Automobile Magazine
Of course, most Porsche aficionados accept the notion that water-cooled engines even, heaven forbid, front-mounted engines in some instances may be evolutionary necessities if the brand is to remain viable in the new century. The 924 of 1976 and the 928 of 1977 were the front-engine, water-cooled models that first took Porsche down the road to perdition or, depending upon your point of view, the natural evolutionary path. And it was these two models that morphed to become the 944 of 1983, the subject of this Used Car Classic.
If you could afford just about any sports car short of the exotics, why would you restore a more than 20 year old front engined four cylinder Porsche? See what consumers are saying about the 1995 Porsche 968. Consumer Reviews. Also very practical as a daily driver especially in coupe form. Once again, we asked you to identify the car in which a mystery shifter is situated. This week brought no shortage of correct responses, with Jason A. Cooley properly.
The 924, designed by Porsche for, was built of VW/Audi parts, including its 4-cylinder engine. The V-8-powered 928 was designed by Porsche to be an eventual replacement for the 911. As it happened, the 924 ended up being marketed as a Porsche rather than as a VW or an Audi, despite the car's performance, which was anemic at best. Porsche management confronted this embarrassment by developing a new engine for the car, a 4-cylinder powerplant that was in essence half of the 928's V-8. It used a belt-driven single-overhead camshaft augmented by two belt-driven balance shafts.
I had a 1995 968 coupe with the Tiptronic transmission for 4 years. I loved driving it for the accelleration and the handling.
It was pretty practical for a sports car too, because the rear cargo area held a surprising quantity of stuff you might want to bring along; I even transported a lawn mower in the back of it a few times. Unfortunately stuff breaks on this car, and it costs more than you'd imagine to fix these problems. The air bag computer died. The flex plate broke.
The list goes on, but just be warned that you must budget a couple grand a year (minimum) to maintain the Porsche-worthiness of this car. The 968 is an excellent example of Porsche's front-end engine design. It dates back to the older 924 and 944 lines with the 968 being the most desirable. They benefit from parts sharing with the 944 turbo, 928, and 993 911 line. They are often referred to as being Toyota like in their reliability and carry one of the lowest operating costs of any Porsche model. Great value for the money; having the highest naturally aspirated HP per liter of displacement for 8 years from '92 when it was launched until '00 when the Honda s2000 was released. Also very practical as a daily driver especially in coupe form.
These are among the rarest of any production Porsche to date.