The My Classic Car series for #wheelswednesday continues today with a look at my 1977 Porsche 924. According to Wikipedia, a classic car is typically described as an automobile that’s 25 years or older, so at 48 years old my former 924 meets that criteria. The Classic Car Club of America maintain lists of cars described as “distinctive” automobiles produced between 1915 and 1948…
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
In the beginning I looked around and, not finding the automobile of my dreams, decided to build it myself.—Ferdinand Porsche
The story behind the acquisition of my Porsche 924 is a sad and twisted one. It starts during a time when, unlike now, I had money to actually afford a car. Before moving to Colorado in 1981, I had previously owned two Porsche automobiles. My first one was a brand-new 1971 Porsche 914. Look for a post about it in an upcoming My Classic Cars post.
In 1971, my brand-spanking new Irish Green Porsche 914 cost $3,695, which is equivalent to $28,619 in today’s money. Try buying any new Porsche for even close to that amount today. According to an Internet search, the least expensive new Porsche you can buy today is the 2025 Macan, which starts at $62,900. My mechanic told me that the “Macan is the Toyota of Porsches” and I would love to own one. But the least expensive Macan I could find in the Denver area was $72,995. When it was new, a 1977 Porsche 924 cost $9,395 or $$48,632 in today’s inflated dollars. See the price of a new Macan for comparison.
How it all began: I was shopping for a Porsche 914 that was, at least, in driveable condition and Mary and my search went similar to the one we had for her 1991 Miata. In other words, we kissed a lot of frogs and, for some reason, ended up with this 924. (You can read about how her Miata search went here and she ended up with a pretty good car.) First the good news. This was a European model that was originally purchased before the 25-year rule Mercedes-Benz USA lobbied the hell out of Congress to pass. The car had more horsepower than the US version and had a different front end and bumper with built-in driving lights. To pass the US 5mph bumper laws, Porsche resigned the car’s front end but ended up solving the problem by raising the front end, giving the car a lopsided look. My Europe model looked better, was faster and was level.
How I Made this Photograph: I shot this image of my European model Porsche 924 at the Adams County Historical Museum using a Canon Elan 7E and EF 50mm f/1.8 lens on Kodak color negative film; the exposure and film type were not recorded. It was digitized (poorly) on Kodak Photo CD.
Now the bad…One of the biggest problems I had with this car was there were few independent Porsche mechanics at the time in the Denver area that had experiences with these new water-cooled Porsches and the car was constantly breaking down and typically at the worst possible times. To tell you the truth, at one point, it had me in tears. I poured lots pf money into training these air-cooled mechanics how to work on water cooled Porsches. I finally gave up and traded it in for a Jaguar XJ-6, which is, of course, a whole other story. Of course, the reason I ending up buying the 924 instead of the 914 that I went looking for was due to being urged to do so by a woman. I won’t name any names.
The Porsche 924
The Porsche 924 was a sports car produced by Porsche in Neckarsulm, Germany, from 1976 until 1988. Originally envisioned as a joint Porsche-Audi collaboration, Audi dropped out but not before sticking the car with an Audi van engine. The 924 replaced the 912E in Porsche’s line-up, which was a one-year model—now highly desirable—that replaced the 914 as the company’s entry-level model.
Although the V-8 powered Porsche 928 was designed first, the 924 was the first production road-going Porsche to use water cooling and a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. The car made its public debut in November 1975 and a turbocharged version was introduced in 1978. In response to increasing competition, Porsche replaced the 924 in the US in 1983 with the upgraded 944 that had a new Porsche-built engine. In 1985, Audi discontinued the engine that was used in the 924, prompting Porsche to drop a detuned 944 engine into the 924, renaming the vehicle as the 924S. The 924 was a sales success, with just over 150,000 produced. And nowadays, all Porsche ICE cars are water-cooled.
Barry Staver and Joe Farace are co-authors of Better Available Light Digital Photography that may be an oldie but, I think anyway, that it’s a goodie. New copies are $21.50 with used copies starting around twelve bucks from Amazon. No Kindle version is available, sorry.