May 25, 2022 • 40 mins
The Porsche 928 was meant to replace the Porsche 911. Instead, it cemented the 911 as the Porsche icon. In this episode, Eddie investigates why the incredibly great Porsche 928 failed so spectacularly, and was never able to win the hearts and minds of the Porsche faithful.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey Eddie here, before we get started, I wanted
you to know that you can listen to Car Show
ad free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You'll also
get access to detours, bonus episodes of Car Show, where
we go for extended drives, play outtakes, and more fine
(00:37):
Pushkin Plus on the Car Show page in Apple Podcasts,
or at pushkin dot Fm. Risky Business nineteen eighty three.
Tom Cruise is Joel Goodson. His dad has a Porsche
nine eight. A couple of boys in daddy's car. Joel's
(01:02):
just backed the silver coop out of the garage and
is rolling through town doing high school senior things. He's
the model kid. He's hoping to get into Princeton in
the fall. He has no idea how sideways it's all
about to go. Fast forward to the movie's second act.
Joel is sitting with his girlfriend Lana played by Rebecca
(01:24):
de Morney, on the hood of the Porsche overlooking the lake.
I'm okay. They are soon to start their own little
prostitution business. At the beginning of the scene, as Lana
grabs her purse out of the nine twenty eight, she
knocks the shift lever into neutral. When she gets up
from the hood of the car to leave Joel, he
(01:44):
takes off after her. Was something I said. The Porsche
starts rolling down the dock toward the lake got side.
Ye never has a car so perfectly embody the Hollywood storyline.
(02:05):
Forget the gradual, forget the fast, and the furious. Risky
business director Paul Brickman could have picked a better signifier
for Joe's predicament. This is a car that's all about
going in way too deep, getting a way out over
your skis. This is the story of the Portion nine
twenty eight, an elite car with tons of promise, but
(02:26):
one that, metaphorically speaking, fell right into the lake. I'm
Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show. In this episode
will examine how the nine twenty eight, this raging tour
to force of styling, engineering and performance, failed to speak
(02:46):
to the exact audience that should have loved it. But
Portion soon to ask why we put so much performance
in a luxury car, and lothers ask why we put
so much luxury in a performance car. You'd think that
in the eighties, a great and powerful continent cross for
(03:08):
like the nine eight would have been an easy cell
to Porsche's polo Cologne wearing sports car clientele. It was
not excellence is expected, So how did this perfect Porsche
become Porsche's pariah. The biggest issue with the nine twenty
(03:40):
eight may have been the pre existence of the Portione
nine to eleven. Porsche names its projects in running order.
You can tell which came first because of the model numbers.
The core model coupe started as the nine oh one,
but became the nine to eleven after complaints from Pouchet
the French. He said that Porsche can use the same
number zero number naming convention. The point is that the
(04:03):
nine twenty eight is a good dozen steps away from
the nine to eleven, a world away. It turns out,
while the nine to eleven has been scaling new heights
of performance and desirability over the past forty years, nine
twenty eight remained somewhat forgotten. People make fun of it.
It's been labeled an eighties car, a cocaine cowboy, not
(04:24):
the kind of Porsche Porsche people care about. But it
was a car Porsche itself had lavished extraordinary care on.
At the time, it wasn't veiled. It was the only Porsche,
not somehow based on a Volkswagen product. It was all new,
new VI eight engine, new suspension, new layout, Hence the problem.
(04:45):
Most people didn't really know what to make of the
nine twenty eighth when it came out in the late
seventies or for a long time after that. That confusion
curled into dismissal and eventually set for a while at
least an antipathy why the car was groundbreaking, It was beautiful,
and man was it fast? On it a nine twenty
(05:10):
eight because it's weird mostly and it's like kind of
like does doesn't he doesn't even like necessarily suit me
or my personality, but just like like a weird a
really weird car, really weird version of a portion of
you know. This is Derek Burke. He's a Detroit musician
(05:32):
and works in the film business. He co owns a
nine twenty eight with his brother. It's his car will
be abusing for this episode, and even he is conflicted
about it. It's like I always pictured like a Miami
Vice type person in one of these cars, you know,
like like a really eighties kind of like you know,
the person that that I'm not, but you hope to
(05:54):
be one. Yeah. Yeah, I struggle with my personality while
I'm driving it, you know, like you know, you get
out at the gas pump, like, you know, like you
have like identity problems. I feel like at least I do.
I'm like, I like, like am I like a yeah, yeah,
thank you? Yeah? Right? Like what what does it mean? Now?
(06:16):
Does me? Now that I'm driving just a car? You
kind of like it is an ostentatious German cud You
can you can pull it off? Yeah. Derek Burks nine
twenty eight is an original first year car from nineteen
seventy eight. Let's examine the thing that confronted customers as
they walked into Porsche's showrooms. So this is the nineteen
(06:38):
seventy eight first MABI year. So this is as pure
a reflection of the concept as you're gonna get the
first year as it came from the factory. And it's
an amazing shape. It's really really beautiful. Yeah, it's a
it's original point original paint. Yeah. Really from this angle,
(07:02):
it is so evocative of the nine to eleven um
just the roundness of it, the the placement of the
lights is sort of updated nine to eleven rear end.
You know, just kind of cat cast a couple decades
into the future. Um, you know, it's amazing to me
that it was so rejected by the Porsche cognischend It
(07:27):
kind of still is right because what they were going
for was really an evolution of the nine to eleven look.
You know, it didn't have a front grill, and the
idea was like, let's make it look like a Porsche.
Roundhead lights pop up in this case, so like an
evolution of the nine to eleven look, but smooth streamline hood,
(07:51):
a rounded back. You know, from what I understand, and
this might be apocryphal, Fairy Porsche, the guy in charge
at the time loved the AMC Pacer. That's the the
um the inspiration for the rear windows in the rear
(08:11):
hats from the Pacer. I heard that exactly. The Pacer,
if you don't remember, it was the car in Wayne's world.
It was also the car Serial Killers drove. Make of
that what you will. So you have one kind of
main glass panel in the back of the back light,
and then these two side windows on the side, and
(08:32):
that's like a kind of a laid down version of
the Pacer. Super super cool looking. And this was so
avant garde. This is so ahead of its time. I mean,
it still looks futuristic, looks futuristic. That's what's interesting about it.
It looks like nothing else, you know, And that's just
the exterior. The interior of the car. It looks like
(08:53):
it came straight out of the day of a system
the designers really swung for the outer reaches of the galaxy.
They put a radio fader nod by the driver's doorsill
and installed sun visors in the rear seat positions. And
there are a couple really interesting seat options in this car.
As I recall, there was the Pasha seed inserts, which
(09:13):
were a fabric kind of a lure insert but in
an op art pattern, so it looked like a rejected
Pink Floyd album cover kind of thing. Yeah, and super trippy, yeah,
but not not like um even you know, like really weird, yeah,
kind of stroving in and out. Yeah, Like it reminds
me of the pattern you see when you rub your eyes,
(09:35):
you know, right, it's real, real psychedelic. And it lent
to this sense that this car was like kind of
reverse engineered from alien spacecraft. You know, it was like
totally new and just landed like a meteor. When Porscha
created the nine twenty eight, they thought they were making
(09:56):
something akin to an evolution of the nine to eleven.
They thought they were bringing the ideas, an essence of
the company forward into the modern era. Porsche didn't realize
it was betraying the people who loved it most. It
wasn't the nine twenty eighth styling or interior that irked them.
It was the stuff under the skin that got so
well under their skin. Let's start at the beginning. Porscha
(10:24):
looms large in the hearts and minds of car enthusiasts,
but it's really the ultimate father and son operation. The father,
Ferdinand Porsche, designed the Volkswagen Beetle for Adolph Hitler. His
son Fairy, turned that Beetle into a sports car. This
became the first Porsche, the bathtub shaped three fifty six.
(10:46):
The three fifty six begat the nine to eleven. The
latter a bit bigger, a bit more solid, a bit
more refined than the three fifty six, but the fundamentals
were the same. Engine hung way out back behind the rearacle.
Really fun to drive, really hard to drive. Well. There's
(11:08):
a driving style in Porsche Land called shushing, where you
slide the car through a corner, ass out foot, heart
on the gas, a plume of tire smoke trailing behind you.
Essentially use the rear of the car to steer you
through a turn rather than the front. It's fun, it
looks crazy. It takes skill and nerve and an understanding
(11:28):
of physics, and it is the essence of driving a
rear engine portion. There's a glorious, like you know, animalistic
element to this thing. Here I am at the wheel
of a signal Red nineteen eighty five nine to eleven convertible.
It's counterintuitive. In a normal car, like a front engine,
(11:51):
front wheel drive car, a car starts to slide, you
take your feet off the gas, and everything kind of
corrects itself. In this car, you take your foot off
the gas, it'll spin, go into a corner way too hot,
lift off the throttle, and then all of a sudden,
no traction the back because instead of keeping the loads
(12:11):
on the rear wheels so they could have traction, you
unload the rear wheels. No traction anymore, and the thing spins.
So you know, it really did take balls of steel
to keep your foot in it. So to speak. I
own one of the early nine elevens, a nineteen seventy
one Coop. It's one of the lightest, most sensitive road
(12:35):
cars I've ever driven, and it rewards Driverley's skill. I
can't shush it every time in every corner. When I
get it right, it's like the heavens part and Jacob's
ladder descends. Oh my god, it's just a tear sports car.
(12:56):
They're cooled, making all kinds of weird noises. So unrefined
but super refined at the same time, sportscar drivers and
racers embraced the nine to eleven. When driven properly, it
was just incredibly fast and effective relative to its par
(13:17):
level and complexity. It hauled ass out of corners. Because
it carried a majority of its mass over its rear wheels,
it gave it a lot of traction under power. It
was light and always seemed to punch above its weight,
and so it kept evolving on the street and winning
on the track. This little odd ball was cementing itself
as the quintessential sporting machine with wins on grueling international
(13:41):
rallies like Monte Carlo. The nine eleven Turbo or nine
thirty came to the States in nineteen seventy six. It
was the nine to eleven in a superhero costume, a
fearsome and combustible mega coup with fat fenders and a
huge fluke for a tail. The turbo was even harder
to drive than the standard nine to eleven. Power delivery
(14:03):
was all or nothing, and it gained a reputation as
a dentist killer for the way it would spin off
the road at the slightest provocation, like when it's unexpecting
driver lifted off the throttle in a fast corner. It
earned the nickname the widow Maker. The nine eleven was
a car to respect. So if the nine O one
(14:25):
was the nine to eleven and the nine thirty was
the nine eleven Turbo, where does the nine twenty eight
fit in? The nine twenty eight had actually been on
Porsche's drawing board since nineteen seventy one, a mere seven
years after the launch of the nine to eleven and
before the nine thirty. Then the US was hit with
an oil embargo in nineteen seventy three. This is NBC
(14:48):
Nightly to use Wednesday, October seventeenth, Good Evening. The Middle
East War produced developments all over the world today, the
oil producing countries of the Arab world decided to use
their oil as a political weapon. They will reduce oil
production by the American automobile. For so long, the symbol
of America's wealth and extravagance is dying. New cars and
(15:10):
used cars stand like shining tombstones in the showrooms and
parking lots of the nation's car dealers, unloved, unwanted, and unsold.
All of a sudden, it did not seem prudent about
the future of the small family owned company on a
V eight powered sports car like the nine twenty eight,
it would have to wait. Maybe if there were no
(15:31):
gas crises and the nine twenty eight came out in
seventy four or seventy five, the nine to eleven wouldn't
have had the time to endear itself so completely to
the driving enthusiast. But by the nineteen seventy eight model year,
the nine twenty eighth first drivers had clasped the nine
to eleven tightly to their breasts. So why do the
nine twenty eight at all? Well, it was a poorly
(15:53):
kept secret that within the company itself, the nine eleven
had been marked for death for a couple of reasons.
The first was ambition. Doctor Ernst Furman was the successor
to Ferry Porsche as company chairman. He was an engineer
and an engine's signer. He thought the nine to eleven
was on its last legs. But there was also certainly
(16:13):
a part of him that had Mercedes envy. He wanted
to build a car to compete with the absolute pinnacle
of automaking, the guys who invented it all, Mercedes Benz
back in nineteen seventy one. He wanted to show the
world what a modern Porsche could be. Elegant, comfortable, sophisticated,
(16:34):
real competition for the big BMW and Mercedes Benz coops.
So that was one motivating factor. The other reason had
to do with this here that it's the signature worrying
(16:56):
and churing of the air cooled nine to eleven. Isn't
that a great sound? I mean, it is unmistakable. Nothing
else sounds like this, man, that is a wild animal sound,
(17:20):
or some day it sounds like nothing else, like it's
straining against itself on the verge of imploding, sort of
like how the rolling stones always sound like they're about
to fall apart, but never do it's part of what
keeps you engaged. You don't want to have the radio on.
You need to be able to listen to that engine.
(17:45):
But it's also not exactly modern sounding. The company fear
that it's noise would get regulated out of existence. In
the nine to eleven, all the noisemakers were in the back.
The intake manifold the chortling air cooled flat six engine
the flatulent exhaust system, So when the nine to eleven
drove by the automotive noise regulators microphones, it created a
(18:07):
big decibel spike at the of the car. Conventional cars,
with their engines up front and exhaust in the back,
spread that noise out across the length of the car
for less of a sonic whack. But noise wasn't the
only hurdle the nine to eleven was seen as ill
equipped to clear. There were also safety and emissions concerns.
(18:28):
Porsche figured that any replacement for the nine to eleven
would have to be future proofed against all this change,
and then a more conventional layout would be a better
basis for development. There were safety in numbers, A quiet,
liquid cooled engine in front like a more traditional sports
car with room for more mufflers and catalysts in the back,
(18:48):
better weight distribution front to rear thanks to a rear
mounted transmission, a thoroughly modern sports car, a showcase of
Porsche's engineering prowess. Perhaps most important both to the engineering
aspirations of Porsche and to nine twenty eighth rejection by
traditional Porsia owners was the newly designed rear axle. Seems
(19:12):
like a small change, but it had huge implications for
the car and for the argument I'm trying to make here.
It was known as the weissok axel. It stabilized the
rear of the car by towing in the rear wheels
like a pigeon, and within nine twenty eighth there was
far more balanced mass wise front to rear. That meant
no more easy shushing. Porsche engineers thought this was a
(19:35):
gigantic step forward, making the car far more stable in
all conditions and thus more drivable for a wider group
of people. But to the Porsche faithful it was a
fun killer. Our friend Derek Burke is not one of
the faithful, apparently. Yeah, people don't want to change what
they love. Yeah, because there is like they had built
up this skill and this proficiency in driving the nine
(19:57):
to eleven, and this thing was so easy to drive.
They're like, what's the point, right, the car doesn't push back?
You know the designer Raymond Loewy. Right, if you've seen
air Force one, the aircraft, not the Harrison Forn movie,
you know his work. Lowie was America's foremost industrial designer
and an age when design was just starting to matter.
(20:19):
He redesigned the coke bottle, He did the Lucky Strike
cigarette pack. He even designed studebakers. Lowie expressed his core
designed philosophy as the acronym MAYA m A y a
most advanced yet acceptable. The idea was that for a
new design to succeed, there needed to be something familiar
(20:41):
about it, something that linked it to the past. The
logo he drew for x On, for example, was built
off the cross. It looks like the cross of the
Knights Templar. Look at the two xes in it. Some
time we could do a whole episode on Raymond Loewie,
but I bring him up here briefly because in the
case of the nine twenty eight, his otherwise successful MAYA
(21:03):
philosophy didn't quite apply. You have to understand Porsche's value
is experimentation. Because it is so closely associated with one car,
the nine to eleven, many people think that it's a
risk averse operation. One visit to the company's museum in
the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, Germany will dispel that notion.
(21:28):
They are arrayed on the floors and pinned to the
walls like exotic butterflies. Is Porsche's riot of ideas. Four
door nine elevens, the nine seventeen racing cars with their
pressurized two frames and mechanical guts hanging out. Crazy concepts
such as the froggy and toy like Panamericana, green and
White German police nine elevens, the wild and the wacky abound.
(21:52):
In this context, the nine twenty eight seems gently progressive,
and to Porsche it was, even though it was the
first Porsche designed entirely from scratch, with aluminum bodywork and
an all NUVI eight. The company intended for it to
be Maya in the extreme, most advanced yet acceptable but
(22:12):
loyal Porsche buyers, the very targets for the nine twenty
eight saw a betrayal under the car's curves. It's just different.
It's smoother, it's so much more refined sounding. It doesn't
have that weird mechanical kind of coarseness that the nine
to eleven has. But you kind of love about the
nine to eleven. This is just yeah, it's like the
(22:35):
best German corvette that's ever been right. Yeah, it's like
a weird German muscle car. Yeah, totally. It feels like
it wants to go in a straight line really fast
and not really turn with the kind of precision like
when you're coming out of a corner here. It doesn't
have that kind of snapback, added Tode that the nine
to eleven is where a nine to eleven you come
(22:57):
out of a corner and it's like a great smallow skier.
The transitional behavior is like the thing writes itself immediately
and sets you up for the next turn. This car
is a lot lazier feeling. It's like, yeah, I'll get
to it when I get to it, right. I feel
like I could drive across the country in it, like
on the highway though that that like, I think that's
what it was for. Very different than the nine to eleven.
(23:20):
Everything is has like that that little layer of insulation.
It's much more of a luxury car, much more of
a GT. It feels much heavier in the hand. As
they say, it's a vastly different driving experience than the
nine to eleven. The nine to eleven is real, kind
of direct and percussive and like always on, whereas this thing,
(23:46):
it's like you can kind of drive it with a pinky,
you know, you know what the front wheels are always doing,
you know what the chassis's doing. It gives you a
lot of information. But it does have that kind of
creaminess that the nine to eleven doesn't have. But this
is more stable. This has killed fewer dentists. Well, the
(24:07):
dentists always come. I don't know, I don't know, but
there's something about the kind of people who are attracted
to nine to elevens technically minded, who work with their
hands at a very high level, you know, like a dentist,
like an architect. Tom Wolfe talks about that in From
bau House to Our House, that architects always wanted to
(24:29):
have the nine to eleven. The nine to eleven embodies
like a real philosophy of how to build a car,
and it's totally different than anything else. And I think
one of the reasons This wasn't as embraced is because
it was a more commodified vision. You know, it was
(24:50):
one that was built to conform to regulations and built
to conform to you know, the kind of style of
other cars. It seemed like a threat to a belief
system in a way. The faithful didn't want to see
Porsche turn into just another car company. They to understand
kind of the the weirdness of the American customer. The
(25:14):
American Porsche guy was buying that car out of a
kind of iconoclasm because he didn't want to be lumped
in with the Corvette guys or the Triumph guys of
the MG guys. The Porsche was different, and it said
something different about you. It said that you were maybe
(25:36):
a more skilled driver, or that you had some connection
to the racing heritage of the brand, and that you
were one of those hairy armed heroes of motorsport. But
just you know, your day job was a dentist. Nine
twenty job was to supplant the nine to eleven to
(25:58):
be so captivating and cool as to wipe it from memory.
It did not do that. It couldn't. The nine eleven
had a kind of destiny to persist after the break,
we'll hear about the governor's pardon that extended the nine
to eleven's life. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show.
(26:26):
In nineteen eighty one, the nine to eleven got a
miraculous green mile reprieve. Porsche brought in a new CEO,
a German American named Peter Schutz, whose parents fled the
Third Rife and settled in Chicago. Schutz was an engineer
and an industrialist. He had stints at Caterpillar and Cummins
Diesel under his belt. When he got to Porsche, the
(26:48):
nine eleven was just getting strapped into the electric chair.
He noticed how glum everyone at the company seemed more
than just the usual Teutonic stoic gloominess. Porsche's employees were
visibly upset that the company was going to cancel the
nine to eleven. So Shutz heads down to a meeting
with Porsche's chief engineer at the time, how Bot. Schutz
(27:11):
notices that Bot has one of those big charts on
his office wall, with the lifespans and development cycles of
all Porsche products stretching out into the future. The line
for the nine to eleven stops dead in nineteen eighty one.
So Schotz goes over to the chart, picks up a marker,
and extends the nine elevens line off the paper, onto
(27:31):
the wall and out the door of Bot's office. In
twenty thirteen, Shoultz wrote this for Road and Track. While
the nine to eleven could be temperamental at times, at
least it had character. That's what people loved most about it.
You had to remain vigilant with your inputs. But for
those who could, those of training with skill who could
(27:53):
catch it in a slide and bring it back into line,
the nine to eleven was king. It was the only
car worth driving because it was the only car that
would push back in its way. Eight only cemented the
nine eleven as the Porsche icon, but why? In many ways,
(28:15):
the nine twenty eight was the natural logical progression from
the nine to eleven, much more sophisticated, highly capable, and
easier to drive, building certify real competition for Mercedes, Benz
and BMW. It was future proofed yet familiar. No front
grill just like the nine eleven, arounded rump just like
(28:35):
the nine to eleven, and comfortable like the nine to
eleven On the face of it. The nine twenty eight,
hued closely to Lois maya maxim should have been a layup.
Many people blame the nine twenty eighth price of twenty
eight thousand, five hundred dollars or over one hundred and
twenty thousand dollars today for the chilly reception it received,
(28:55):
But the nine twenty eight was launched on the cusp
of the eighties to the me generation, to yuppies. That
audience was all about big ticket statements like the nine
twenty eight. And besides, sports cars are Vevlan items, status
and bols. The higher the price, the more highly they're prized. No,
it was something deeper about the relationship between Porsche coops
(29:17):
new and old. Back to that bright red eighty five
nine eleven I was driving earlier in the episode. This
is a lot more raw, and so you can see
how the person who is used to this car, you
know in the eighties, who loved the feeling of that
engine behind them, loved the sound of the engine behind them,
(29:37):
love the fact that they needed to know how to
drive it. You can see how they get in and
be like, if I wanted to Corvette, I'd buy a Corvette.
You know, there's no personality that car doesn't push back.
You know, it's too good. The nine eleven was so
appealing because it was such a handful. It was small,
(29:58):
it was noisy, and it would bite. It took skill
to drive well, and everyone knew it. You elicited respect
from other drivers. You are a local version of those
d dragon slayers who drove nine to elevens on racetracks
around the world. The superior handling and performance of the
nine twenty eight was a disadvantage in many Porsche file's eyes.
(30:21):
The nine twenty eight was Tana Ta NA two advanced,
not acceptable, too stable, too comfortable, too conformists. So it's
ironic that the nine twenty eight was the non conforming
model at Porsche for the entirety of its run. Even
if it sold decently for a while and ran for
a long eighteen years, nine twenty eight was always misunderstood
(30:46):
by drivers and by the media. It was mixed. It
was mixed. You know how the media sometimes can be,
you know, they look down on new things that no oh,
of course, every once in a a while. Tom McDonald was
the head of public relations for Audi, VW and Porsche
when the nine twenty eight was released in nineteen seventy eight.
(31:09):
He was there for the car's first media drive. It
was a mixed reaction because you had some media who
were biased towards racles rear engine cars. But I mean
the nine twenty eight was such a unique It wasn't
an evolutionary car. It was a revolutionary car. And they
(31:31):
had interesting characters around it. Again, a guy like Tony Lapine.
I think he someone asked him, why are the headlights
the pop up headlights? Why aren't they covered? And he says,
because we want to look up to the sky to God.
I mean, so it was always pedal to the metal
(31:53):
for a lot of the media guys, and it was
all about the numbers. Ken Porsche pull it off and
it's this the way that Porsche's gonna go forward now,
I tell you. There was also a little bit of
a pushback from the Porsche Club. Tom's talking about the PCA,
the Porsche Club of America. PCA members are Porsche's greatest
(32:18):
allies and they can also be their greatest nemesis. And
I used to liaise with the Porsche Club. That was
part of my job as to hold hands to the
Porsche Club and we had issues. I had issues going
back to nineteen seventy when the nine fourteen came whether
or not that was a real Porsche and was that
(32:38):
going to be accepted by the Porsche files as a
real Porsche. And then when the Porsche nine twenty four
came out, we had the same you know, pushed back
by some people. But they had spent a lot of
time getting to know the nine to eleven, learning how
to drive it. They took pride in being able to
(33:00):
handle that car. I have a very interesting little piece
of paper that I keep right here, and it's a quote.
It says a Porsche owner is not necessarily a Porsche driver.
Think about it. Pia really made Porsche in this country.
(33:23):
I mean going back way before my time, back in
the in the fifties and sixties. They were the backbone,
if you will, of the Porsche enthusiast. Today, they are
still i'd say influential. I mean, Porsche really reaches out
to them making sure that they were on board with
(33:44):
new products. So are they are Porsche people on board
with the vehicle's Porsche is making now or are its
owners still fixated on the nine to eleven. Well, it's complicated.
The nine to eleven is still the white hot center
of the Porsche universe, with a staggering twenty four variants,
everything from the basic rear wild drive coupe to the
(34:06):
bewinged track gobbling GT three. But encircling the icon is
a vast array of vehicles that, at first glance seemed
just as offensive to the core nine eleven person as
the nine twenty eight was the mccan Mini suv, the
heavy hatchbacked Panamera Sedan, the Panamera Wagon, the Cayenne Suv,
(34:29):
the Tychon electric vehicle. Only the seven eighteen Boxer and
Cayman sports cars seemed to hew closely to the nine
to eleven in concept. The Cayenne started this Cambrian explosion
of models twenty five years after the nine twenty eight,
so let's use that as our example. The Cayenne was
the first five door, five passenger Porsche, a high riding
(34:52):
front engine, all wheel drive beast. It was heavy, but
it was faster and better to drive than the SUVs
of the day. There was some Porsche fire in it,
and it was hilariously overbuilt for the carpool lane, surprisingly
good on the racetrack, and very competent off row, truly
flexible in spirit, much like the original nine to eleven.
(35:13):
It referenced to nine to eleven shape in its headlights
and its hood, and it channeled a tiny hint of
the spirit of those special nine elevens, the nine five
threes and nine five nins that raced in such gruing
off road trials as the Peris Dakar Rally. To many,
it looked like complete heresy, a misunderstood nine twenty eight
by another name, But people bottom lots of them. Perhaps
(35:39):
because more people in two thousand and three had more
money and more access to money than ever it allowed
non traditional, a typical Porsche buyers to enter the fold.
Or perhaps because people wanted an suv so they could
see eye to eye with all the other SUVs on
the road, or perhaps because many of the Porsche faithful
wanted that suv to be a Porsche, not a BMW
(36:00):
or Mercedes Benz, and on and on. But here's what
I think. The real reason the nine twenty eight failed
where the Chayenne didn't is this nine eight was created
to kill the nine to eleven. The Chyenne came along
to exalt it, to make its essence more widely accessible
(36:21):
to take some of the Porsche vibe to the somnambulent
suv category, whereas the nine twenty eight was an existential
threat the Porsche of faithful. Those iconoclasts who wanted their
engine in the back and their rear end sliding resented
the nine twenty eight for its maturity, for its price,
and for its non portionists, whatever that meant at the time,
(36:45):
whereas these same people, no doubt tenderized a bit by
the nine twenty eight, embraced the Cayenne because it's celebrated
the nine to eleven. Honor your heroes, don't try to
replace them. You didn't think I forgot about Joel Goodson,
(37:11):
did you? His redemption came at the end of risky business.
Do you have something to tell me? No, I don't
think so. I just got off the telephone with Bill Rutherford.
Apparently you two had quite a meeting. Princeton can use
(37:35):
a guy like Joel. What Princeton can use a guy
like Joel? His exact words, it's unbelievable. You're as good
as in. Redemption is also coming slowly to the nine
twenty eight. Collectible prices are up, haters are down. And
(38:01):
if you look at most high end sports cars now,
they're much closer in spirit to the nine twenty eight
than the nine to eleven. Very refined and easy to
drive every day, capable of long cross continent stints. Grand
tours are the order of the day now. Aston Martin's
Mercedes SLS and even some Ferraris owe a debt to
(38:22):
the nine twenty eight. Hell, some even suggest that the
current nine to eleven is so grown up that it's
really now just a nine twenty eight with its engine
in the back. It's the hero's journey, the mono myth,
and I appreciate that, but I'm still an old nine
(38:44):
to eleven. Guy Welle is really special and it was
so ahead of its time that it's really where a
lot of sports cars went. And that's great, you know,
and it really did advance the species. But man, give
(39:05):
me one of these every day of the week. Car
Show is written and hosted by me Eddie Alterman. It's
produced by Sam Dingman, Jacob Smith and Amy Gaines. Our
editor is Jen Guera. Original music and mastering by Ben Taliday.
(39:30):
Our executive producer is Mia Loebell. Our show art was
designed by Sean Karney and Airbrushed by Greg with Fever.
Our patron saints are Lee, Tom Mallad and Justine Lane,
and thank you to Derek Burke for the abuse of
your Car. Car Show is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(39:51):
consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Pushkin. Hey Eddie here, before we get started, I wanted
you to know that you can listen to Car Show
ad free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You'll also
get access to detours, bonus episodes of Car Show, where
we go for extended drives, play outtakes, and more fine
(00:37):
Pushkin Plus on the Car Show page in Apple Podcasts,
or at pushkin dot Fm. Risky Business nineteen eighty three.
Tom Cruise is Joel Goodson. His dad has a Porsche
nine eight. A couple of boys in daddy's car. Joel's
(01:02):
just backed the silver coop out of the garage and
is rolling through town doing high school senior things. He's
the model kid. He's hoping to get into Princeton in
the fall. He has no idea how sideways it's all
about to go. Fast forward to the movie's second act.
Joel is sitting with his girlfriend Lana played by Rebecca
(01:24):
de Morney, on the hood of the Porsche overlooking the lake.
I'm okay. They are soon to start their own little
prostitution business. At the beginning of the scene, as Lana
grabs her purse out of the nine twenty eight, she
knocks the shift lever into neutral. When she gets up
from the hood of the car to leave Joel, he
(01:44):
takes off after her. Was something I said. The Porsche
starts rolling down the dock toward the lake got side.
Ye never has a car so perfectly embody the Hollywood storyline.
(02:05):
Forget the gradual, forget the fast, and the furious. Risky
business director Paul Brickman could have picked a better signifier
for Joe's predicament. This is a car that's all about
going in way too deep, getting a way out over
your skis. This is the story of the Portion nine
twenty eight, an elite car with tons of promise, but
(02:26):
one that, metaphorically speaking, fell right into the lake. I'm
Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show. In this episode
will examine how the nine twenty eight, this raging tour
to force of styling, engineering and performance, failed to speak
(02:46):
to the exact audience that should have loved it. But
Portion soon to ask why we put so much performance
in a luxury car, and lothers ask why we put
so much luxury in a performance car. You'd think that
in the eighties, a great and powerful continent cross for
(03:08):
like the nine eight would have been an easy cell
to Porsche's polo Cologne wearing sports car clientele. It was
not excellence is expected, So how did this perfect Porsche
become Porsche's pariah. The biggest issue with the nine twenty
(03:40):
eight may have been the pre existence of the Portione
nine to eleven. Porsche names its projects in running order.
You can tell which came first because of the model numbers.
The core model coupe started as the nine oh one,
but became the nine to eleven after complaints from Pouchet
the French. He said that Porsche can use the same
number zero number naming convention. The point is that the
(04:03):
nine twenty eight is a good dozen steps away from
the nine to eleven, a world away. It turns out,
while the nine to eleven has been scaling new heights
of performance and desirability over the past forty years, nine
twenty eight remained somewhat forgotten. People make fun of it.
It's been labeled an eighties car, a cocaine cowboy, not
(04:24):
the kind of Porsche Porsche people care about. But it
was a car Porsche itself had lavished extraordinary care on.
At the time, it wasn't veiled. It was the only Porsche,
not somehow based on a Volkswagen product. It was all new,
new VI eight engine, new suspension, new layout, Hence the problem.
(04:45):
Most people didn't really know what to make of the
nine twenty eighth when it came out in the late
seventies or for a long time after that. That confusion
curled into dismissal and eventually set for a while at
least an antipathy why the car was groundbreaking, It was beautiful,
and man was it fast? On it a nine twenty
(05:10):
eight because it's weird mostly and it's like kind of
like does doesn't he doesn't even like necessarily suit me
or my personality, but just like like a weird a
really weird car, really weird version of a portion of
you know. This is Derek Burke. He's a Detroit musician
(05:32):
and works in the film business. He co owns a
nine twenty eight with his brother. It's his car will
be abusing for this episode, and even he is conflicted
about it. It's like I always pictured like a Miami
Vice type person in one of these cars, you know,
like like a really eighties kind of like you know,
the person that that I'm not, but you hope to
(05:54):
be one. Yeah. Yeah, I struggle with my personality while
I'm driving it, you know, like you know, you get
out at the gas pump, like, you know, like you
have like identity problems. I feel like at least I do.
I'm like, I like, like am I like a yeah, yeah,
thank you? Yeah? Right? Like what what does it mean? Now?
(06:16):
Does me? Now that I'm driving just a car? You
kind of like it is an ostentatious German cud You
can you can pull it off? Yeah. Derek Burks nine
twenty eight is an original first year car from nineteen
seventy eight. Let's examine the thing that confronted customers as
they walked into Porsche's showrooms. So this is the nineteen
(06:38):
seventy eight first MABI year. So this is as pure
a reflection of the concept as you're gonna get the
first year as it came from the factory. And it's
an amazing shape. It's really really beautiful. Yeah, it's a
it's original point original paint. Yeah. Really from this angle,
(07:02):
it is so evocative of the nine to eleven um
just the roundness of it, the the placement of the
lights is sort of updated nine to eleven rear end.
You know, just kind of cat cast a couple decades
into the future. Um, you know, it's amazing to me
that it was so rejected by the Porsche cognischend It
(07:27):
kind of still is right because what they were going
for was really an evolution of the nine to eleven look.
You know, it didn't have a front grill, and the
idea was like, let's make it look like a Porsche.
Roundhead lights pop up in this case, so like an
evolution of the nine to eleven look, but smooth streamline hood,
(07:51):
a rounded back. You know, from what I understand, and
this might be apocryphal, Fairy Porsche, the guy in charge
at the time loved the AMC Pacer. That's the the
um the inspiration for the rear windows in the rear
(08:11):
hats from the Pacer. I heard that exactly. The Pacer,
if you don't remember, it was the car in Wayne's world.
It was also the car Serial Killers drove. Make of
that what you will. So you have one kind of
main glass panel in the back of the back light,
and then these two side windows on the side, and
(08:32):
that's like a kind of a laid down version of
the Pacer. Super super cool looking. And this was so
avant garde. This is so ahead of its time. I mean,
it still looks futuristic, looks futuristic. That's what's interesting about it.
It looks like nothing else, you know, And that's just
the exterior. The interior of the car. It looks like
(08:53):
it came straight out of the day of a system
the designers really swung for the outer reaches of the galaxy.
They put a radio fader nod by the driver's doorsill
and installed sun visors in the rear seat positions. And
there are a couple really interesting seat options in this car.
As I recall, there was the Pasha seed inserts, which
(09:13):
were a fabric kind of a lure insert but in
an op art pattern, so it looked like a rejected
Pink Floyd album cover kind of thing. Yeah, and super trippy, yeah,
but not not like um even you know, like really weird, yeah,
kind of stroving in and out. Yeah, Like it reminds
me of the pattern you see when you rub your eyes,
(09:35):
you know, right, it's real, real psychedelic. And it lent
to this sense that this car was like kind of
reverse engineered from alien spacecraft. You know, it was like
totally new and just landed like a meteor. When Porscha
created the nine twenty eight, they thought they were making
(09:56):
something akin to an evolution of the nine to eleven.
They thought they were bringing the ideas, an essence of
the company forward into the modern era. Porsche didn't realize
it was betraying the people who loved it most. It
wasn't the nine twenty eighth styling or interior that irked them.
It was the stuff under the skin that got so
well under their skin. Let's start at the beginning. Porscha
(10:24):
looms large in the hearts and minds of car enthusiasts,
but it's really the ultimate father and son operation. The father,
Ferdinand Porsche, designed the Volkswagen Beetle for Adolph Hitler. His
son Fairy, turned that Beetle into a sports car. This
became the first Porsche, the bathtub shaped three fifty six.
(10:46):
The three fifty six begat the nine to eleven. The
latter a bit bigger, a bit more solid, a bit
more refined than the three fifty six, but the fundamentals
were the same. Engine hung way out back behind the rearacle.
Really fun to drive, really hard to drive. Well. There's
(11:08):
a driving style in Porsche Land called shushing, where you
slide the car through a corner, ass out foot, heart
on the gas, a plume of tire smoke trailing behind you.
Essentially use the rear of the car to steer you
through a turn rather than the front. It's fun, it
looks crazy. It takes skill and nerve and an understanding
(11:28):
of physics, and it is the essence of driving a
rear engine portion. There's a glorious, like you know, animalistic
element to this thing. Here I am at the wheel
of a signal Red nineteen eighty five nine to eleven convertible.
It's counterintuitive. In a normal car, like a front engine,
(11:51):
front wheel drive car, a car starts to slide, you
take your feet off the gas, and everything kind of
corrects itself. In this car, you take your foot off
the gas, it'll spin, go into a corner way too hot,
lift off the throttle, and then all of a sudden,
no traction the back because instead of keeping the loads
(12:11):
on the rear wheels so they could have traction, you
unload the rear wheels. No traction anymore, and the thing spins.
So you know, it really did take balls of steel
to keep your foot in it. So to speak. I
own one of the early nine elevens, a nineteen seventy
one Coop. It's one of the lightest, most sensitive road
(12:35):
cars I've ever driven, and it rewards Driverley's skill. I
can't shush it every time in every corner. When I
get it right, it's like the heavens part and Jacob's
ladder descends. Oh my god, it's just a tear sports car.
(12:56):
They're cooled, making all kinds of weird noises. So unrefined
but super refined at the same time, sportscar drivers and
racers embraced the nine to eleven. When driven properly, it
was just incredibly fast and effective relative to its par
(13:17):
level and complexity. It hauled ass out of corners. Because
it carried a majority of its mass over its rear wheels,
it gave it a lot of traction under power. It
was light and always seemed to punch above its weight,
and so it kept evolving on the street and winning
on the track. This little odd ball was cementing itself
as the quintessential sporting machine with wins on grueling international
(13:41):
rallies like Monte Carlo. The nine eleven Turbo or nine
thirty came to the States in nineteen seventy six. It
was the nine to eleven in a superhero costume, a
fearsome and combustible mega coup with fat fenders and a
huge fluke for a tail. The turbo was even harder
to drive than the standard nine to eleven. Power delivery
(14:03):
was all or nothing, and it gained a reputation as
a dentist killer for the way it would spin off
the road at the slightest provocation, like when it's unexpecting
driver lifted off the throttle in a fast corner. It
earned the nickname the widow Maker. The nine eleven was
a car to respect. So if the nine O one
(14:25):
was the nine to eleven and the nine thirty was
the nine eleven Turbo, where does the nine twenty eight
fit in? The nine twenty eight had actually been on
Porsche's drawing board since nineteen seventy one, a mere seven
years after the launch of the nine to eleven and
before the nine thirty. Then the US was hit with
an oil embargo in nineteen seventy three. This is NBC
(14:48):
Nightly to use Wednesday, October seventeenth, Good Evening. The Middle
East War produced developments all over the world today, the
oil producing countries of the Arab world decided to use
their oil as a political weapon. They will reduce oil
production by the American automobile. For so long, the symbol
of America's wealth and extravagance is dying. New cars and
(15:10):
used cars stand like shining tombstones in the showrooms and
parking lots of the nation's car dealers, unloved, unwanted, and unsold.
All of a sudden, it did not seem prudent about
the future of the small family owned company on a
V eight powered sports car like the nine twenty eight,
it would have to wait. Maybe if there were no
(15:31):
gas crises and the nine twenty eight came out in
seventy four or seventy five, the nine to eleven wouldn't
have had the time to endear itself so completely to
the driving enthusiast. But by the nineteen seventy eight model year,
the nine twenty eighth first drivers had clasped the nine
to eleven tightly to their breasts. So why do the
nine twenty eight at all? Well, it was a poorly
(15:53):
kept secret that within the company itself, the nine eleven
had been marked for death for a couple of reasons.
The first was ambition. Doctor Ernst Furman was the successor
to Ferry Porsche as company chairman. He was an engineer
and an engine's signer. He thought the nine to eleven
was on its last legs. But there was also certainly
(16:13):
a part of him that had Mercedes envy. He wanted
to build a car to compete with the absolute pinnacle
of automaking, the guys who invented it all, Mercedes Benz
back in nineteen seventy one. He wanted to show the
world what a modern Porsche could be. Elegant, comfortable, sophisticated,
(16:34):
real competition for the big BMW and Mercedes Benz coops.
So that was one motivating factor. The other reason had
to do with this here that it's the signature worrying
(16:56):
and churing of the air cooled nine to eleven. Isn't
that a great sound? I mean, it is unmistakable. Nothing
else sounds like this, man, that is a wild animal sound,
(17:20):
or some day it sounds like nothing else, like it's
straining against itself on the verge of imploding, sort of
like how the rolling stones always sound like they're about
to fall apart, but never do it's part of what
keeps you engaged. You don't want to have the radio on.
You need to be able to listen to that engine.
(17:45):
But it's also not exactly modern sounding. The company fear
that it's noise would get regulated out of existence. In
the nine to eleven, all the noisemakers were in the back.
The intake manifold the chortling air cooled flat six engine
the flatulent exhaust system, So when the nine to eleven
drove by the automotive noise regulators microphones, it created a
(18:07):
big decibel spike at the of the car. Conventional cars,
with their engines up front and exhaust in the back,
spread that noise out across the length of the car
for less of a sonic whack. But noise wasn't the
only hurdle the nine to eleven was seen as ill
equipped to clear. There were also safety and emissions concerns.
(18:28):
Porsche figured that any replacement for the nine to eleven
would have to be future proofed against all this change,
and then a more conventional layout would be a better
basis for development. There were safety in numbers, A quiet,
liquid cooled engine in front like a more traditional sports
car with room for more mufflers and catalysts in the back,
(18:48):
better weight distribution front to rear thanks to a rear
mounted transmission, a thoroughly modern sports car, a showcase of
Porsche's engineering prowess. Perhaps most important both to the engineering
aspirations of Porsche and to nine twenty eighth rejection by
traditional Porsia owners was the newly designed rear axle. Seems
(19:12):
like a small change, but it had huge implications for
the car and for the argument I'm trying to make here.
It was known as the weissok axel. It stabilized the
rear of the car by towing in the rear wheels
like a pigeon, and within nine twenty eighth there was
far more balanced mass wise front to rear. That meant
no more easy shushing. Porsche engineers thought this was a
(19:35):
gigantic step forward, making the car far more stable in
all conditions and thus more drivable for a wider group
of people. But to the Porsche faithful it was a
fun killer. Our friend Derek Burke is not one of
the faithful, apparently. Yeah, people don't want to change what
they love. Yeah, because there is like they had built
up this skill and this proficiency in driving the nine
(19:57):
to eleven, and this thing was so easy to drive.
They're like, what's the point, right, the car doesn't push back?
You know the designer Raymond Loewy. Right, if you've seen
air Force one, the aircraft, not the Harrison Forn movie,
you know his work. Lowie was America's foremost industrial designer
and an age when design was just starting to matter.
(20:19):
He redesigned the coke bottle, He did the Lucky Strike
cigarette pack. He even designed studebakers. Lowie expressed his core
designed philosophy as the acronym MAYA m A y a
most advanced yet acceptable. The idea was that for a
new design to succeed, there needed to be something familiar
(20:41):
about it, something that linked it to the past. The
logo he drew for x On, for example, was built
off the cross. It looks like the cross of the
Knights Templar. Look at the two xes in it. Some
time we could do a whole episode on Raymond Loewie,
but I bring him up here briefly because in the
case of the nine twenty eight, his otherwise successful MAYA
(21:03):
philosophy didn't quite apply. You have to understand Porsche's value
is experimentation. Because it is so closely associated with one car,
the nine to eleven, many people think that it's a
risk averse operation. One visit to the company's museum in
the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, Germany will dispel that notion.
(21:28):
They are arrayed on the floors and pinned to the
walls like exotic butterflies. Is Porsche's riot of ideas. Four
door nine elevens, the nine seventeen racing cars with their
pressurized two frames and mechanical guts hanging out. Crazy concepts
such as the froggy and toy like Panamericana, green and
White German police nine elevens, the wild and the wacky abound.
(21:52):
In this context, the nine twenty eight seems gently progressive,
and to Porsche it was, even though it was the
first Porsche designed entirely from scratch, with aluminum bodywork and
an all NUVI eight. The company intended for it to
be Maya in the extreme, most advanced yet acceptable but
(22:12):
loyal Porsche buyers, the very targets for the nine twenty
eight saw a betrayal under the car's curves. It's just different.
It's smoother, it's so much more refined sounding. It doesn't
have that weird mechanical kind of coarseness that the nine
to eleven has. But you kind of love about the
nine to eleven. This is just yeah, it's like the
(22:35):
best German corvette that's ever been right. Yeah, it's like
a weird German muscle car. Yeah, totally. It feels like
it wants to go in a straight line really fast
and not really turn with the kind of precision like
when you're coming out of a corner here. It doesn't
have that kind of snapback, added Tode that the nine
to eleven is where a nine to eleven you come
(22:57):
out of a corner and it's like a great smallow skier.
The transitional behavior is like the thing writes itself immediately
and sets you up for the next turn. This car
is a lot lazier feeling. It's like, yeah, I'll get
to it when I get to it, right. I feel
like I could drive across the country in it, like
on the highway though that that like, I think that's
what it was for. Very different than the nine to eleven.
(23:20):
Everything is has like that that little layer of insulation.
It's much more of a luxury car, much more of
a GT. It feels much heavier in the hand. As
they say, it's a vastly different driving experience than the
nine to eleven. The nine to eleven is real, kind
of direct and percussive and like always on, whereas this thing,
(23:46):
it's like you can kind of drive it with a pinky,
you know, you know what the front wheels are always doing,
you know what the chassis's doing. It gives you a
lot of information. But it does have that kind of
creaminess that the nine to eleven doesn't have. But this
is more stable. This has killed fewer dentists. Well, the
(24:07):
dentists always come. I don't know, I don't know, but
there's something about the kind of people who are attracted
to nine to elevens technically minded, who work with their
hands at a very high level, you know, like a dentist,
like an architect. Tom Wolfe talks about that in From
bau House to Our House, that architects always wanted to
(24:29):
have the nine to eleven. The nine to eleven embodies
like a real philosophy of how to build a car,
and it's totally different than anything else. And I think
one of the reasons This wasn't as embraced is because
it was a more commodified vision. You know, it was
(24:50):
one that was built to conform to regulations and built
to conform to you know, the kind of style of
other cars. It seemed like a threat to a belief
system in a way. The faithful didn't want to see
Porsche turn into just another car company. They to understand
kind of the the weirdness of the American customer. The
(25:14):
American Porsche guy was buying that car out of a
kind of iconoclasm because he didn't want to be lumped
in with the Corvette guys or the Triumph guys of
the MG guys. The Porsche was different, and it said
something different about you. It said that you were maybe
(25:36):
a more skilled driver, or that you had some connection
to the racing heritage of the brand, and that you
were one of those hairy armed heroes of motorsport. But
just you know, your day job was a dentist. Nine
twenty job was to supplant the nine to eleven to
(25:58):
be so captivating and cool as to wipe it from memory.
It did not do that. It couldn't. The nine eleven
had a kind of destiny to persist after the break,
we'll hear about the governor's pardon that extended the nine
to eleven's life. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show.
(26:26):
In nineteen eighty one, the nine to eleven got a
miraculous green mile reprieve. Porsche brought in a new CEO,
a German American named Peter Schutz, whose parents fled the
Third Rife and settled in Chicago. Schutz was an engineer
and an industrialist. He had stints at Caterpillar and Cummins
Diesel under his belt. When he got to Porsche, the
(26:48):
nine eleven was just getting strapped into the electric chair.
He noticed how glum everyone at the company seemed more
than just the usual Teutonic stoic gloominess. Porsche's employees were
visibly upset that the company was going to cancel the
nine to eleven. So Shutz heads down to a meeting
with Porsche's chief engineer at the time, how Bot. Schutz
(27:11):
notices that Bot has one of those big charts on
his office wall, with the lifespans and development cycles of
all Porsche products stretching out into the future. The line
for the nine to eleven stops dead in nineteen eighty one.
So Schotz goes over to the chart, picks up a marker,
and extends the nine elevens line off the paper, onto
(27:31):
the wall and out the door of Bot's office. In
twenty thirteen, Shoultz wrote this for Road and Track. While
the nine to eleven could be temperamental at times, at
least it had character. That's what people loved most about it.
You had to remain vigilant with your inputs. But for
those who could, those of training with skill who could
(27:53):
catch it in a slide and bring it back into line,
the nine to eleven was king. It was the only
car worth driving because it was the only car that
would push back in its way. Eight only cemented the
nine eleven as the Porsche icon, but why? In many ways,
(28:15):
the nine twenty eight was the natural logical progression from
the nine to eleven, much more sophisticated, highly capable, and
easier to drive, building certify real competition for Mercedes, Benz
and BMW. It was future proofed yet familiar. No front
grill just like the nine eleven, arounded rump just like
(28:35):
the nine to eleven, and comfortable like the nine to
eleven On the face of it. The nine twenty eight,
hued closely to Lois maya maxim should have been a layup.
Many people blame the nine twenty eighth price of twenty
eight thousand, five hundred dollars or over one hundred and
twenty thousand dollars today for the chilly reception it received,
(28:55):
But the nine twenty eight was launched on the cusp
of the eighties to the me generation, to yuppies. That
audience was all about big ticket statements like the nine
twenty eight. And besides, sports cars are Vevlan items, status
and bols. The higher the price, the more highly they're prized. No,
it was something deeper about the relationship between Porsche coops
(29:17):
new and old. Back to that bright red eighty five
nine eleven I was driving earlier in the episode. This
is a lot more raw, and so you can see
how the person who is used to this car, you
know in the eighties, who loved the feeling of that
engine behind them, loved the sound of the engine behind them,
(29:37):
love the fact that they needed to know how to
drive it. You can see how they get in and
be like, if I wanted to Corvette, I'd buy a Corvette.
You know, there's no personality that car doesn't push back.
You know, it's too good. The nine eleven was so
appealing because it was such a handful. It was small,
(29:58):
it was noisy, and it would bite. It took skill
to drive well, and everyone knew it. You elicited respect
from other drivers. You are a local version of those
d dragon slayers who drove nine to elevens on racetracks
around the world. The superior handling and performance of the
nine twenty eight was a disadvantage in many Porsche file's eyes.
(30:21):
The nine twenty eight was Tana Ta NA two advanced,
not acceptable, too stable, too comfortable, too conformists. So it's
ironic that the nine twenty eight was the non conforming
model at Porsche for the entirety of its run. Even
if it sold decently for a while and ran for
a long eighteen years, nine twenty eight was always misunderstood
(30:46):
by drivers and by the media. It was mixed. It
was mixed. You know how the media sometimes can be,
you know, they look down on new things that no oh,
of course, every once in a a while. Tom McDonald was
the head of public relations for Audi, VW and Porsche
when the nine twenty eight was released in nineteen seventy eight.
(31:09):
He was there for the car's first media drive. It
was a mixed reaction because you had some media who
were biased towards racles rear engine cars. But I mean
the nine twenty eight was such a unique It wasn't
an evolutionary car. It was a revolutionary car. And they
(31:31):
had interesting characters around it. Again, a guy like Tony Lapine.
I think he someone asked him, why are the headlights
the pop up headlights? Why aren't they covered? And he says,
because we want to look up to the sky to God.
I mean, so it was always pedal to the metal
(31:53):
for a lot of the media guys, and it was
all about the numbers. Ken Porsche pull it off and
it's this the way that Porsche's gonna go forward now,
I tell you. There was also a little bit of
a pushback from the Porsche Club. Tom's talking about the PCA,
the Porsche Club of America. PCA members are Porsche's greatest
(32:18):
allies and they can also be their greatest nemesis. And
I used to liaise with the Porsche Club. That was
part of my job as to hold hands to the
Porsche Club and we had issues. I had issues going
back to nineteen seventy when the nine fourteen came whether
or not that was a real Porsche and was that
(32:38):
going to be accepted by the Porsche files as a
real Porsche. And then when the Porsche nine twenty four
came out, we had the same you know, pushed back
by some people. But they had spent a lot of
time getting to know the nine to eleven, learning how
to drive it. They took pride in being able to
(33:00):
handle that car. I have a very interesting little piece
of paper that I keep right here, and it's a quote.
It says a Porsche owner is not necessarily a Porsche driver.
Think about it. Pia really made Porsche in this country.
(33:23):
I mean going back way before my time, back in
the in the fifties and sixties. They were the backbone,
if you will, of the Porsche enthusiast. Today, they are
still i'd say influential. I mean, Porsche really reaches out
to them making sure that they were on board with
(33:44):
new products. So are they are Porsche people on board
with the vehicle's Porsche is making now or are its
owners still fixated on the nine to eleven. Well, it's complicated.
The nine to eleven is still the white hot center
of the Porsche universe, with a staggering twenty four variants,
everything from the basic rear wild drive coupe to the
(34:06):
bewinged track gobbling GT three. But encircling the icon is
a vast array of vehicles that, at first glance seemed
just as offensive to the core nine eleven person as
the nine twenty eight was the mccan Mini suv, the
heavy hatchbacked Panamera Sedan, the Panamera Wagon, the Cayenne Suv,
(34:29):
the Tychon electric vehicle. Only the seven eighteen Boxer and
Cayman sports cars seemed to hew closely to the nine
to eleven in concept. The Cayenne started this Cambrian explosion
of models twenty five years after the nine twenty eight,
so let's use that as our example. The Cayenne was
the first five door, five passenger Porsche, a high riding
(34:52):
front engine, all wheel drive beast. It was heavy, but
it was faster and better to drive than the SUVs
of the day. There was some Porsche fire in it,
and it was hilariously overbuilt for the carpool lane, surprisingly
good on the racetrack, and very competent off row, truly
flexible in spirit, much like the original nine to eleven.
(35:13):
It referenced to nine to eleven shape in its headlights
and its hood, and it channeled a tiny hint of
the spirit of those special nine elevens, the nine five
threes and nine five nins that raced in such gruing
off road trials as the Peris Dakar Rally. To many,
it looked like complete heresy, a misunderstood nine twenty eight
by another name, But people bottom lots of them. Perhaps
(35:39):
because more people in two thousand and three had more
money and more access to money than ever it allowed
non traditional, a typical Porsche buyers to enter the fold.
Or perhaps because people wanted an suv so they could
see eye to eye with all the other SUVs on
the road, or perhaps because many of the Porsche faithful
wanted that suv to be a Porsche, not a BMW
(36:00):
or Mercedes Benz, and on and on. But here's what
I think. The real reason the nine twenty eight failed
where the Chayenne didn't is this nine eight was created
to kill the nine to eleven. The Chyenne came along
to exalt it, to make its essence more widely accessible
(36:21):
to take some of the Porsche vibe to the somnambulent
suv category, whereas the nine twenty eight was an existential
threat the Porsche of faithful. Those iconoclasts who wanted their
engine in the back and their rear end sliding resented
the nine twenty eight for its maturity, for its price,
and for its non portionists, whatever that meant at the time,
(36:45):
whereas these same people, no doubt tenderized a bit by
the nine twenty eight, embraced the Cayenne because it's celebrated
the nine to eleven. Honor your heroes, don't try to
replace them. You didn't think I forgot about Joel Goodson,
(37:11):
did you? His redemption came at the end of risky business.
Do you have something to tell me? No, I don't
think so. I just got off the telephone with Bill Rutherford.
Apparently you two had quite a meeting. Princeton can use
(37:35):
a guy like Joel. What Princeton can use a guy
like Joel? His exact words, it's unbelievable. You're as good
as in. Redemption is also coming slowly to the nine
twenty eight. Collectible prices are up, haters are down. And
(38:01):
if you look at most high end sports cars now,
they're much closer in spirit to the nine twenty eight
than the nine to eleven. Very refined and easy to
drive every day, capable of long cross continent stints. Grand
tours are the order of the day now. Aston Martin's
Mercedes SLS and even some Ferraris owe a debt to
(38:22):
the nine twenty eight. Hell, some even suggest that the
current nine to eleven is so grown up that it's
really now just a nine twenty eight with its engine
in the back. It's the hero's journey, the mono myth,
and I appreciate that, but I'm still an old nine
(38:44):
to eleven. Guy Welle is really special and it was
so ahead of its time that it's really where a
lot of sports cars went. And that's great, you know,
and it really did advance the species. But man, give
(39:05):
me one of these every day of the week. Car
Show is written and hosted by me Eddie Alterman. It's
produced by Sam Dingman, Jacob Smith and Amy Gaines. Our
editor is Jen Guera. Original music and mastering by Ben Taliday.
(39:30):
Our executive producer is Mia Loebell. Our show art was
designed by Sean Karney and Airbrushed by Greg with Fever.
Our patron saints are Lee, Tom Mallad and Justine Lane,
and thank you to Derek Burke for the abuse of
your Car. Car Show is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
(39:51):
consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four
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