It’s hard to imagine Porsche without the 911, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it seemed a distinct possibility. A layout seen by many as increasingly dated, not to mention cramped rear seats and technical limitations dictated by the two-door’s technical make-up, encouraged those inhabiting corridors in Zuffenhausen to think about a new flagship Porsche product. Company chairman, Ernst Fuhrmann (designer of the famous Type 547 flat-four), envisaged a more capable 2+2 in the form of a grand tourer capable of massive mile munching. This was no reimagining of the 911 – the resulting 928 was a ‘clean sheet’ design and one which set Porsche’s technological beacon shining once again.
Work began in earnest as soon as the project was given the green light. In fact, as early as 1971, factory engineers and draughtsmen began to conceptualise the all-new Porsche. Decreed to be a car in the long-legged gran turismo mould, the 928 would pack the luxury of a high-end sedan with the style and performance of a true sports coupé. Powerplant and transmission packaging issues ruled out a repeat of the rear-engine format, which promised to play havoc with emissions – a complaint Porsche was trying to address with the 911 – in the face of ever-stricter highway safety legislation in the United States. Fuhrmann’s team was also concerned about rumours concerning a proposed ban on rear-engined cars in North America.
Discussions regarding a mid-engine configuration ended swiftly, largely because the 928’s cabin space would be severely compromised. This left a front-engined, rear-wheel drive setup as the preferred and obvious solution.
From the get-go, a big engine was planned for the 928. Prototypes were built using a five-litre V8, although Ferdinand Piëch (engineering mastermind behind Porsche’s motorsport programme in the 1960s and, later, chairman of the board at Volkswagen) argued the case for a 4.6-litre V10 envisaged as resulting from a programme of modifying Audi inline-fives. Much to his anger, he was outvoted by colleagues occupying seats on the Porsche board – the 928 would land in dealer showrooms with a Porsche-penned 4.5-litre V8 sitting beneath its long bonnet.
The covers were pulled off the new car at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show. Compared to previous Porsches (even the four-cylinder 924, which leapfrogged the 928’s launch due to the two global oil crises of the mid-1970s calling a temporary halt on the bigger-engined car’s development), Wolfgang Mobius’s design looked as though it had arrived on Earth from another planet. The gorgeously curved design and bulbous rear
