History of the 911 Turbo
SIX DECADES OF SUPREMACY The 911 flagship has undergone six iterations: here’s your complete history from 930 to 991
It has captured imaginations and blown all competition out of the water since 1975. Here’s the Turbo’s story to the present day
The Porsche Turbo came into existence thanks to the foresight of the company’s new managing director, Ernst Fuhrmann. Appointed in 1971, Fuhrmann (below) who had worked at Porsche in the 1950s (and developed the famous quad-cam Carrera), saw that without new models, Porsche would at best stagnate. Beside proposing a new, long-term Porsche, the 928, he sought to revive interest in the vital 911, which he did with almost immediate effect by creating the 911 RS 2.7. This gave Porsche a tremendous fillip in club-level racing and its competition version, the RSR 2.8, won at Daytona in early 1973. However, Fuhrmann also knew that at an international level, to win consistently required far more than 300 horsepower: its Can-am victories with the 917 had shown Porsche was quite capable of building successful turbocharged racers making 180bhp per litre. The same could be done with the 911.
But first a production version for homologation with the FIA was required: Porsche developed the 3.0-litre engine of the RS 3.0 with a single KKK turbocharger and the compression ratio reduced to 6.5:1. A deliberately conservative specification still delivered 260bhp and startling acceleration, and uncertain how to market its new Turbo, Typ 930, Porsche elected to position it as unashamedly high end and fitted every option in its catalogue. The outcome was extraordinary: instead of building the homologation minimum in a year, overwhelming demand meant Zuffenhausen had outshopped the requisite 500 within six months.
In retrospect it was not difficult to understand the success of the 911 Turbo: its breathtaking acceleration was unique while its bespoilered styling attracted attention like few other vehicles. Porsche suddenly found itself an entirely new clientele among the super-rich, a class that appeared to be recession-proof as the
930 was launched in 1974 in the teeth of the oil crisis. By 1977, Porsche had built 3,000, the über Porsche’s reputation now firmly established as a ridiculously fast, outrageously styled and appropriately expensive supercar. The model had a halo effect on the entire Porsche brand: in the popular mindset Porsches had become the cars of the hedonist, but conversely more and more people now aspired to them.
The first development of the 930 took place for MY1978: bored and stroked to 3.3-litres and now intercooled, the Turbo delivered 300bhp and, significantly, almost 30 per cent more torque. The performance improvements, 0-200kph in 17.7s and 160mph, set benchmarks that Porsche saw no need
“Ernst Fuhrmann’s ‘stopgap’ 930 had turned into both the best known and most profitable Porsche”
to improve until 1990. The 1980s were in any case the decade during which the 911 was neglected in favour of the supercar 959. With twin turbochargers and a water-cooled head (and almost every other state-of-the-art technology that Weissach could incorporate) launched late and far over budget, the 959 coincided with the worst recession in Porsche’s history. Consequently the 964 Turbo was not only late in arriving, it had none of the intended 959 technology, managing simply with a power-kitted 3.3 from the preceding 930. Despite clearly being an interim model, the 964 Turbo 3.3 nevertheless sold a profitable 1,200 cars per year during its reign; its short-lived 3.6 successor packing a muscular 360bhp and 520Nm would be the last of the old-school 911 Turbos. S versions, some with ‘Flachbau’ noses, were tuned to 385bhp and sold at a considerable premium.
With the 993 Turbo, Porsche moved its supercar nearer contemporary GT standards: twin turbocharging smoothed the torque curve and four-wheel drive instilled greater controllability and confidence for most drivers. The 911 Turbo was no longer a wild man among supercars. Indeed, all that was missing was an automatic transmission option. That was rectified by the 996 Turbo which appeared in 2000, but so different was the 996 from its predecessors, this became a mere detail.
Starting from scratch with new chassis, shell and above all a Gt1-based 3.6 water-cooled flat six, the 996 Turbo was the junior supercar, the combination of performance, handling and refinement achieving handsomely the goals Porsche had sought with its overcomplicated 959. Henceforth the Porsche Turbo would always be a paragon of performance and GT levels of refinement. The 997.1, assisted by variable vane turbines, honed this outstanding concept in the new body, and the 997.2 saw the first dedicated Turbo engine, a 3.8 DFI, in the Turbo’s 35-year history. This took over, powering the Turbo range through the next decade to the end of the second-generation 991. With the advent of the 991, the manual gearbox option disappeared in favour of PDK, which like the new DFI, assisted emissions and mpg while such features as launch control and overboost – a momentary increase in boost pressure – ensured the 911 Turbo continued to deliver electrifying performance. Ernst Fuhrmann’s ‘stopgap’ 930 had turned into both the best known and most profitable Porsche. The forthcoming 992 Turbo will surely take the classic blown 911 (as opposed to the other recently turbocharged 911 range) comfortably past its 50th birthday, but with the general stampede to electrification, the depressing prospect after 2024 is that ‘Turbo’ will eventually become a mere marketing term signifying ‘faster version’ as it already does on the Taycan.