my favorite Porsches, and this one is the best I’ve seen. That color combo is perfect. The only change I’d make is to have the rear spoiler in body color.
You truly get this car, and 90’s styling.
Sometimes the joy of bringing something back to life — perhaps better than it’s ever been — is worth it, even if you’ll never get out what you put in, monetarily. Repairing something beautiful is good for the soul.
I love that color and interior. I would love to have this as a fun car.
Bad Obsession Motorsport: Hold my tea.
“To be precise, that’s 747.5 cubic centimeters per cylinder. Enormous stuff, yet it sort of makes sense.”
In 6 cylinder terms… a 4.5L six… less displacement than the old Ford 300 CID Inline 6 that was once common in the F150.
Or for a V8 with cylinders of that size, that’s a 6L V8. And that’s considered to still be “small block V8” territory.
And to put it in perspective, the Cummins 4BT was a 3922cc 4 cylinder… 980.5 cc per cylinder.
So the Porsche’s 968 engine had large-ish cylinders, but not truly huge in the greater scheme of things.
The difference is that a large 4 with its exaggerated rocking/vertical couple is ok in a truck/heavy equipment, but 3L is the edge of acceptable for car/sports car NVH.
I mean, a lot of it depends on reciprocating mass and bore/stroke. And 11:1 compression is *spicy* for the early ’90s, but that’s a big 4.
Even now, I think the biggest light duty 4 cylinder is the GM 2.7. There’s a reason they don’t tend to crest 2.5 L that often.
My guess is that it’s oversquare, like a small block, with a bore diameter larger than the stroke dimension for a lively revver.
Antld the 968s are DOPE. I’d even go for a Tiptronic.
Detonation also becomes a problem with very large cylinder sizes, an issue that tends to be easier to control in V engines, which exhibit less vertical motion from the pistons. So it’s remarkable that Porsche got 11:1 compression from it–all forged internals I’ll bet.
GM had to jump through some hoops to achieve a high compression ratio from its 2.7, and unlike the one in the 968 its a very undersquare engine that doesn’t rev particularly high. That’s not really an issue since it’s also turbocharged, but that makes it an odd choice for the CT4 sedan.
The biggest gasoline fours after WWII may have been the briefly used Lampredi fours in competition from Ferrari that were up to 3.4 liters in size.
That is interesting, but I don’t understand.
Why would detonation be easier to control in V engines? I would think that detonation if a factor of pressure, temperature, fueltype and mixture, and then size and shape of the combustion chamber.
Why would the orientation of any cylinder make a difference?
And the Stutz Bearcat had a 5-liter 4-cylinder, with hand starting. But 3 liters is big for a 4 in contemporary terms.
Many cars in the brass era had enormous 4-cylinders. The Fiat S76 “Beast of Turin” had a 300 hp 28-liter 4-cylinder because displacement was the only way they knew how to make more power. Hell, the Bearcat making 55-60 hp from “only” 5 liters was impressive for the time
I was going to mention the Beast. How can you not love pistons as big as your head?
It’s a little bigger than it seems, though. Being a relative of Porsche’s first watercooled engines, they took a very conservative design for the coolant passages. The transaxle cars had open deck blocks with huge spaces between the cylinder walls. All the bore spacings for the 4-cyl and 8-cyl engines from this era was 122mm, which is the same as a Mopar 440. So the blocks are literally “big”.
That helps explain why Porsche was able to bring displacement up from 4.5 to 5.4 in the 928 before it wrapped up production. I bet Porsche experimented with even larger displacements for the four cylinder.
Most definitely, the 944 engine was exactly half the 928 of the time’s displacement. Some of the 928 masters have depleted Porsche’s spares stock of 968 pistons to make 6.0 engines (and higher, with stroker cranks).
It’s enormous for a four cylinder, that’s practically the displacement of an entire Kei car engine in one cylinder! It’s all the more surprising for being European, we tend to prefer finesse rather than displacement for making power.
But speaking of the Japanese… Toyota used to make a 4.1L 4 cyl diesel used mainly in commercial and military vehicles.
And this discussion also reminds me of the Detroit Diesel series 50
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Diesel_Series_50
An 8.5L 4 cyl. 2.125L per cylinder… one cylinder has more displacement than the engine in my Ford C-Max! Each of those cylinders could swallow an entire Kei car engine for lunch!
LOL
I totally get it. I paid a premium on BaT for my MT 968 coupe in Adventurine Green/Cashmere and my Nile Green/cashmere 951. A rare and appealing color gives a car a sense of occasion that is well worth the extra cost, at least in the P-car world. I regret settling for an arctic silver 986, which is a great color on that car but way too common.
Aventurine is probably my favorite Porsche shade. Very nice grab.
I feel you on the 986 color. I wanted Lapis Blue model but found an absolutely mint Meridian Metallic with Savannah Beige interior. I love the car but still kinda wish I had held out…..
I had a work associate who had one of these. Unfortunately in plain white, but still a totally underrated car. He eventually traded it for the turbo, which was just overkill.
Precisely the kind of restoration/rolling preservation I admire the most. A car is meant to be enjoyed and bringing it back to factory fresh makes it so pleasant. More and more of the 20-30 year old classics are going to be such lovely places to be when they are working as designed.
I think, probably too much, about a manual X5 fully restored to factory fresh. Something that was great when new and now languishes at the bottom of every Craigslist in America, awaiting its date with the junkyard.
So a high J is good, at least as far as it can be manipulated by drivetrain configuration? Maybe, increases stability without being high enough to be a hindrance in getting the vehicle to change angle as desired?
I guess I’m old, as Porsche 968s seem like perfectly normal Porsches to me, even though the model was expensive, rare, and short-lived for the factors you mention.
This example looks lovely, though that is one *incredibly* ’90s color combination!
I owned the last of the original 924s, an ’87 924S with the 2.5l 944 motor. The Porsche Tax is serious as a heart attack with these cars, anything shared with old Rabbits and Beetles is basically free in a box of Cracker Jacks, but anything you had to buy from the Porsche dealer or specialist should have come with a complementary bottle of smelling salts to get you up off the floor. And by the time the 968 debuted, there weren’t many old VW bits left in them. And these cars are *shockingly* labor intensive – the Porsche motors started bigger than the original Audi lump, and kept getting even bigger with each enlargement and the addition of the 16V head, while the engine bay they sat in stayed the same size. Even in period these cars were notoriously more expensive to maintain than a 911, and I am sure 30-odd years plus the rarity of them hasn’t helped that one bit.
I’ve always liked the 968. I knew there was a 968 CS but I had no idea there was ever a 968 Turbo of any sort.
There wasn’t one in the USA. Looks like not than many in Europe, either. I am a Porsche fan going way back, and I wasn’t aware, either!
It’s a car that an owner cared about, and had the means to look after it well.
Beautiful car all around.
Not to be too pedantic, but it should be a LOW polar moment of inertia, since that is the measure of an objects resistance to torsion.
Not really sure what we’re trying to imply here…
A mid-engine car like a Boxter would have a lower rotational inertia than a rear engined (911) or a front engined (944, 928,this) car. That helps the car rotate more eagerly as you noted. A high rotational inertia isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you’re trying to make a cruiser, but I don’t think that’s go goal here.
I’m not sure that a rear-mounted transaxle has much of an impact on this – it would be directly in front of the rear axle and a traditional transmission would be behind the front axel, so it seems like mostly a wash.
No doubt it helps the weight balance, though.
Having owned one of this family of cars, it’s both beautifully balanced AND very difficult to get out of shape. Even weight distribution AND that higher polar moment compared to a Boxster. Makes them very easy to drive fast, as they are incredibly stable. Which had even weight distribution AND a low polar moment, and thus was pretty easy to spin at the limit, in typical mid-engine car fashion.
Having driven both a 914/6 and a 944 turbo, I can say that it is possible to have two low a polar moment of inertia. I once managed to spin the 914/6 counterclockwise (sort of on purpose, on the theory that the second time you do something stupid you have a better idea what to expect) and with just a little correction, got it spinning clockwise into a completely unanticipated part of the scenery. I decided that the 914 is not a get it sideways sort of car. The 944 is much more recoverable, and the 911 is relatively predictable. I’m sure with practice the 914 would be really controllable, I just didn’t have a good place to figure it out.
The Boxster on the other hand really does its best to reign in stupidity, no matter how stupid, and believe me I tried. The 914 on the other hand is like Clippy in windows 95 “It looks like you are trying to have an accident, would you like me to make it a more memorable one?”
Needless to say, the 914 is my kind of car.
Lol, Clippy. Love it. Mid engine cars be like that. Stable stable stable OOPS trouble! DEAD.
They certainly focus your attention.
I wish someone made radial tires that behaved like bias ply tires and would increase the slip angle gradually rather than letting go abruptly. New tires go from “I can’t believe these are still gripping!” to “oh fuck!” too abruptly. The old tires you could literally drive by ear.
Expensive high performance radials are like this. At least some of them. Though I have never driven a car on bias plies that I can recall, and certainly never in anger
Nope, he’s exactly correct, with the transmission at one end and the engine at the other, these cars have a HIGH polar moment of inertia, just like a dumbbell. Aids stability and was one of the reasons these things were rather easy to drive fast – they are beautifully neutral and don’t want to spin. The Boxster replacement has a MUCH lower one with it’s weight concentrated in the middle, and in typical mid-engine fashion can be a bit hairy at the limit (if not nearly so much as a 911).
Most cars you’ll see used in stunts will have a high polar moment of inertia as they want predictable, repeatable, and easy to press into and hold dramatic slides that look good on camera. It’s also preferable for anyone who might need to engage in tactical driving where inputs and conditions are many, varied, and unpredictable with lives on the line. Basically, higher tends to be better for any situation that isn’t a race track with its relatively clean surfaces; smooth pavement; and predictable conditions, turns, and other users (as with anything, to a point, of course).
Isn’t it also moment of polar inertia vs polar moment of inertia?
The use of those words in the automotive community seems to be at odds with other engineering disciplines.
Sort of like electric guitarists talking about about tremolo and vibrato with any other musicians.
Yeah – it’s stuff we all repeat that was originally said by someone who understood it, I guess.
And trem, of course, is that cool ass switch on your Fender amp. Vibrato is what the singer does.
And I guess if you’re a cretin with a whammy bar, you still may call it a vibrato or tremolo, though it’s bkinda neituer. More vibrato than tremolo since it bends pitch (and puts you out of tune instantly! At least the stock system – locking ones are better, but the ’80s are over. Bend the string. )