THE TRANSAXLE TRAILBLAZER

Until about ten years ago, the joke about filling a fuel tank to the very top and doubling the host vehicle’s value applied to the 924. It was the ‘cheap’ Porsche, occupying space in a seemingly parallel universe to the one where 911s clung tenaciously to their values and excelled in industry polls focusing on depreciation.

The 942 S, 944 and 968 all evolved from the first 924 and maintained similar status in the used car market, becoming the blue-collar side of Zuffenhausen in stark contrast to the Boss-suited 911. Far from being ‘the great unloved’, they were a godsend to the impecunious Porsche fancier. For some, a cheap four-pot ‘transaxle’ was an expendable motoring essential: buy for a song, run on a shoestring and, when the threat of uneconomic repair loomed, recycle back into the grass roots Porsche community where, hopefully, life would be breathed into the car by a fresh and willing (but, hopefully, low spending) next owner. Failing that, the Porsche’s parts might help prolong another car’s service life.

Alas, that once exhaustible supply of low priced, front-engined, four-cylinder, water-cooled Porsches has all but dried up — the £1,000 prospect worth a gamble is now the £10,000 polished forecourt find. Indeed, you’re now more likely to see 924s entered into