The Homologators – Porsche 924 Carrera GT

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Dale Vinten

We’ve covered the Porsche 924 previously here at Car & Classic in the form of a The Time is Now feature, furnishing you with the car’s back story and hopefully inspiring you to grab one of these dynamic driving delights for yourself, but we didn’t delve too deeply into the 924 Carrera GT, the version that sits very much at the top of the pile when it comes to these four-cylinder firecrackers. We stand by what we wrote in that article whereby we extol the virtues of the 924, virtues that include an inherent drive-ability and beautifully balanced dynamics that make it a brilliant little sports car and a cracking classic that ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of people, including us.

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If you’ve read any of our The Homologators series then you’ll know by now the general blueprint of how this process works. The manufacturer wants to go racing in a production-based class so it has to produce a certain number of road-going versions to prove that whichever car it’s competing with has not been designed and built from the ground up solely for racing. In the case of the 924 Carrera GT Porsche wanted to compete in Group 4 sports car racing and realising that the 924 was the perfect base with which to achieve success they set about building a little over 400 Carrera GTs for the road, thus fulfilling the homologation requirements as defined by the FIA and creating a bit of a legend in the process.

The Carrera GT differed from the standard 924 in a number of ways, most notable of which was the jump in horsepower over the regular turbo model. The boffins in Stuttgart were able to squeeze an additional 40 horsepower out of the 924’s four-cylinder engine thanks to a larger turbo and top-mount intercooler (along with that now iconic bonnet scoop) as well as an increased compression ratio – a feat that placed it in the record books for road-going cars at the time with regards to power over displacement. 106bhp per litre to be exact. Other performance modifications included larger, fibreglass arches, a crash diet and beefier suspension with a drop of 10mm at the front and 15mm at the rear. Although intended for fast road and track use the Carrera GT wasn’t a stripped out, minimalist affair which is habitually the case with these kinds of cars. The rather plush interior of the original 924 Turbo was retained, matching happy bums to happy (petrol)heads and allowing you to comfortably drive your Carrera GT to the track, kick it’s bottom and then drive it home. Pending any serious ‘incidents’ of course. This is a spicy rear-wheel drive sports car with no driver aids, after all.

When the prototype Carrera GT was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in ’79 Porsche simultaneously announced its intention to run a trio of Carrera GTs in the 1980 24 hours of Le Mans but due to the homologation cars not being ready in time (something that didn’t come to fruition until January 1981), the three cars were entered into the prototype class. Taking sixth, twelfth and thirteenth places it was a hint of what was to come for Porsche and the 924 Carrera GT with Jürgen Barth and Walter Röhrl at the helm would take outright victory in its class a year later.

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From an abandoned VW collaboration project to Le Mans winner the Carrera GT could be construed as Porsche’s answer to the less than stellar reception the 924 received upon its release, with many feeling that the lack of outright performance, along with a more conventional water-cooled, front-engined layout, was not a very Porsche way to behave. The fact of the matter remains, however, that the 924 was an excellent car on which to base a racing legend and Porsche knew this. Despite boosting Porsche’s fortunes in terms of sales the entry level 924 wasn’t setting the world alight with regards to outright speed and performance but with the right engine it could, and would, go on to achieve huge success in one of the most gruelling and demanding race events in the world, testament to the car’s fundamental abilities. You can’t just strap a big engine to a car and expect it to perform. Core characteristics have to be there in the first place to utilise and take advantage of that increase in performance, and the 924 had exactly those credentials, credentials that could be successfully exploited with the addition of horsepower and performance parts.

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59 GTS versions were subsequently made that came in 59kg lighter than the Carrera GT and of those 59, 15 were made even lighter and fitted with a roll cage. Designated as Clubsport editions these cars were even more track-focussed and produced 266bhp thanks to an increase in turbo boost pressure. Finally Porsche hit peak 924 with its piece de resistance: the Carrera GTR. With 380bhp in race trim the GTR could top 180mph and hit 60 in just over four-and-a-half seconds and if that’s not enough to silence the 924’s critics then we don’t know what is.

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The 924 Carrera GT remains a sublime car to pilot. Keep it in the right gear at the right revs and it comes alive, in no small part due to its exceptional balance and near perfect weight distribution. So good was the 924’s underpinnings that it was used as the basis for its successor, the 944, validation indeed of the 924’s intrinsic qualities. Historically languishing unfairly in the underappreciated category for years these cars are now very much enjoying the praise and respect they deserves and prices are reflecting that reverence. At the time of writing there are a handful available via the Car & Classic classifieds; a right-hand drive Carrera GT (one of only 75 ever made), a GTS (one of only 59 ever made) and one example claiming to be one of the three prototype cars built before production proper began, with prices reflecting the scarcity of each respectively.

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The 924 was and still is a brilliant car but the Carrera GT is on another level and represents just what can be achieved when all of the right ingredients are present. Two plus two really does equal five as far as the 924 Carrera GT is concerned and it has quite rightly come to be regarded as a truly iconic entry in the Porsche oeuvre.

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