(calm music)
♪ Porsche. ♪ - Oh, yeah man, I love classic Porsches. ♪ Porsche. ♪
Those liquid cooled V8s in the front, automatic
transmissions, rear sun visors. ♪ Rear sun visors ♪ ♪ What ♪ All 219 hrsprs. ♪ That's a lot of hrsprs. ♪ You know, classic Porsche stuff. When you think of Porsche's
you probably think of this, the legendary 911. For 57 years, this epic automobile has not only defined the Porsche brand but what a sports car is and should be. So, it might surprise you
to learn that in the 70s, they almost stopped making the 911 because they thought it was
as good as it was gonna get. - You make me wanna be a better man. - And you might be even more surprised to learn that the car that they
planned on replacing it with was this front-engine cruiser, more at home on the highways of America than the corners of the Nürburgring. Well, today we're gonna tell
the story of the absurd Porsche that almost tanked the entire company. The reason behind its development and how, although it was
initially a sales flop, Germany's Corvette went on
to define an entire decade and influence Porsche's future forever. We're also gonna talk to a guy who owns a few Porsches of his own. - This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on the Porsche 928. (upbeat music) - A big thanks to carparts.com
for sponsoring today's video. I am so excited to finally
be back at a NASCAR race. Now my cousin, Clumsy Carl,
really wanted to come, but he couldn't make it because
his car is always broken because he never takes my advice. - Come on, come on, please start. Michael's counting on me. - And boy is he gonna be double bummed when he learns that his favorite
driver, Michael McDowell, is in this ad with me. - Sorry to hear about
your car, Clumsy Carl. (dramatic music) - I've gotta make it,
no matter what it takes. - Carparts.com is your one-stop shop for all collision,
maintenance and repair parts. Now, who said you have
to sacrifice quality for reasonable prices? - They provide a quick and
smart way to find what you want, whenever you want, no
matter what you drive. - Even bumpers.
- Yeah, even bumpers. (both laugh) Bumpers. - Bumpers. So, whether you need
new brakes, headlights or even a new bumper, carparts.com will get
your vehicle looking good and running like new, no
matter what you drive. - Well. - Okay, technically not
the car that you drive. - Right.
- So, head on over to carparts.com today or just click the link in the description and now, off to the races. - What do you think, you think
Clumsy Carl will make it? - Oh no, I do not, not at all. - I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it, I'm going to make it, I'm going to make, I'm gonna make it. - By the early 70s, Porsche
had secured their place as producers of some of
the finest sports coupes ever to grace this fat green earth. Starting with the 356 and
continuing with the car that single-handedly defined
the brand for decades to come, the 911. Throughout the 60s, this
rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive coupe became the benchmark for
sporty European drivers cars. The air-cooled pancake six produced between 130 and 109 buff horses, which, for car that weighed
just a bit over 2000 pounds, meant that it was fun to hawk around but also really, really scary at times. The combination of short wheelbase and ample power centered
over the rear-wheels meant that the 911 took
a lot of skill to drive at the limit. I'm talking about a little
thing called oversteer. - So, a lot of people get into a 911, first-time drivers, the
front is really, really light and the rear tends to always sort of move. So, at a certain speed, you know, the cars do become twitchy. And you know, a lot of these
cars sort of, you know, run off the road backwards. - Now, despite all of its pitfalls, the 911 was iconic and became inseparable from its badge daddy. With this car, Porsche
etched out a deep groove in the market and found
a really loyal fan base that just gobbled up any
911 that they threw at 'em. But sometimes, no matter how good you are at YouTube or whatever, your
parents don't notice, dad. By the time the disco
decade rolled around, 911 sales were drying up quicker than my wenises in the winter with only minor changes done
to the size of the engine and a few other upgrades,
managing director of Porsche, AG Ernst Fuhrmann, who is an awesome guy. We found so many sick quotes by this dude. Ernst Fuhrmann was worried that the car was about as
good as it was gonna get, which is insane to think about. - I mean, that's the crazy
thing, you said it right there. At the time engineers thought the 911 had reached its pinnacle
within let's call it, you know, 12 years of production. But as we know, 57 years
later of continued production, the 911 is faster than
it's ever, ever been. - In Fuhrmann's mind that
911 was dying a slow death. It was expensive and
labor-intensive to build. With sales drying up, the
only means for survival for the company was to find a replacement and to find one quickly. Porsche specifically wanted to
sell more cars than the U.S. Their new 914 would cover the entry-level four-cylinder sector but
Porsche still needed a halo car to showcase the cream of what
the good stallion could offer. You know, that luscious,
silky thick horse cream. (James imitates music) Pumphrey's horse cream, only
available at donutmedia.com. Ferdinand Porsche Junior,
Ferry, if you're nasty, was looking to incorporate
a luxury grand touring car into the lineup to compete with brands like Mercedes and BMW. They already had a leg up on Porsche with cars like the first gen five series and the W116. They were both outselling
Porsche in the states, which like I said before
was Porsche's target market. So, the company decided
that for them to survive in the 80s and beyond,
they needed to design a luxury grand touring car
with a front-engine layout that allowed them enough room
to fit a catalytic converter, for any other luxury car
manufacturer at the time this would not be a big deal. Front-engine rear-wheel-drive, oh yeah, I think we can do that. (laughs) You mean doing what we always do? Oh yeah, I think we can do that. (both laugh) Oh yeah, one beer sounds nice. But for a company that gained notoriety by producing small
rear-engine baby rocket boys, this was risky business. (piano music) Despite the inherent risk of
doing something off-brand, Ferry Porsche ordered the design of this new luxury grand tour in 1971 and with its debut, Porsche
finally planned to say goodbye to the outdated 911. Not only would this car be different, it would be the first Porsche made that would be designed from the ground up. Every other car that they had done so far was derived from an
already existing model. The 356 came from the Volkswagen Beetle. The 911 came from the 356, the 914 was designed
with VW as a replacement for Karmann Ghia. So, literally when people say that 911s are just six-cylinder Beetles or call them like Uber Beetles, they're not just being a troll, that's literally how the car started. Now with nothing holding 'em back, they could do whatever they wanted as far as powertrain choices,
design and new technology, without having to worry about fitting in to any existing framework and the choices that they ended up making
for the 928 were interesting. Some were brilliant and some
were just like, (drum roll) what? There was a lot of
internal debate at Porsche as what should power this new GT car. The engineers went out in
the end as they always do. Jeremiah gets the front seat every time. And so, they decided to use their choice, an aluminum five-liter V8,
making 302 sweet, creamy hrsprs. This new you liquid cooled V8
dubbed the M28 was different from the air-cooled flat
sixes Porsche was known for. So, a lot of time was
spent making it reliable. Engineers decided to
make the bore spacing, aka the space between the
cylinders extra thick. - Extra thick. - This extra space between
cylinders on the M28 prevented the engine
block from overheating but it did decrease the
displacement from five liters to 4.5, not a huge deal in
the grand scheme of things but it did reduce overall
horsepower from 302 to 240 . Sounds like my bench max. Which I wanna point out
is still pretty good for like the gas crisis era. Now a traditional mid-mounted transmission would've thrown off
the balance of the 928. So, engineers opted for a
transactional on the rear to help it achieve a perfect
50-50 weight distribution. Most 911s were manual, aside from a few sportomanic equipped models. So, Porsche chose a
three-speed Mercedes-sourced automatic transmission for the 928, which would later get
upgraded to a four-speed. It did come with the option of
a five-speed dog-leg manual, but more than 80% of all 928s
ever sold were automatic. As we said before, one of the
biggest problems Porsche faced with the 911 was oversteer. So, Porsche was like, (chuckles), we'll have no more that. They lengthened the wheelbase
from 87 to 98 inches, put independent suspension
on all four corners and develop what they
called the Weissach Axle, named after the small
town outside of Stuttgart that Porsche R and D calls home. Now all this Weissach Axle stuff is a little above my pay
grade, if I'm being honest. So, I'm gonna let Jeremiah explain it. (upbeat music) - Thank you James. Basically, with a set up like the 911, when the car decelerates,
the rear trailing arm pivots towards the rear
relative to the chassis and that results in the
wheels going toe-out. Now, this can destabilize the rear-end and send it spinning out,
which is what 911s of that era were known for. The Weissach Axle has a metal linkage. When the car decelerates,
the link forces the wheels to go toe-in instead of toe-out, which takes care of our
little oversteer problem. It's what's considered a
passive steering system and it really helps the
car maintain stability through the most intense part of a turn by giving it a super high
level of lateral grip and improved stability. - Thanks Jer, now back to me. (upbeat music) Thanks me. Now that it's bones and
heart we're taken care of, it was finally time to
focus on beautiful skin. The body of the 928 was
designed by Wolfgang Mobius, which sounds like a
symphony under the tutelage of Anatole Tony Lapine, who also designed the Corvette Stingray in the 1960s. If you look at these
two cars side by side, it's no wonder why the
928 got the nickname, Germany's Corvette. Now it took some time for the design team to convince the board at Porsche to go with this body design, the board thought that
they were going gorillas. It was wildly different than
anything they'd ever done. But the designers insisted
that this look was provocative and it'll get people going and eventually they convinced
everyone in the room that it was a very good idea. The era of the wedge car was in full swing by the mid-seventies and the
design of the 928 fit perfectly with the trend. The aluminum over steel body construction, which was novel for the
time, allowed for these long, swoopy lines. The polyurethane bumpers
were integrated into the body to achieve a sleek aerodynamic look. Nowadays, tons of cars
have this style bumper, but back when it came
out, it was super unique, it was so futuristic at the time that it doesn't even look dated even today but the pièce de résistance
of the Porsche 928 and probably my favorite part of this car were the pop-up up and down headlights. ♪ Pop, pop, pop ♪ When they're down, the lights
are visible, pointing up, which helps the 928 maintain
that classic Porsche front end, also looks like you're fricking sharp, which is the third coolest animal. And when they pop up, oh boy, suddenly the 928 is transformed
into the sickest snail you've ever seen. Sorry, Gary, SpongeBob's dead. - Meow. - And we gotta use his body
to clean this (indistinct) 28. (upbeat music) Porsche knew the risk that
they were taking with this car, but they were too far along
to just pull the plug. Six years of research and
development led to this moment. Would people accept the 928
as a replacement for the 911 or would it completely tank the company? Find out right now. The 928 debuted at the
1977 Geneva Motor Show, exactly 41 years before I
debuted at the Geneva Motor Show. People took notice of me strolling around in my fancy turtleneck. A similar thing could be said for the 928. Crowds flocked to the Porsche exhibit to gawk at the new
front engine V8 Porsche. Car enthusiasts marveled
at the sleek design. The shark-like bumpers, the
plush yet wild interior. BMW and Mercedes could only
look on as Porsche was winning over all of their customers. They are marveling at it. (sighs) I mean, can you blame them? It's marvelous. Yeah, one beer sounds good. Speaking of interior, the
928 had its fair share of what Doug DeMuro would call. - This. - This (beeps) is (beeps) brazy dog. First off, the interior gauge
cluster and the steering wheel moved as a single unit
when the wheel was adjusted to make sure that all of
the gauges could be read, despite where it was adjusted. And because it was the seventies, the seats came in a
variety of groovy swatches, including the mesmerizing
Checkerboard Pasha, tartan, even pinstripes and paisleys. But one of the weirdest things in the 928 has to be it's rear sun visors. They're like no sun visor
that you've ever seen. - The rear sun visors are nuts. If you manage to squeeze in
the back, like I was saying, this is a lot of glass,
a lot of greenhouse. So, these rear sunrises, you know, I guess they come in handy. It's a real quirky design to it. This is almost right in your
face when you look at it. - But for all the new stuff
in the 928's interior, it was the new center console design that was actually the most
super high tech for the time. Don't take it from me. - Now there's that center
console that I was talking about. There's nothing like that in
a Porsche that came before but you look at that, every Porsche today seems to have a similar inspired center console transmission tunnel. The center console that's in the 928, you know it's integrated,
that is in every 911 today. Everything from the Panamera to the Macan to obviously, you know, the Cayenne, it has that same center console. - Like Magnus said,
this was the first time that Porsche had an
integrated center console. The move made sense for a
grand tour and it was a hit. I mean, your arm's gotta go somewhere/ Technology. Overall people loved
the 928 when it debuted. It even won the European Car of the Year, not sports car of the year,
car of the year in 1978. That's the first year that
a sports car won that title, beating out the BMW seven
series and the Ford Granada. ♪ Ford Granada ♪ One of the things that
made the 928 so good was that 50-50 weight distribution
that I mentioned earlier. Porsche developed this car to
compete with BMW and Mercedes but the 928 actually handled better than anything in their own lineup. In terms where the 911
would've been hard to control, the 928 stayed super planted. The powerful V8 could blast
through apexes no problem, without getting fishy. (car engine roaring) The only thing that was
really holding this car back was the price tag at $26,000,
which is about $103,000 today, it wasn't cheap. Its base price was higher
than the top end 911 but it was half the price of the car it was competing against,
the Mercedes S-Class, which sold for an insane
$50,000 by the end of the 70s. That's $200,000 now,
which is like depressing and just proves that
money is stupid and fake. The 928 didn't quite sell as
well as Porsche had wanted but the hype alone surrounding
this car was enough for them to keep producing it and
Porsche had a little help from a little town called Hollywood. By the early 80s, Porsche
was selling small numbers of the 928, mostly to rich
playboys, rich athletes and other rich celebrities. So it was pretty natural, when the 928 started showing
up in TV shows and movies like "Scarface" and "Weird Science". Also, Bruce Wayne drives one in Frank Miller's Batman:
Year One comic book. The one movie where this
car was basically the star was the 1983, Tom cruise
classic, "Risky Business". (upbeat music) Now this movie centers around a teenager who escorts prostitutes around in his parents' gold Porsche 928, culminating in the car rolling
off a dock into the water. Oh come on, spoiler alert. The movie's 37 years old. Oh, so about like half as old as you. What?
Spoiler alert. What? (chuckles) Speaking of spoilers, the look of the 928 continued to evolve over
the course of its life and even though this car
was essentially designed for the U.S. market, Europe obviously got all
the cool versions first while we were just sitting here twiddling our red, white and blue thumbs. One of the first updates to the 928 was a front and rear spoiler
as well as wider tires for the 1980 model. The little black ducktail
broke up the bulbous rear-end and gave the car a sportier look. The 928 S, as it was called,
got a bigger 4.7-liter V8, which now made 300 hrsprs. The 928 S finally made its
way across the Atlantic to America in 1984, with
a bunch of cool upgrades like Bosch anti-lock brakes, an extra gear for the
automatic, a shorter shifter and a new five-liter 32 valve V8 albeit with power reduced
to 228 horsepower. But the new engine was
definitely an upgrade and paired with the new transmission, the 928 now had a top speed
of over 155 miles per hour. Do Germans make meatballs? Because if they do, this
is a spicy German meatball. Also in 1984, Porsche
made a special one-off to celebrate the 75th
birthday of Ferry Porsche, called the 942. It had a longer wheel
base and a different roof. There was actually a second one made for the president of the
American Sunroof Corporation who helped make the 944 cabriolets. That's a nice gift, they
must've been homies. 1987 saw the arrival of the 928 S4. Americans finally got this hot version with new choice upgrades,
like a sick-ass spoiler, new bumpers, beefier
internals, including new cam, new heads, which upped the
power all the way to 316, finally! Finally, 316 hrsprs. Enthusiasts still had the
manual option with GT package. Now a year before this S4
made it's debut in the states, a group of engineers from
Porsche took one of 'em to the Bonneville Salt Flats. The director of Porsche
Motorsport North America and IMSA champion, Al Holbert
would be behind the wheel as they attempted to break the record for fastest land speed in a stock naturally
aspirated production car. After only a few attempts,
they did just that. The five-speed 928 S4 made
it to 171.9 miles per hour with ease. The car is very stable, I
should've turned the radio on because it's so quiet, there's no noise. Pretty nifty. - Later the S4 would clock an
unofficial 180 miles per hour for a car that had been
out for a full decade, it's clear that this thing
was only getting better as time went on, like a fine
three-liter of aged Faygo. But the success of the 928
was not a good barometer for how badly things
were going at Porsche, despite all the amazing cars
they produced during this time, the early 80s were not kind to the company and they continued to struggle to keep their head above water. (water bubbling) In 1981, Porsche posted a
profit of $4.5 million total. Which is around $15 million today. For a car company that's really bad. Like that's barely enough
to keep the lights on. Like literally, their light bill is probably like $15 million. That same year, Peter Schutz
replaced Ernst Fuhrmann and decided that the 928 and
911 should exist side-by-side and that Porsche should
continue to manufacture the 911 instead of killing off, probably
a very, very good decision. The 928 and the 911 were
two totally different classes of cars and we all know
how well the 911 has evolved since the 80s. Imagine a world where
Porsche didn't make the 911. (people screaming)
(thunder rumbling) As the 928 kept chugging into
its third decade of existence, it hadn't even reached its final form. The 928 GTS debuted in 1993 with a bored out 5.4-liter 32 valve V8 making an impressive 345 hrsprs. They sent just over 400
of these to the states, which makes them one of
the most sought after 928s out there and just two
years later in 1995, they exed the car altogether ending an impressive 18
year one generation run. The reason, well, it could've
been because the 928 GTS costs over $100,000, three times the price of
a Corvette at the time but more likely is that
it was just too expensive to keep producing such an old model. Plus Porsche needed to
focus all their energy on the newest generation 911, the 993 and they were already
developing the Boxster. The 928 was definitely the black sheep of the Porsche family for a while. It wasn't conventional in any sense and it seemed to defy
everything the company stood for but it proved that Porsche
engineering wasn't confined to any one engine layout,
any one drivetrain, any one body type. We won't see a new 928 anytime soon but it's DNA obviously
lives on in every Porsche built since then. The Weissach Axle, which
can be found in the GT 3RS and basically every modern Porsche. I mean, look at a Panamera, it's a fricking fourth over 928 and of course that center console which can be found in
every Porsche, nowadays. It's easy to write this
car off as a failure but over the course of its production run, Porsche sold over 60,000 of 'em, which is a lot for a boutique car company. And that means that this is one Porsche you can still find for pretty cheap but the price has been going up recently because people are making videos about 'em and Magnus Walker bought some. And speaking of Magnus, I
wanna extend a huge thank you from me and the rest of
the team, without his help this video wouldn't be
anywhere near what it was. A super nice guy, amazing,
amazing enthusiastic. If you wanna see his
amazing Porsche collection, check out his Instagram @magnuswalker. Follow me on Instagram and
Twitter @jamespumphrey, follow donut on everything @donutmedia. If you wanna buy a shirt
or some horse cream, go to donutmedia.com. Horse cream isn't a real product yet, but if you guys want us
to make some horse cream, while we were just shooting this, I came up with some ideas
of what that could be. So, hit us up in the comments. That's how buff horses happened. Just let us know you want horse
cream, you want horse cream, we want horse cream. We want horse cream, #wewanthorsecream. (James laughs) #wewanthorsecream and we will make horse cream. All right, thank you. It's good to be back, I love you. (dramatic orchestral music)
The editing is great, must have taken hours. He even makes a cameo at 8:26
I would love to see Pumphrey show up in a GTAV video lol
Ryan is a fucking treasure.