Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

I have been without 944t for about 8 months now. I had to sell up to finance the deposit on our new family home. Irony of it all is that I now have a fantastic double garage, but nothing to place inside it.

I am also fast approaching 40 years old (i still have four years left) and promised myself a road trip with wife and kids to Europe. I have a little passion to stay at the Hotel Paris in Monaco.... I need the right car to do this road trip in, and the only car i can actually think of fitting my family in and enjoying the drive is a 944 turbo.
Now, I spotted this car at Dick Lovett near Swindon:
http://classifieds.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/porsche/944/porsche-944-s2/747440
Its an S2 with 52k miles from new that looks imaculate.

This got me wondering. How many turbos might there be in existance in this sort of condition? I doubt very many. So, the only way to get hold of one is to build your own. What specification would you choose? What colour? What mods would you make over the standard Porsche car?

I would fancy a late as possible 944 turbo SE finished in light blue (not sure what the real name was) with black leather sport seats. A/C must work and I guess the standard wheels would be nice. Cup mirrors would be a nice addition.

/ramble.

I would have exactly what I've got Rav. Just north of 300bhp, mods below, and all factory comfort items still in place and looking exactly the same on the outside as it did when it left Zuffenhousen (spelling?) 23 years ago, CS wheels and bridge spoiler, but about 50mm lower now on my refreshed suspension!

Stuart

Mine of course!

but in black
..
and with all the niggles fixed...

I'd go with nearly what I'm hoping mine will be.

'88 Turbo S, no sunroof, CS wheels, etc.

Black 968 Sport interior with rear seat delete, front fibreglass bucket seats, harnesses, all the sound deadening removed and a cage that I can remove the front of for road use.

KW suspension, 968 Mo30 roll bars, solid/poly bushed.

As Stuart says around 320 to 350 bhp using a modern turbo to get rid of some of the lag.

The only thing I think I'm not going to achieve is the colour. I'd have prefered Black or Red ( no Saturday evening game show jokes please) but think I'm going to end up keeping mine Zermatt Silver

Well I think I will stick with the Guards Red 1990MY I was lucky enough to acquire from Simon Peckham in Jan 2007.
It has 161,000miles on the clock but has his tastefully modified rebuilt blueprint engine which has covered just 13,000 glorious miles.

I was also without it for a few months last year when I stupidly tried to sell it getting it back made me realise just how good a car it is.
I believe it was, and possibly still is the highest Torque 2.5L on the UK Power League 318 BHP 377 Ft lbs @ 4000rpm Hybrid Turbo (Min Lag) etc etc, It's Impressive Torque Curve (already posted in an earlier topic > Jon Mitchell Garage performance parts ) Just the ticket, annual servicing TLC & MOT at JMG it certainly keeps ticking all the boxes for me.
(going to DPRAC (Donington Park) next week for an annual blast round the track, great stuff.

Mine, with a 3.0 engine and pole positions.

I think, especially with turbos, they are being modified slowly towards what people want.
You want the basics working properly and reliably, so stripped shell rust proofed within an inch of its life, painted to the colour if your choice, interior - I like linen not black and heated seats are lovely.
You could add all sorts of concealed electrickery, whatever you wanted.
968 mirrors and door handles are nice, wheels - CS or Fuchs if its age appropriate, KWs and an engine tweaked to your needs. A reliable 400bhp would see off more or less anything!
But occasionally you see a very modified one that really sticks out.
Its practical, comfortable quick and looks the part. What's not to like?

Have you seen how much they want for this car, take a look on e bay for their ad.

£12,944

Token 944 on the end. No wonder they spent 3 days valiting it. And The plastic still looks brown!

Strangley, I think that it will sell. Perhaps not at that price, but someone will pay £10k for it.
I have seen similar cars at 4 star classics there was a 91 turbo in white with 51k miles that was advertised for £14k. It sold....

Decent un-molested cars are big money and this is the reason i started this thread.

My thoughts were that I could wait until I am a few years older (and a few more years for saving) to buy my ultimate turbo, but I have a feeling that they will be a rare car then, especially in the condition that I want.

Maybe i am better off setting my sights on a Panamera grand sport or similar once depreciation has done its stuff.

You are absolutely right, good condition 944 prices are on the move.

On the PCGB forum recently there was a lot of discussion when someone who was interested in one of my 944 S2's started a thread there asking what people thought of his potential purchase of my car.

As usual, lots of people started talking down the values of their cars and saying that at £5495 was too expensive for my S2, claiming that people could buy a good S2 for under £3k. I explained to them that a £3k 944 S2 would probably need at least a nother £3k spending on it, and that my one had new waterpump, belts, camchain, chain sliders, tensioners, front engine oil seals, was internally immaculate, the engine bay was one where you could eat your dinner off of it and that the price included £1000 for exterior paint rectification which would happen once someone paid a deposit on it (not done before so the potential buyers knew it was just stone chips and not accident damage)

It sold to the original poster of that thread... It has well over 100k on the clock, but has been looked after.

Before that, earlier this year I sold my cobalt blue 944 S2, a J reg and one of the last made, in immaculate condition for £5995, again, over 100k miles on the clock, but an excellent example in every way.

The buyer of the J reg S2 also tried to make me an offer on my White 86 turbo, which is not for sale, his offer was £15k, which I declined (some things are just not for sale), but others have made similar offers in the last couple of years, it is absolutely mint (just had a tiny rust spot on the bottom of one of the front wings sorted) and has only 75k miles on it.

My take on it is that a good S2 is worth between £5k and £8k, maybe more if it has super low miles. A turbo is worth between £6k and £10k, maybe more if it has low miles.

Yes you can buy them cheaper, but to be really honest, we see plenty of seemingly good 944 turbo's turn up here, which people have just bought for £4k, £5k or £6k, and on inspection we find about £3k to £5k worth of work that really needs doing to just bring the car up to acceptable condition and avoid things getting worse and more expensive. Even then, the car would be far from being a great one. Which is why I always recommend that people buy the very best one they can afford, otherwise it could end up costing them a lot more in the long run.

My dad used to have a cool phrase...

"There is nothing quite as expensive as a cheap Porsche"

I have one of my Turbo's which I will be putting up for sale in the near future, it is a baltic blue SE spec 250 car with all the bells and whistles (MO30, LSD, Aircon, sports seats etc), in really good condition. That car will be around £8k, it has higher mileage, but is a really good, original example.

I have two ideal 944's.

One would be my totally original 86 turbo, which is awesome for just going back in time and having a blast on the road.. I would trust that car to drive cross europe in a flash.

my other is what I am planning for one of my project turbo's, 450bhp, cage, 2 seats, weight reduction, KW and a complete track focus. Probably not a trans continental cruiser, I think after 2 hours it would see the driver rattled to distraction!

Somewhere between the two would probably be the ideal car for you Rav, maybe a standard car, MO30, LSD, Aircon, dual port wastegate, chips, exhaust, intercooler, injectors, fuel pump, maybe a MAF kit, and maybe a hybrid turbo.. These goodies will see you with a 420bhp car, with 400 ftlbs of torque, not too much lag and an amazing continental cruiser.. Almost the same spec as a customers turbo cab, which was all done with a 120k mile engine without a rebuild and he had 417 bhp and said it was an animal when he wanted it to be, and when he drove it to Greece it just Purred and was effortless.

I dont think I'll ever sell mine now. I looked for well over a year and only saw 3 I considered buying, one of those, a red S, has since turned out to be a cat D according to info posted on here. It may get a 3.0 engine at some stage but seeing as it took me 2 years to buy a 2.7 engine and the original engine has under 90k on it there's no hurry . Turbo's are undervalued at the moment I think in a 5 years very good ones will rival 968 CS's in price.

I must admit to missing my '88 944S, I know it is the unloved 944 but I thought it was great, and only 76k on the clock when I sold it to go over to the dark side, had it 6 years and cost nothing to run apart from routine servicing and it always got positive comments and was on the tipec stand at the NEC on two occasions. I still see it at shows and the new owner has continued to look after it so alls not bad

Rav, You want me to let you know whenever I have something come up?

I sold my S2 which was causing controversy on the PCGB forum for the full asking price, which means that the family is now putting pressure on me to sell a couple more of my vast fleet of cars, the next ones being a cobalt blue 968, a fully loaded baltic blue 250 turbo, a D reg white 944 turbo (220) and a guards red 944 S2.

But I am putting my foot down with the family that I will not be selling my white 86 turbo, my TWR turbo cup, my 968 Turbo RS or my 931. A boy needs his toys!