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| Days of Future Past: The Porsche 928 |
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| Written by Aaron Severson |
| Saturday, 18 April 2009 00:00 |
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Since its debut in 1964, the Porsche 911 has come to define the Porsche brand. The company's periodic efforts to expand their market with new models, however worthy, have inevitably prompted grumbling from purists, who stubbornly refused to accept the arrivistes as real Porsches. That was the fate that befell the Porsche 928, the company's first V8-engine production car. Conceived as a successor for the 911, it never quite found its niche, dismissed by the faithful as a pricey German Corvette. Nonetheless, the 928 is a milestone car in its own right -- a formidable GT that foreshadowed the shape of the modern sports car. CHANGING OF THE GUARDThat the 928 emerged as such a departure from Porsche's established design practice owed a great deal to the substantial organizational changes that took place at the company in the early 1970s. Since its founding in 1930, Porsche had been a KG (Kommanditgesellschaft, limited partnership), held by the Porsche and Piëch families. In 1971, Ferry Porsche, then in his early sixties, opted to remove himself from the day-to-day business of the company. In March 1972, the firm was reorganized as Porsche AG (Aktiengesellschaft, "share company"). Its leadership was divided between a supervisory board, consisting of Porsche family members, and a new executive board, consisting of outsiders. The firm's technical director, Dr. Ing. Ernst Fuhrmann, became the new chairman.
Fuhrmann was not exactly an outsider. He had originally joined Porsche in 1947, and went on to design the dual overhead camshaft (DOHC) racing engines used by the 356 Carrera and 550 Spyder. In 1956, however, he was passed over for promotion in favor of Klaus von Rücker, newly hired from Studebaker; Ferry Porsche wanted someone with experience in the American industry. Fuhrmann left the company, and soon found new employment with the engineering firm Goetze Werke. Ferry Porsche apparently bore Fuhrmann no ill will, for in 1971, he lured Fuhrmann back to become head of engineering, and months later, picked him as the first CEO of Porsche AG, a post Fuhrmann held until 1980. Fuhrmann inherited a company faced with significant challenges. One of Porsche's biggest engineering jobs -- the EA 266 project for Volkswagen -- had been canceled in 1971. Not only did the cancellation deprive the company of much-needed revenue, it killed nascent plans for a new small sports car based on the EA 266 design. At the same time, Porsche was struggling to keep up with mounting regulatory pressures in both the U.S. and Europe, which was difficult and expensive. Worse, the future of the 911, the core of Porsche's product line, was the subject of much debate. The 911 was already eight years old by then, and its sales had been on a downward slide. Furthermore, the viability of its basic concepts was in question. Although the 911 had been all new in 1964, it was conceptually an evolution of the styling and engineering of the 356, which was itself based on the obsolescent VW Beetle. Rear-engine cars had taken a drubbing in the press throughout the 1960s, thanks in part to Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed. It was also becoming harder to make the 911's air-cooled engines conform to increasingly stringent noise-pollution laws. Even if the 911 remained commercially viable, Fuhrmann wondered if it would be able to survive the regulatory environment of the 1980s. A NEW DIRECTIONIn the summer of 1971, development chief Helmuth Bott and his team began exploring a variety of configurations for a potential 911 successor. The results of their study were presented to Fuhrmann on October 21, Furhmann's birthday. Fuhrmann reviewed the study and approved it on November 8. It was assigned the project number 928.
 The Porsche badge is derived from the coat of arms of the city of Stuttgart, where the company has been headquartered since its inception. Since 1972, the formal name of the company has been Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. The 928 was not intended to replace the 911 immediately. Realizing that the older model would need to remain Porsche's bread and butter for at least another five years, Fuhrmann also authorized a series of updates to the 911, including a formidable turbocharged model, the 930. Still, the 928 was seen as the company's eventual flagship. Since the 928 was a clean-sheet design, owing little to any of its predecessors, Bott considered a number of novel design possibilities. One of the most discussed was a mid-engine layout, which seemed to be the way of the future for sports cars. Porsche had had success with mid-engine racers, but experience with the 914 had soured them on mid-engine street cars. Mid-engine cars handled well, but the layout compromised both comfort and utility, which seemed inappropriate for a high-priced GT. Moreover, Porsche's marketing staff had lobbied strongly for a 2+2, rather than a pure two-seater, and finding room for even a token rear seat in a mid-engine car was difficult. The configuration Bott's team settled on for the 928 was a front-engine, rear-drive coupe, powered by a water-cooled V8 engine. For better weight distribution, the transmission would be mounted at the rear, connected to the engine via a long, enclosed driveshaft. THE AMERICAN CONNECTIONAlthough Porsche fans (and European enthusiasts in general) are loathe to admit it, there were notable parallels between the 928 and certain American cars. The most obvious was the Corvette, a comparison made by many critics when the 928 debuted. The 928 and the Corvette different in many respects -- the Corvette was a two-seater, not a 2+2, and had a fiberglass body, while the 928's body was steel and aluminum -- but both were V8-powered GTs of similar size and appeal. As much as the Porsche faithful bristled at the comparison, from a business standpoint, it was not necessarily a bad thing. The Corvette's sales continued to climb throughout the seventies, despite spiraling prices and progressively weaker performance, reaching a peak of nearly 50,000 units in 1977. It helped that the Corvette was far cheaper than most Porsches, of course, but its success demonstrated that there was a market for large, stylish, relatively civilized sports cars.
Interestingly, although the 928 borrowed no stylistic cues from Chevy's sports car, Porsche design director Anatole (Tony) Lapine had actually worked on the Corvette earlier in his career. A former GM stylist, Lapine had worked with Bill Mitchell and Larry Shinoda on the design of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, as well as the mid-engine CERV I and II testbeds of the early sixties. Lapine had also been a co-driver to racer Dick Thompson during the short-lived SCCA career of Bill Mitchell's XP-87 Stingray Racer. Lapine transferred to GM's Opel subsidiary in 1964, where he helped develop the Opel GT, and then joined Porsche in 1969. The 928's front-engine/rear-transaxle layout also had another significant American antecedent: the 1961-63 Pontiac Tempest. The Tempest had shared the body shell of the Chevrolet Corvair, but it had a front engine and a rear transaxle, linked by a unique curved driveshaft, the brainchild of John DeLorean, then a Pontiac engineer. The Tempest's standard engine was a big slant-four, created by slicing the standard Pontiac V8 in half (an interesting parallel with Porsche's later 944, whose engine was basically half of the 928's V8), but like the 928, it could be had with an aluminum V8 engine. The 928 differed significantly in detail, but it was conceptually similar. ENGINEERINGWhatever its antecedents, the 928's engineering was state of the art. It was powered by Porsche's first eight-cylinder street engine, a 4,474 cc (273 cu. in.) all-alloy, 90-degree V8 with one overhead camshaft per bank, driven by a rubber timing belt. Like the disastrous Chevrolet Vega engine of the same era, its aluminum block eschewed cylinder liners. Instead, Porsche used an aluminum-silicon alloy for the block and etching the cylinder bores to expose the silicon crystals. The silicon provided a durable bore surface without the extra cost and weight of press-in iron or steel cylinder liners. Unlike the Vega engine, it proved to be reasonably reliable, setting a design precedent for many subsequent aluminum engines. Equipped with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection, European 928s produced 240 hp DIN (177 W). The smog-controlled U.S. model was rated at 219 hp SAE (163 kW).
The showpiece of the design was the driveshaft, known to Porsche engineers as the "fast shaft." It was just under an inch (25 mm) in diameter, enclosed in an aluminum torque tube. Resolving the vibration problems resulting from placing the engine and transmission four feet (1.2 m) apart was the 928's biggest engineering challenge, eventually resolved by mounting the battery on the transmission, where it would act as a damping weight. (Revisions to the driveshaft and torque tube design later made this unnecessary, although the battery remained in the rear for better weight distribution.) The transaxle itself was either a five-speed manual, adapted from the 908 race car, or a three-speed automatic whose internal components were licensed from Mercedes.  At 175.7 inches (4,463 mm) overall, the 928S is about seven inches (178 mm) longer than a contemporary 911, and nearly 800 pounds (360 kg) heavier. Its overall dimensions are very similar to those of the C4 Corvette, which was actually somewhat lighter, and cost about half as much. This is a 1979 model with a five-speed manual transmission; when new, it had a sticker price of around $29,000. Various details are not period-correct: the wheels, front spoiler, and rear spoiler are all from later 928 models. As expected of a car in its class, the 928 had four-wheel disc brakes and fully independent suspension. The front suspension was a conventional double-wishbone arrangement, but at the rear had an interesting innovation, the so-called Weissach Axle (named for Porsche's Weissach development center). The rear suspension used two transverse links and a trailing arm on each side, connected to the body with an articulated pivot. The pivot acted as a rudimentary form of rear-wheel steering, allowing the rear wheels to toe in on deceleration. Ordinarily, rear-drive cars are prone to trailing-throttle oversteer; if the throttle is lifted during a turn, the forward weight shift allows the rear wheels to toe out, causing oversteer. By causing rear toe-in on deceleration, the Weissach Axle reversed that effect, helping to keep the tail from stepping out. Conversely, it caused toe-out on acceleration, which made it easier for the driver to provoke a deliberate power slide. Thanks to the Weissach axle and the car's high polar moment of inertia, the 928 was far more stable than the 911, and it was not prone to the lurid, tail-happy behavior of its rear-engine brethren. That stability, however, made it far less nimble than a 911 or 914. The 928 was predictable and free of vices, but it felt more deliberate than sporty. Some of that stolidity was also a product of the 928's considerable bulk. Despite the use of aluminum for the hood, fenders, and doors, it weighed in at a hefty 3,400 pounds (1,550 kg), nearly as much as a Chevrolet Corvette. This avoirdupois was largely attributable to the 2+2 configuration, which made the entire car bigger than it might otherwise have been. In hindsight, the rear seats were of dubious value. Although they were well appointed, with their own heater vents and sunshades, they were cramped even for children.  Neither the 928's trunk nor its back seat is very commodious, a side effect of the fastback roof and the bulky transaxle, but the hatchback and folding rear seats make the best of it. Porsche considered true four-place seating for the 928, but ultimately concluded that it would be too much a departure from the company's established image. A single stretched-wheelbase 928 with larger rear seats (dubbed "942") was later built as a birthday present for Ferry Porsche, and a few similar long-wheelbase 928s were built by AMG in the mid-1980s. Even the 928's front seats were cozy, thanks to the prominent interior tunnel necessitated by the driveshaft. According to authors Julius Weitmann and Rico Steinemann, Ernst Fuhrmann, noting the pronounced separation between driver and passenger, joked that the engineering team had created a car for Jesuits. As if to counter that apparent conservatism, early 928s came standard with eye-popping Op-Art upholstery, a vivid touch in an otherwise somber cabin. AGENT PROVOCATEURThe exterior styling was as visually challenging as the Op-Art interior, which was exactly what Tony Lapine and his deputy, Wolfgang Möbius, had in mind. Like his former boss at GM, Harley Earl, Lapine said his goal was to be deliberately provocative, to challenge the sensibilities of Porsche management. Even Ernst Fuhrmann didn't care for the design at first, but Lapine was not dissuaded, arguing that a car that was immediately likable would not age well.
Despite Lapine's bravado, the 928's design was as much a product of engineering necessity as stylistic inspiration. Unlike Harley Earl's tenure at GM, where Design tended to dominate engineering in product development decisions, Lapine and his staff were seriously outnumbered; there were only 43 designers at Porsche, compared to about 2,000 engineers. Indeed, the 928's curious proportions were largely dictated by packaging constraints, while features like the low, wide fenders and flip-up headlamps were intended to minimize frontal area. The plastic-covered, body-colored bumpers -- controversial at the time -- were an attempt at gracefully integrating the 5 mph (8 km/h) bumpers required by American safety standards.  Note the extreme width of the 928's aluminum front fenders -- the hood itself is a narrow panel. The 928 did an artful job of concealing its bulky crash bumpers, a sore point for many cars of the seventies. The 1987 S4 model had a slightly longer, less angular front clip, with a redesigned air intake under the number, but retained the same basic shape. If nothing else, the 928 was distinctive. Contemporary American cars were baroque, awash in neo-Classical styling cues and padded vinyl roofs. Contemporary Italian designers were busily exploring the Giugiaro school of angularity. The 928, rounded but not curvaceous, with its unique telephone-dial wheels, looked like nothing else on the road -- except perhaps the AMC Pacer, a similarity Tony Lapine later acknowledged without shame. (Some sources suggest that the 928 was inspired by the Pacer, but based on the timing of the two designs, we consider that unlikely.) Curiously, the 928 was not as aerodynamic as it looked. Despite its smooth contours, its faintly awkward proportions contributed to a mediocre 0.41 coefficient of drag. That wasn't bad by the standards of its era, but it was inferior to the much older Porsche 356, which also benefited from a smaller frontal area. UNDER FIREThe 928's basic design was presented to the Porsche board on November 19, 1973. By then, Porsche was faced with yet another challenge: the chaos in the Middle East following October's Yom Kippur War. In retaliation for American support of Israel in that conflict, the OPEC nations embargoed oil shipments to the west, resulting in widespread fuel shortages. With that crisis yet to be resolved, a thirsty, V8-powered GT was a risky decision. There was talk of abandoning the 928 in favor of some cheaper, more fuel-efficient model. Fuhrmann felt the 928 was still a good concept, but expressed doubts that it was appropriate for the current environment.
The board took a wait-and-see attitude, allowing development and testing to continue through the following year without making any firm decision. Finally, on November 15, 1974, they decided to go ahead with the original design, gambling that the market would recover by the time the 928 went on sale. They were also encouraged by the progress of the EA 425 project (which emerged as the Porsche 924), which would be a cheaper and more fuel-efficient companion for the 928. A COOL RECEPTIONThe 928 made its public debut at the Geneva show in 1977, and went on sale later that year as a 1978 model. Its styling made the greatest impression on critics, not necessarily favorably. Some were impressed by its futuristic contours, others found it too similar to the cheaper 924, or decried it as bulbous and bug-eyed.
Response to the car itself was similarly guarded. The 928's straight-line performance was excellent, and its handling and braking needed no apologies, but it had none of the exhilaration of the contemporary 930. Its size and bulk -- and to some extent, its array of luxury and convenience features -- also drew sharp criticisms. The 928 was not nimble or hard-edged enough for sports car fans, but it was a little too stiff and demanding for buyers who might otherwise select a Mercedes 450SLC or a Jaguar XJ-S. The 928's confrontational styling and compromised dynamics seemed to discourage buyers, and early sales were disappointing. At a bit under 5,000 units a year, it was eclipsed by both the 911 and the much cheaper 924. It sold well enough to justify a place in the Porsche lineup, but plans for it to replace the 911 were quietly shelved.  A 1986 928S. The U.S. version now had a 5.0 L (303 cu. in.) engine with 288 horsepower (SAE net; 215 kW) and Bosch anti-lock brakes. The following year's S4 had 316 horsepower (236 kW), along with its minor exterior revisions. This car, like most U.S. 928s, has the four-speed automatic; manual-shift 928s were very rare in North America, particularly late in the model run. A CUSTOMARY EVOLUTIONThe 928's shape and configuration changed very little during its life, but there was the inevitable, steady refinement of the basic design. In 1980, a more-powerful 928S was added to the lineup, with a bigger, 4.7 L (285 cu. in.) engine. A four-speed automatic, once again with Mercedes internals, replaced the earlier three-speed in 1983, and anti-lock brakes became available a year later, although they were not offered in the U.S. until 1986. In 1985, the engine was expanded to 5.0 L (303 cu. in.), with four-valve heads and more sophisticated Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection.
The most significant exterior changes came with the arrival of the 928 S4 for the 1987 model year. The S4 got a new front clip, redesigned bumpers, and a rear spoiler. The changes added 2.3 inches (58 mm) to its overall length, and helped to cut the 928's drag coefficient to a more creditable 0.34.  The 928's size and shape feel very modern, although relatively few sports cars have adopted its front-engine/rear-transaxle layout. One notable exception is the Corvette, which adopted a rear-mounted transmission with the advent of the C5 model in 1997. Unlike the 928, the Corvette's transmission is not technically a transaxle; the transmission and differential are separate units, although they are so closely packaged that the distinction is largely a technical one. The final version of the 928, offered from 1992 to 1995, was the 928 GTS, with a 5.4 L (335 cu. in.) engine rated at 345 hp (257 kW). Although curb weight had crept up to just over 3,700 pounds (1,685 kg), even the automatic GTS was capable of 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) in about 6.5 seconds, while top speed was now close to 170 mph (272 km/h). Unfortunately, U.S. prices now approached $90,000, not including luxury and gas-guzzler taxes. As a result, fewer than 500 928s were sold in the U.S. between 1992 and 1995, with '95 sales amounting to a meager 84 cars. By then, Porsche's finances were in dismal shape. Sales of the 911 and 968 (the entry-level successor to the 924 and 944) were not much more encouraging than the 928, and the company was losing money at an alarming rate. Porsche decided to axe both the 928 and 968, focusing on revitalizing the 911 and developing the cheaper, mid-engine 986, which eventually became the Porsche Boxster. Contrary to Ernst Fuhrmann's fears, the 911 survived the 1980s in good stead, and while sales slumped in the early nineties, there was no serious discussion of canceling it. The traditional air-cooled engine finally disappeared with the end of the 993 series in 1998, but its water-cooled successor is still going strong today, more than 15 years after the demise of its erstwhile replacement. A PROPHET BEFORE ITS TIMEAs Tony Lapine intended, time has validated the 928's bar-of-soap looks. If it no longer has shock value on its side, neither does it look kitschy or dated, as do so many of its 1970s contemporaries. Its lay-down headlamps are passé, but nothing else about its design would draw puzzled looks on a new car. # # # NOTES ON SOURCESOur principal sources for this article were Julius Weitmann and Rico Steinemann, Project 928. A Development History of the Porsche 928 From First Sketch to Production (Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1977) and Randy Leffingwell, Corvette: America's Sports Car (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1997) and Porsche Legends (Motorbooks Classic) (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1993). We also consulted the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Porsche Chronicle (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, Ltd., 1995). Tony LaPine's comments on the Pacer may have originally come from an article in the June 1979 issue of Road & Track, but our source was http://www.amcpacer.com/history/statsfacts.asp, accessed 11 October 2007. Some additional information on the Corvette CERVs and Tony LaPine's earlier career came from Randy Leffingwell, Corvette: America's Sports Car (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1997). Additional details came from Mike Covello, Standard Catalog of Imported Cars 1946-2002 (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2001; Second Edition).
Road test notes came from Don Sherman, "Supertest: Porsche 928 and 930," Car and Driver, April 1978; "Power Play: Porsche 928S vs. Jaguar XJ-S HE," Wheels, February 1983; "Five Part Harmony," Road & Track, January 1986; and John Barker, "Group Test: Tour de Force," Performance Car, April 1992. All are reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., Porsche 928 Takes On the Competition (Head to Head) (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books Ltd., 1999). This article's title was suggested by a popular X-Men comic book storyline by writer Chris Claremont and artists John Byrne and Terry Austin. It originally appeared in Uncanny X-Men #141, published by Marvel Comics in January 1981. The title of that story may have been inspired in turn by the 1967 album of the same name by the Moody Blues.
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I thought this car was based on a Volkswagen van; and powered by some Volkswagen engine? Maybe it was another Porsche...
Anyway... I like this car, the 928 just looks good and fresh even for today. The new 911 is, in my opinion, not as good looking as the 928