Ferry’s strengths were beyond dispute. Whether or not his father ever intended to produce a Porsche automobile, Ferry did, and he saw it through birth and success. He managed a difficult family meeting in 1970 that removed everyone in his growing family from roles in the company, except for himself. Those were not the accomplishments of a weak man. However, for reasons he never explained, he exiled himself from his own company.
Early in 1979, Ernst Fuhrmann anticipated his 60th birthday. He looked back on his two careers at Porsche, as engine designer and as company leader. The front-engined, water-cooled 924 that he had conceived was three years along and generating more than 20,000 sales each year. His flagship 928, then two years old, had earned respect as a potent grand tourer. Its production approached half the output of the 911, which soldiered on, approaching its 15th birthday as he reached number 60. But he knew company history: On the 15th anniversary of the 356, the company had shown the world its successor.
This interior combination of Doric Gray leather with burgundy piping was unique to the Weissach SC. For U.S. customers, Porsche fitted a speedometer reading only to a maximum of 85 miles per hour.
Porsche assembled 400 of these primarily for U.S. sales. The car was available only in this Platinum Metallic or Black, in equal numbers.
Dick Barbour and John Fitzpatrick became a potent force in IMSA and World Endurance Championship races starting in 1980 with this third iteration of the Kremer Brothers’ 935 creations.
“The new cars,” Fuhrmann recalled in 1991, “the Nine-Twenty-Four, Nine Twenty-Eight, they were through the program. Work was a little slow. At that time we should have begun a new program.” He told Ferry Porsche that he wanted to retire at 65, and since a new development sequence took seven or eight years, he did not want to begin something and leave it uncompleted for his successor. “I’m prepared to go,” he told his boss, “any day, if you have a new man who could begin again with a new program.”
But Porsche had little to offer anyone new. Poor morale colored its union workers’ attitudes. At the opposite corner of Stuttgart, Mercedes-Benz had taken on Porsche’s 928 with its new 2+2 450SLC. The two-seat 450SL coupes and roadsters were 140-mile-per-hour autobahn cruisers that chased the 928s and 930 Turbos and challenged 911s. M-B production exceeded 400,000 cars. From Munich, BMW introduced a road-going version of its M1 racer for loyal customers who sought something faster and sleeker than its 2+2 633CSi coupes. BMW assembled 330,000 cars in 1980.
Ferry Porsche contacted Bob Lutz about the job. Lutz had run operations at Ford of Europe in Cologne for several years. He sometimes drove a Turbo, but his conversations with Porsche gave him little understanding of where Ferry thought the company should go. No new projects meant no new cars for at least five or six years. Could Porsche keep the 911 going till 1985 or 1986? Lutz passed. Ferry continued looking. One after another candidate paused, looked, and walked on. Finally, after satisfying his doubts, one candidate, a German engineer educated in the United States, accepted the invitation to meet the Porsche and Piëch families. It took very little time for them to determine whether the new man had the courage and imagination to walk into Fuhrmann’s footsteps—or to break a new trail all his own.
The Porsche-built/Kremer-modified 3,164cc (193.0-cubic-inch) twin turbocharged engine developed as much as 800 horsepower when drivers increased the boost to 1.8 bar (26 psi). K3s reached 385 kilometers (240 miles) per hour along the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans.
In this configuration with Brian Redman as co-driver, this car finished fifth overall, first in Le Mans GTP class, in 1980. John Fitzpatrick then finished second in the Endurance Driver’s Championship, and Dick Barbour was third.
Peter Schutz had left an engineering job at Caterpillar because he had ideas to help the company make money, but management wanted him developing engines.
Schutz had never owned a Porsche. But he did his homework before he started at Zuffenhausen. Talking to dealers across America and Europe, he learned their two complaints: Porsches were too expensive, and they had quality-control problems. To Schutz, this was a single issue: No buyer objected to paying any price for something, so long as it functioned perfectly. He discovered that morale at Porsche had plummeted because it was discontinuing the 911 to push the 924 and 928. He sensed there was more. In January 1981, he and his wife, Sheila, arrived in Zuffenhausen. He immersed himself in information, discovery, and action.
Schutz believed that taking the car out of production was what struck him as wrongheaded. Finance figures showed that the 911 was the company’s most profitable car. Even so, Porsche had no plans to build the 911 after 1981.
The M473 option, “With Spoilers,” installed the Turbo “tea tray”–type rear wing on the SC coupes for the first time on 1982 models. It was popular in the UnitedStates, where buyers could not buy a Turbo through authorized dealers.
The U.S. Department of Transportation forced auto manufacturers to change speedometers to read a maximum of 85 miles per hour. Gasoline shortages and price increases encouraged conservation through a 55-miles-per-hour national speed limit.
SC coupes for 1982 sold for 51,850DM, roughly $21,338, at the factory. Acceleration from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour took 6.8 seconds, and Porsche quoted the top speed at 235 kilometers, 146 miles per hour.
For those moments when cars posed for pictures, the new standard 1,050-watt alternator with internal voltage regulator was a welcome improvement. Porsche added it to cope with electric windows, sunroofs, air conditioners, and aftermarket stereo and theft alarm installations.
Most significantly for 1981 model year, Porsche and Bosch revised the K-Jetronic fuel injection system to incorporate a cold-start injector spray that prevented backfires that destroyed airboxes, stalling the car in place. The new 930/10 engines developed 204 horsepower for the rest of the world.
For the first year, 1983, Porsche offered the convertible top only in black. Leather front seats were standard for the Cabriolet.
Thus the transition from 1979 to 1980 to 1981 had brought few changes. Fuhrmann had allowed repairs but no replacements. Under Schutz, 1981 C Program cars got spring-steel clutches to replace failure-prone (but gentler operating) rubber-centered ones. Backfires on start-up often destroyed airboxes, immobilizing cars, so Porsche and Bosch reprogrammed the K-Jetronic injection cold-start mixture.
It had been 18 years since Porsche introduced its 901 at the biennial auto show in Frankfurt, and the company’s image had slipped. It was time for Porsche to ignite public imagination.
Bott and Schutz hoped to introduce the 911 cabriolet as a 1982 model. Stiffening the chassis and finessing the top mechanism took time. The car appeared for 1983, the final year of the SC series, the last of the second-generation 911.
Gerhard Schröder had designed the top mechanism for F. A. Porsche’s concepts in 1963. He tackled this new assignment: Ferry Porsche wanted the top to operate electrically. Engineering had a working prototype by March 1982, but it needed more work. For the 1983 911SC cabriolet, owners opened or closed the top by hand and zipped a plastic rear window into place. Thinking about it years later made Peter Schutz laugh. In his earliest days, he had questioned and probed every detail, understanding that Porsches were too expensive and had too many quality problems.
“So we built a convertible, raised the price twenty percent, and created a whole new set of quality problems we never had before. Now we had tops that leaked and whistled and didn’t fit. And people ate it up!” Porsche sold the 1983 base 911SC for DM 57,800, $29,950 in the United States. The cabriolet went for DM 64,500 in Europe, 10 percent more, but $34,450 in America, 20 percent higher. (The Targa straddled the middle at DM 60,620D and $31,450.) The cabrio weighed about 15 kilograms (33 pounds) less than the Targa, and with its top raised and windows closed, it provided a better drag coefficient at 0.395 than the SC coupe at 0.40. Porsche test drivers reached a top speed of 235 kilometers per hour (146 miles per hour) in a closed convertible on Volkswagen’s high-speed Ehra-Le
ssien test track, making it the world’s fastest production convertible.
Other than the startling breath of fresh life that the cabriolet signaled, Porsche made few dramatic changes to its 911SC between the B Program 1981 models, C Program 1982 cars, and D Program 1983 911SC. For 1981 engineers raised the engine compression ratio to 9.8:1 from 8.6:1, introduced new pistons that increased horsepower and reduced fuel consumption, and revised valve timing. The changes required drivers to use premium fuel, consistent with the rest of Porsches products. The company extended the corrosion warranty to seven years and added the entire car body to its coverage. Externally, turn signal repeater lights appeared on front fenders (on non-U.S. cars).
Porsche first showed the convertible in March 1972 at the Geneva International Motor Show. Designer and engineer Gerhard Schröder created a collapsible roof using three bows and rigid panels of aluminum.
The Cabriolet weighed 1,160 kilograms, 2,552 pounds. The company sold it for 64,500DM and $31,450 at U.S. dealers. Porsche manufactured 4,096 the first year.
For 1982 engineers revised mounting points for camshaft chain sprockets and added an internal voltage regulator to a new 1,050-watt alternator, necessitated by the car’s increased electrical requirements. Tony Lapine’s stylists, ever subduing bright chrome, changed the Fuchs wheel centers to black powder coat. Non-U.S. models got a standard headlight-cleaning system and better temperature control and modulation on air conditioner–equipped cars. A final option, M473, offered the front and rear spoilers from the 3.3-liter Turbo on SC coupes, Targas, and cabriolets.
For Turbo owners (though the car still was not available in the United States or Japan), a new option appeared for 1983: the M505 flachtbau, a flat- or slant-nose front end reminiscent of the racing 935s, for an extra DM 38,340 ($15,035 at the time). Zuffenhausen assembly did this conversion on raw body shells, allowing Porsche to provide buyers the same seven-year corrosion warranty. A few updates to Turbo engines increased torque and made them quieter in countries such with strict noise standards, such as Switzerland. An optional Performance Kit, again not available to U.S. or Japanese customers, took horsepower to 330 DIN for an additional DM 20,975 ($8,225 in 1983 dollars). This kit installed a larger turbocharger, a more efficient intercooler, and a four-pipe exhaust system.
YEAR
1980-1983
DESIGNATION
911SC
SPECIFICATIONS
MODEL AVAILABILITY
Coupe, Targa, Cabriolet in 1983
WHEELBASE
2272mm/89.4 inches
LENGTH
4291mm/168.9 inches
WIDTH
1652mm/65.0 inches
HEIGHT
1320mm/52.0 inches
WEIGHT
1160kg/2552 pounds
BASE PRICE
$25,797 coupe/$27,445 Targa (1980)
$25,294 Cabriolet (1983)
TRACK FRONT
1369mm/53.9 inches
TRACK REAR
1379mm/54.3 inches
WHEELS FRONT
6.0Jx15
WHEELS REAR
7.0Jx15
TIRES FRONT
185/70VR15
TIRES REAR
215/60VR15
CONSTRUCTION
Unitized welded steel
SUSPENSION FRONT
Independent, wishbones, MacPherson struts, longitudinal torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers, anti-roll bar
SUSPENSION REAR
Independent, light alloy semi-trailing arms, transverse torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers, anti-roll bar
BRAKES
Ventilated discs, 2-piston cast iron fixed calipers
ENGINE TYPE
Horizontally-opposed DOHC six cylinder Typ 930/09 (1980)
Horizontally-opposed DOHC six cylinder Typ 930/10 (1981-1983)
Horizontally-opposed DOHC six cylinder Typ 930/07 for US 50 states and Canada, w/oxygen sensor, catalytic converter (1980-1983)
ENGINE DISPLACEMENT
2994cc/183.2CID
BORE AND STROKE
95x70.4mm/3.74x2.77 inches
HORSEPOWER
188@5500rpm (930/09 - 1980)
180@5500rpm (930/07 – 1980-1983 US)
204@5900rpm (930/10 – 1981-1983)
TORQUE
195lb-ft@4200rpm (930/09 - 1980)
175lb-ft@4200rpm (930/07 – 1980-1983 US)
197lb-ft@4200rpm (930/10 – 1981-1983)
COMPRESSION
8.5:1 (930/09, 930/07)
9.8:1 (903/10)
FUEL DELIVERY
Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection
FINAL DRIVE AXLE RATIO
3.875
TOP SPEED
140mph
PRODUCTION
21,109 coupes, 13,240 Targas, 4,096 Cabriolets all years
1984 911 SC/RS
Known internally as Typ 954, these were the first of Porsche’s Gruppe B Evolution rally cars. Porsche assembled 20 of the 1,057-kilogram (2,325-pound) cars.
Ekkehard Zimmerman, the man behind the radical appearance of the Kremer brothers’ 935K series racers, took advantage of Porsche’s marketing decision and the Kremers’ racing successes to begin selling his own dp935 in 1983 out of his facilities in Cologne. He produced dozens of 935 Kremer lookalikes for the autobahns of Germany and, with modifications, the interstates of America. His technicians modified engines to develop 400 DIN horsepower, pushing his coupes and cabriolets to 280 kilometers per hour (175 miles per hour) and to 62 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds. Zimmerman’s conversions added a third to half the price of a production Turbo.
More subtle changes marked Porsche’s U.S.-bound normally aspirated cars for 1983. Back in 1975, DOT regulations had forced Porsche and other makers to raise ride heights to comply with 5-mile-per-hour bumper impact laws. For 1983 Porsche lowered the car back to rest-of-the-world height, improving the appearance and handling of the car. On the instrument panel, the speedometer read to 160 miles per hour. For American customers and buyers around the world, these incremental improvements made it clear that Porsche was moving ahead with the 911.
Part of the Porsche development cycle for new race cars was to run 1,000 kilometers, 625 miles, over the “Belgian Road,” known for deep potholes and big bumps. The company charged 188,100DM ($63,980 at the time) for these cars. Photograph courtesy Porsche Archive
Strictly conceived for international rallying, these cars received a tuned 2,994cc (182.6-cubic-inch) SC Typ 930/18 engine that developed 255 horsepower at 7,000 rpm. Depending on gearing, they accelerated from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 5.3 second and reached 255 kilometers (155 miles) per hour.
YEAR
1980-1985
DESIGNATION
911 Turbo
SPECIFICATIONS
MODEL AVAILABILITY
Coupe, Slant Nose Coupe
WHEELBASE
2272mm/89.4 inches
LENGTH
4291mm/168.9 inches
WIDTH
1775mm/69.9 inches
HEIGHT
1310mm/52.4 inches
WEIGHT
1300kg/2860 pounds
BASE PRICE
$71,871 complete
TRACK FRONT
1432mm/56.4 inches
TRACK REAR
1501mm/59.1 inches
WHEELS FRONT
7.0Jx16
WHEELS REAR
8.0Jx16
TIRES FRONT
205/55VR16
TIRES REAR
225/50VR16
CONSTRUCTION
Unitized welded steel
SUSPENSION FRONT
Independent, wishbones, MacPherson struts, longitudinal torsion bars, gas-filled double-action shock absorbers, anti-roll bar
SUSPENSION REAR
Independent, light alloy semi-trailing arms, transverse torsion bars, gas-filled double-action shock absorbers, anti-roll bar
BRAKES
Ventilat
ed, drilled discs, 4-piston aluminum calipers
ENGINE TYPE
Horizontally opposed DOHC six-cylinder Typ 930/60
Typ 930/66 from 1983-1988; Typ 930/60 S for slant nose
ENGINE DISPLACEMENT
3299cc/201.3CID
BORE AND STROKE
97x74.4mm/3.82x2.93 inches
HORSEPOWER
300@5500rpm (Typ 930/60 and 930/66)
330@5750rpm (Typ 930/60 S)
TORQUE
304lb-ft@4000rpm (Typ 930/60)
317lb-ft@4000rpm (Typ 930/66)
344lb-ft@4000rpm (Typ 930/60 S)
COMPRESSION
7.0:1
FUEL DELIVERY
The Complete Book of Porsche 911 Page 11
