The Porsche 924 wasn't born a Porsche. It became one. | Revelations with Jason Cammisa | Ep. 09

no no no get that off there popular lore  says the porsche 924 isn't a porsche at   all and is instead a volkswagen with a porsche  badge on it popular laura is correct but popular   lore is also completely wrong because the  924 exemplifies what porsha does better than   anyone else take something that should  never work and make a world beater out of it back in the day german companies legal names  tended to include a description of what they did   porsche you'll note wasn't porsche cars inc it  was honorary doctor of engineering of porsche   construction and consulting services for engines  and vehicles llc porsche was an engineering   consulting company that occasionally built its  own cars that's a very important distinction   between them and a car company while porsche  consulted for many companies its biggest client   was volkswagen this was a vw consulting gig  named ea425 volkswagen hired porsha to develop   a sports coupe having not yet decided whether  it be marketed as a volkswagen or an audi   but one thing was for sure it needed to be  inexpensive so it needed to be a parts been   special and that meant engineering it out of parts  straight out of the volkswagen parts catalog like   this and that and this and that and that and this  and that and oh look at that yep that's also good   porsche settled on a front engine rear drive  layout it would use the newly updated two-liter   four-cylinder from the volkswagen lt cargo  van an audi engineered overhead cam version   of an old daimler engine from the 1960s and  because of audi's longitudinal layout porsche   could take the audi 100s four-speed manual  and bolt it right in the back so it did   bell housing and all the 924's front suspension  was half from the super beetle and half from a   rabbit its rear suspension was from the microbus  using half shafts from the thing and its brakes   were from the volkswagen k70 sedan which you've  never heard of but that means it had rear drums   even most of the interior was off the shelf vw  parts making the ea 425 cheap and easy to produce   except that right about when it was about to  start production vw found itself in the middle   of a post-beetle financial crisis with a new boss  and he said he needed a purpose-built sports coupe   like he needed a hole in the head what's wrong  with a hole in the head you already have seven of   them for its sports car vw would instead simply  make a low-roofed sexy body version of its new   rabbit slap a shiraco badge on it and call it a  day problem solved except that porsche had been   banking on using the ea 425 for itself volkswagen  paid for the whole thing so it retained ownership   of the whole project that left porsche without  a car so porsha struck a deal to buy it back   from volkswagen audi would build the thing at its  plant in nekkerson agreeing to supply up to 100   000 of the 2-liter engines and over time porsche  would reimburse 40 of the 50 million deutsche   marks volkswagen had spent on development porsche  did literally nothing to the ea425 but put its own   badges on it and invented the number 924 unlike  other porsche model names this had no meaning   it wasn't its internal code because it was never  a porsche product but while porsha was working on   the transaxle ea425 it was applying that knowledge  to its own transaxle car the v8 powered 928 924   seemed like a really good number for a  four-cylinder car that sat next to the v8 928   and so these two front engine water-cooled cars  would make a two-pronged replacement for the 911   which was the dumbest thing ever and this was a  really big deal because they abandoned everything   we knew about porsche prior to these cars porsche  had only ever made air-cooled mid and rear engine   cars and so car and driver called this front  engine heresy and then did a whole essay asking   whether porsha had lost the faith took him a  couple years to figure that out but the answer   was absolutely not the 924 immediately started  winning comparison tests its ace card was   balance the transaxle design helped with perfect  weight distribution and resulted in a high polar   moment of inertia the exact opposite of what  you see in mid-engine sports cars meaning when   the 924 started to get sideways it did so slowly  and progressively so not only was it perfectly   balanced but it was easy to manage at its limit  the handling accolades are all the more stupendous   considering where its suspension came from it  has torsion bars at the back for crying out loud   but there was a limitation the primitive  suspension gave it quote about the worst freeway   ride of any car rodent track had ever tested part  of that had to do with the power train see the   engine the torque tube and the transaxle were all  mounted to each other as one rigid assembly and   the natural frequency of that assembly matched  the frequency of expansion joints on american   highways at american highway speeds which meant  that the whole powertrain started to do this   and then so did you that's disturbing right and  so therefore porsha had no choice but to go fix it   in response to criticism porsche promised that  the 924 would develop like a real porsche what   they meant was that they were about to set  sail on an ocd fueled 20-year mission to fix   literally everything quote-unquote wrong with the  924 it's this kiss that turned the 924 from a toad   into a prince in a way that only porsha could ever  do first order of business were small things like   fixing the ride giving it four-wheel disc brakes  and swapping in the five-speed manual that it   should have had from the get-go and then came the  big problem that 95-horsepower audi 2-liter from a   volkswagen cargo van the interim solution was to  turbo charge and man did the 924 turbo stop all   the complaints but there was a much bigger problem  looming the contract with volkswagen specified   up to a hundred thousand audi engines and the 924  was about to hit that mark porsche needed a new   engine porsche's engineers thought about chopping  two cylinders off the 928's new v8 resulting in a   three and a half liter v6 to test the theory they  crammed in an all-aluminum pujo renault volvo v6   and said nine they also tried an audi 5-cylinder  but decided against it too once again the problem   was the transaxle layout look the 924 has a  drive shaft that's 67 inches long but only three   quarters of an inch thick and it's spinning  at full engine speed the engine's vibration   characteristics need to be perfectly matched to  such a long thin shaft to avoid it looking like   this in the end porsche decided a four-cylinder  was still the best option and they could make one   by chopping the 928's 5-liter v8 in half though  in typical porsche style they just couldn't stop   engineering and wound up developing a two and  a half liter four-cylinder that didn't share   a single part with the 5-liter v8 that it was  half of to keep that enormous 4 cylinder smooth   it needed balance shafts and that meant porsche  had to pay royalties to the owner of the patent   of the balance shaft and that was mitsubishi you  can be absolutely certain that drove porsha crazy   to have to pay mitsubishi for something because  let's be honest the germans looked down on the   japanese but japanese engineering works and that  was a very smooth engine and not just for four   cylinder it drew comparisons to sixes and eights  and it certainly made the power enough to drop   the 924 zero to 60 from 10 seconds down to seven  and a half which was just as fast as the 924 turbo   with a real porsche engine finally powering the  924 porsche wanted to make a splash and decided   to make a widebody 924 to debut it that became  the porsche 944 new name but it wasn't a new car   944 was just a facelifted 924 with the new engine  and box flared fenders to fit a much wider track   but the 944 set the world on fire it was  gorgeous sold out wait listed and it still   had beetle suspension praise was heaped on  the 944 the likes of which you wouldn't even   believe and then it won car drivers award  for the best handling car in the world   now that porsche was done developing the new  engine it finally had the resources to address   the interior the 1985 and a half 944 finally  got its own real porsche interior but because   of a weakening deutschmark the 944 was  getting more expensive by the second   to help that porsche threw its new two and a half  liter into the old narrowbody 924 and kept selling   it as the 924s that was this car and if you think  the 924s is somehow less than think again it was   only three tenths of a second behind the 944  around willow springs according to rodent track   and it was just as quick in a straight line except  at higher speeds where it was quicker thanks   to its narrower body the 924s had a top speed  seven miles an hour greater than the 940 force   and if you know porsche you know that porsche  never stopped developing it the two and a half   liter eight valve got a turbo making the 157 mile  an hour 944 turbo the fastest car sold in america   then the 944 got a 16 valve head and then a  displacement bump to 2.7 liters and then another   to three liters and then a whole new body again  the 968 which was another name chosen at random   was another facelift on that same old body it  actually almost got a bmw m50 straight six or   indeed a different straight six that porsche was  developing for volvo on a different consulting gig   but in the end once again porsche's engineers  decided a four cylinder was the only way to go   so they took the three liter 16 valve  and gave it variable valve timing now   it made 236 horsepower which is two and a  half times the power of the original 924   that was enough to get it to 60 in 5.6 seconds  which is still quick today unlike the 924 and 944   the 968 was glued to the showroom floor a couple  of makeovers couldn't disguise that it was a 20   year old car that wasn't the only problem  by now the dollar was at record strength   relative to the deutsche mark and so while the  924 was not cheap and the 944 was a lot of money   the 968 was criminally expensive when at  its age it should have been getting cheaper   it was killed after four unprofitable years  and that was the right choice because it freed   up money and resources to develop the new water  cooled 986 and 996 and besides the four-cylinder   transaxle cars had already done their job they  made enough money to keep the lights on in vaisakh   without the 924 and the 944 there would be no  911 today because there would be no porsche   we all use the 911's continual refinement as  the prime example of porsche never giving up   on an idea after all the 911 took the  beatles general powertrain concept and   evolved it into the best sports car of all time  the same thing happened here porsche mixed and   matched a bunch of cheap old volkswagen  parts on a consulting gig inherited it and   then whittled away at all of its flaws until it  became one of the best sports cars of all time okay so you're just gonna keep the  ferrari framed out the entire time right   yep okay action i'm not some rich youtuber  asking you to like and subscribe hey up up   up up up up up up up up up up up keep the  ferrari out i'm an automotive journalist   asking you to like and subscribe and  that's because that's how youtube works   if you don't click those buttons youtube doesn't  know you liked what you've just seen and isn't   going to show you any more of it and if you don't  like what you've just seen well join the club   and by that i mean the hagerty drivers club which  gets you access to this award-winning magazine   as well as discounts on amazing stuff and if if  you still don't like what you've seen well then   just leave a nasty comment because that's how  the internet works i need to go clean that up

Channel: Hagerty

Views: 1,317,988

Keywords: Hagerty, Classic Car, Classic Cars, Hagerty Drivers Club, enthusiast car, collector cars, transaxle, transaxle porsche, 944, porsche 944, porsche 924S, porsche 924, porsche 968, 924/944/968, EA425, VW EA425, Audi 100, Super Beetle, VW Bus, VW Thing, Suspension, Best Handling Car in the World, Torque Tube, Torsional Vibration, Polar Moment of Inertia, Porsche 914, VW Corrado, Scirocco, Camissa, Discount Sandler, Dollar Store Ryan Reynolds, Motor Trned, Motor Trend

Id: 6qLwd44C4iU

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DLAV8R]

I absolutely love Cammisa’s and Hagertys content! Killing it! Keep it coming

[u/TheChickenScampi]

God bless Cammisa!

[u/nycmonkey]

If Cammisa makes, then I partakes.

[u/HusKimbo]

When i was a kid my elderly neighbor had one of these in his garage next door. Always had junk on top of it with a tarp on it . One day years later i come outside and he has it running out in the driveway, he said he changed the fuel pump and it ran again. The next day i go over and its back in the garage with a tarp and junk on it again. I ask him what happened.

He said when he went to change the fuel pump and he dropped the gas tank to get the old fuel out,after realizing he didnt have any fuel in the tank after he installed the pump he put the old fuel in and ruined the new fuel pump

I never saw it move since

[u/BurgerOfLove]

They used to not be allowed in Porsche clubs.

[u/madevilfish]

This video was super cool and really made me love my 928 all the more.

[u/jonathanrdt]

Porsche's front-engine cars were all way ahead of their time, and if they had made them look more like traditional Porsches, they'd have sold far better.

[u/JimmyMakMedia]

I love Jason as a host, comedic but still gets the point across.

[u/opposite_locksmith]

Lol, so random - I just impulse bought a 1977 924 for $2,000 yesterday...