The only open-air variant of the Porsche 944 sold in North America, the 944 S2 Cabriolet was not an entirely in-house effort from Porsche. As with many convertibles of the era, its life began with a unibody shipped to American Sunroof Corporation, better known as ASC. In this case the work was done at ASC's plant in Heilbronn, West Germany.
The cars were given a roofectomy by ASC, as well as having reinforcing plates welded in to preserve chassis stiffness and crashworthiness. After all that structural work, the bodies, still in the white, went back to the Audi plant in Neckarsulm where the drivetrains and suspension bits were installed. Finally, the largely-completed vehicles were sent to ASC again for the installation of the decklid, windshield, and other bits that were unique to the cabrio version.
Under the hood was the 3.0L DOHC 16V version of the Porsche inline four that had debuted almost a decade earlier in 2.5L SOHC form. The extra valves and displacement had bumped output from 143 to 208 SAE net horsepower. It could be backed with a 5-speed manual or three-gear slushbox, mounted at the aft end of the car to improve weight distribution.
In a Car and Driver test, the 944 S2 Cabriolet sprinted to sixty in 6.2 seconds and managed a 14.7 quarter mile at 97mph. It circled a skidpad at 0.84g and ran all the way to an honest 145mph. The price as tested was $52,295 ($129k in 2025 dollars), so you were paying rather a lot of money to look at Corvette taillights, but the build quality and structural rigidity of the droptop 944 was noted.
The upper photo was taken in September of 2024 using a Nikon D7100 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E zoom lens, while the lower one was taken with an iPhone 6S in May of 2017.
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