FRONT OF HOUSE
Let’s be up front here: the 924 Carrera GT is the only front-engined Porsche to bear the hallowed Carrera nomenclature, descended from the marque’s successes in the eponymous Mexican road-race, La Carrera Panamericana. And that cuts it out as something rather special. You can see the car’s moniker proudly scrawled large along the offside front wing. This is also one of the most desirable front-engined, water-cooled, rear-wheel drive Porsches, not least thanks to a limited production run and racing pedigree.
Unveiled as a styling exercise at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1979, the 924 Carrera GT is an evolution of the 924 Turbo and designated factory type number 937. The body kit is unpretentious due in no small part to the fact the car was intended for competition work, produced in sufficient numbers for homologation into Group 4, leading into the Group B supercars which would take over in 1982. Step forward, Jurgen Barth: according to the man who was Porsche’s chief race car tester at the time, there was initially no factory interest in racing products from the manufacturer’s transaxle family, but he and co-engineer, Roland Kussmaul, were granted permission to do their own thing with 924 Turbo prototypes.
The inspiration for the 924 Carrera GT sprang from the factory’s 1980 Le Mans entries, when three cars developed by Barth and Kussmaul (under the direction of Norbert Singer) completed the marathon event in the GTP class. Financed by Porsche concessionaires in Germany, USA and Great Britain, Barth and Manfred Schurti drove the German car to finish sixth overall and third in the GTP class, averaging 111.60mph over 2,678 miles. Al Holbert and Peter Gregg drove the American car to thirteenth place (despite a dropped exhaust valve), while Derek Bell, Tony Dron and Andy Rouse handled the British car to twelfth. The Brits required little more than a change of spark plugs, but experienced the major drama of their 924 losing its one-piece nose cone at night in the turbulence of a passing 935 on the Mulsanne Straight. The following with the Hessen Rallye, Rallye Vorderpfalz and the Serengeti Safari Rallye to his credit. This is all well and good, but what is the 924 Carrera GT – and its derivatives – and how does it differ from the fastappreciating 924 Turbo?
