Rare Rides: A Porsche 924 From 1977 - Anyone Want a Martini?
For over a decade, the Porsche 924 remained the brand’s entry-level sports car. During its 12-year run, Porsche shifted over 121,000 examples, meaning the normal 924 is not uncommon today and your local Craigslist probably has one for sale.
But what we have here is a special edition 924 that encourages you to buy vermouth while you’re out for a drive. This 924 is the Martini Championship Edition.
In 1976, vermouth manufacturer Martini and its stylish racing livery ran the Porsche World Championship. To commemorate this, Porsche whipped up some new trim and a minor performance upgrade, and presto — special edition.
The Martini Championship Edition 924 was limited to 3,000 examples, all of them painted the exact same way: Pure white paint, with Martini racing stripes around the body.
The dash area featured some upgraded materials. Genuine leather covers the steering wheel, instrument panel, and center console. Fastened to the console (but not really pictured in the sale) was a commemorative plaque bearing the special edition’s name and each vehicle’s number. The blue piping on the seats is a nice, Martini-like touch.
Red carpeting and matching corduroy seat inserts made the Martini Championship Edition’s interior a special place. It’s all faded here to a 1970s-orange-formerly-red color, but at least it matches.
You know a car has lived through the 1980s when there’s an equalizer of this sort of complexity present. Circa 1984, this would have been the business.
Performance stayed the same in these versions, meaning one will find the standard 95-horsepower Volkswagen engine under the hood. Power goes to the back via the four-speed manual transmission. There’s also a revised sway bar for better race-day parking lot handling.
Currently for sale on eBay, this special 924 is a one-owner vehicle — surely a rare instance for a lower-level Porsche, especially 40 years after it left the showroom. It has less than 52,000 miles, working out to a little over 1,300 per year. Such a classic and limited edition Porsche might be a worthy investment, as this very clean example is yours for $6,995 without any negotiation.
[Images via eBay]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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Kudos to the graphic designer trying to hide those awful side markers.
A customer at the shop went through nightmarish negotiations with the owner on bringing his 924 into the shop for PA inspection. You would have thought the car was a showroom version of the Porsche brand from the way he acted. It was not. Slipping clutch, oil leaks everywhere, billowing clouds of blue smoke, upholstery ripped up everywhere, back seats too. Wires hanging under the dash, of course the AC didnt work. It was collectible only in the eyes of a scrap yard owner. And it failed pa insp, with a long list of safety related problems. My Porsche story and I’m glad I don’t work on it.