1979 Porsche 928

Here's an early Porsche 928. If that Casablanca Beige Metallic paint is original, I think that makes it a 1979 model? I love those wheels, and the flip-up headlights.

The egg-like styling was otherworldly in the sharply-creased Seventies. Detroit sedans of the era were still mired in the square-cornered "formal look" (itself derived from Sixties Mercedes sedans) that made it feel like barbarians had looted Big Three styling departments of all their French curves and protractors, leaving them nothing but rulers and t-squares with which to draw cars.

A 2+2 grand tourer with a water-cooled front engine and a rear-mounted transaxle, the 928 was controversial with Porsche purists from the start and still kinda is.

The 4.5L SOHC V-8 was rated at 219 in EPA-compliant North American trim. The contemporary Corvette 5.7L L82 put out 220, as did the 6.6L W72 in a Pontiac Trans Am, so the Porsche was not lacking for power. The 928's rear-mounted transaxle gave it a nearly perfect 50/50 weight distribution, which was hyped in the ad copy.

By the mid-'70s the 911's air/oil-cooled engine and its aft-of-the-rear-axle location both were engineering challenges that required workarounds to achieve best performance and the 928 was intended as a replacement for the older car, and the new flagship of the marque going forward.

In the inaugural Car and Driver review of the eurospec original, David E. Davis relayed a convo he'd had with Dr. Ernst Fuhrmann of Porsche:

"It's not surprising that a car that is designed to be good at 230 kph would be good at 100. It would be very surprising if cars designed to be good at 100 kph could be good at 230. Our cars are not as they are because we are better engineers than General Motors. Our cars are as they are because Germany has no speed limits. If I was running General Motors or Ford, my cars would probably seem just as dumb as Estes's or Ford's. I run a small company with very few customers, and it is easy for me to look smart—only my risks are proportionately greater."

He warmed to his subject as we wrecked a perfect sea bass and ordered red wine for the cheese. "I design cars for a thousand people or so. I don't have to design cars for everybody. At Daimler­-Benz or General Motors, I would have to listen to this one or that one: 'The car is too small; it is too big; old people won't like it; it must have four doors.' I am in an enviable position. If I don't like it, it won't get built."

"One man can design a car. A small group of men can design a car. But a large group of men will always design gray mice. I promise you that anyone who has owned a Turbo or a 928 for one year will never forget it. On the other hand, a man who has owned a gray mouse—no matter how good it is—will look back twenty years later and say to his wife, 'What was that car we had? It was a very good one, but I can't remember the name.' "

Of course, there's a flip side to that coin, a quote from Carroll Shelby regarding the Porsche 959, which I can't find online, but paraphrased was something like this: "The 959 is an amazing car, but Porsche is losing money on every one they sell. You think the engineering department at GM or Toyota couldn't design a car like that? They could, but they're in business to make money."

Parked on the street during the golden hour back in October of 2021, the car was eye-catching. I was glad to have the D800 and 24-120mm f/4 VR with me. I'm getting pretty smitten with this camera. With the right lens, the D800's images have all the pop and colors I loved from the D700, with greater resolution and dynamic range.