Porsche 928 - Risky Business

When you were seventeen did you ever take your parent's car out for a joyride when they were gone? Your answer to this question is probably no. Why? Because when most of us were seventeen our parents owned cars that we were embarrassed to be seen in, and most certainly such cars were not worth joyriding in. You can't role up in a minivan to pick up a hot girl, in fact the only kind of woman you can pick up in a minivan is one with kids, and if that is what you were into when you were seventeen, then you have problems that are worthy of a session with Sigmund Freud. If you are a seventeen year old girl thinking about joyriding in your parent's van consider this: if a BMW convertible takes ten pounds and ten years off any woman, a minivan most certainly has the opposite effect. This reality is what made the movie Risky Business so compelling and fun, the main character is left home alone in a million dollar house most people dream of and with his parent's Porsche 928 in the garage, 'nuff said. Here is a link to the original scene.

To Porsche purists the 928 is an abomination. The key is on the right, the engine is in the front, most have an automatic transmission, and there is no turbo option. Is this really a Porsche? Well yes, it is a Porsche, and quite a good one at that.

When you hear the term GT car what do you think? The term is used for all kinds of cars, but by definition a GT car is: "an automobile in the style of a coupe, usually seating two but occasionally four, and designed for comfort and high speed." The Porsche 928 is perhaps the greatest GT ever made. It was the first Porsche I ever drove, and I was not disappointed. It defines what a GT should be.

So what makes the 928 such a great GT car? Well when you first sit in it you are taken aback by how much room there actually is in the cabin, two large adults can fit quite comfortably in it. There is a back seat, which is great for bags, briefcases, and legless friends. The hatchback gives you more room for your valuables and this car is large enough to hold a week's worth of groceries without any problems. The ergonomics of this car are great, which makes it easy to drive long distances. Driving position is important, if you don't know what I am talking about try sitting in a Lamborghini from the eighties, you need to have the arms of an orangutan and the legs of an oompa-loompa. Now it is hard to find solid statistics about how many manual vs. automatics were imported by Porsche, but most agree that the overwhelming majority in the US market were automatic. The automatic is not bad, but driving purists may want to hunt around for a manual.

Of course the interior looks dated by today's standards, but if you can find one with good leather it looks quite nice. I once had the unfortunate experience of driving one with cloth interior. The car looked great on the outside, but once I saw the inside I didn't know whether to laugh or vomit. As I recall it had pink and blue triangles all over the cloth...it was bad. The best way I could describe it would be to imagine a beautiful woman, you walk up to her and she opens her mouth to talk and she has gold teeth, or maybe it is a hunky guy with a body order problem. If the 928 is a sex machine, then one with cloth interior is a sex machine with erectile dysfunction.

The V8 feels great, and the car handles like a dream. The exhaust note sounds great and it seems to be urging you to push on the gas. Visibility out of the back is great, and there are not any really bad blind spots. At this point anyone who buys one for regular driving will want to replace the stereo. Actually most older German cars have bad stereos, they tended to put Blaupunkt equipment in their cars, which I always found to be a let down and far inferior to what was available in the after-market. Luckily many of these companies have switched to Bose, which is much better in my opinion.

If you are looking to buy a 928 there are some things to look out for. First, look at the steering wheel and see if it is the original. Many 928s had an airbag and if the airbag ever went off during the life of the car the steering wheel would need to be replaced. Often times people would replace the steering wheel with a cheaper alternative, which looks bad in most cases, and you would rather buy one without any major accidents in its history. Also drive the car around for a while up and down hills and test the cooling system. These cars are notorious for developing leaks in the coolant hoses, as well as oil leaks. My rule of thumb is this, expect to pay about $20,000 for a great late model (1993-95) 928. If you buy one for $10,000, expect to spend $5-10,000 to get it into car show type shape. If you pay close to $20,000 for one you should not have to do anything to it. $10-15,000 will get you a good one that may be a daily driver. Less than $10,000 you might need to do some major work on it in the near future. I'll take a black on black GTS if you ask me, but a black or white S4 will satisfy my needs.

Oh and if you go out of town, take the keys with you lest your seventeen year old decides to go for a joyride and ends up putting it into a lake.