Junkyard Find: 1987 Porsche 924S
While Porsche provided the (relatively) inexpensive 914 and 924 to American buyers during the 1970s and into the early 1980s, the debut of the 944 here in the 1983 model year resulted in the price tag on the cheapest possible Porsche starting at $18,980 (about $52,240 in 2021 dollars). While the white-powder-dusted 928 S listed at $43,000 that year (about $118,360 today), it must have pained the suits in Stuttgart to have nothing to compete for sales with the likes of the affordable Mitsubishi Starion and Nissan 280ZX. So, for the 1987 and 1988 model years, American Porsche shoppers could buy a 924 with a detuned version of the 944’s engine, keeping the cheap(-ish) price tag of the 924 while ditching the VW engine that— humiliatingly— went into American Motors economy cars and even DJ-5 mail Jeeps. This car was known as the 924S, and I’ve found this one in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service yard.
The MSRP on this car came to $19,900, or about $48,175 now. That was still quite a bit more than the $15,469 Starion in 1987, but it was a real Porsche and it cost a lot less than the closely-related $25,500 ($61,730 today) 944.
147 horses from this 2.5-liter four, which didn’t come all that close to the 944S’s 188 horsepower but beat the Starion’s Turbo Astron engine by three ponies.
Of course, if you’re going to get a three-speed automatic transmission in your Porsche, why spend the extra for wider fenders and a few dozen more horsepower? That must have been the logic behind the original purchase of this car.
It appears to have spent some time in Southern California prior to migrating 400 miles north to the Bay Area.
A minor footnote in Porsche history, the 924S, but this is the sort of story your local U-Wrench yard excels in telling us.
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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There was no ‘self-destructing’ turbo issue with the 924 Turbo. It’s an oil-cooled turbo, and a lot of owners simply didn’t let the turbo cool with a short idle before shutdown. The 80’s had no shortage of turbo cars, that’s for sure. It’s a different Porsche, but a genuine Porsche.
I have had a 87 924S from when i was in 9th grade to today. In High school and college my dad and I did spec 944 racing and had to add ballast to the car to make it "fair" against the stock 944s we raced with. The handing on these cars was really good at the limit but a stock mini van was faster from a stop. The bracket indeed in the stock front licence plate hold which was really in typical German fasion over designed for the task. Currently my 924S is in a stake of partial re-assembly as I am going thorugh the suspension bushing and replacment of the drivers rear swing arm.