Porsche 924: Dogwood Show and Shine

The Porsche 924 was the first car with a Porsche badge to have a front water cooled engine. While this may not have been the prettiest or best way to start off the front engine Porsche. It began the trend which produced some of the world’s fastest and most expensive pumps at the time.

This Porsche 924 was a little gem I found at the Dogwood Show and Shine in the Lewiston Clarkson valley in north Idaho. This car was in the process of a restoration but for the exterior at least, it looked like it had already been done. I talked to the owner and he said he’s been in the restoration process for a while and started to list some of the mods he had done on it, including how he stashed the tire grease rag under the rear tire, very tasteful in my opinion, I mean if your going to use a tire grease rag you might as well show it off too. This one looked really clean and I think speaks of the cleanliness of the tire before it was greased, all I can say is Wow.

He first pointed out the closely matched new paint job the Porsche was sporting. With only a slight color variation between the engine bay being the original color and the fender being the respray color. He also mentioned that he did a five lug swap to fit the bigger phone dial wheels which I think are a great contrast to the hard edges found throughout the car.

 Additionally he did a rear disk break swap to provide a bit more consistent stopping power and finally mentioned the duck-tail spoiler he added from the Carrera variant of the car.

After talking to him a bit I popped open the door and peaked inside, disappointingly it wasn’t much to look at. Once I saw it though, he was quick to spell out how he planned to get the seats reupholstered in the same pattern with some fresh leather as he would also do with the worn and cracked dash. Black leather with pea green thread to match the paint sounds like the perfect combo to me!

Knowing that this little 924 was in the middle of a restoration,  I found it refreshing at a classic car show full of American muscle. I see the draw to these cars and have dreamed about owning one myself, and after watching this old top gear episode, I feel even better about the first water cooled Porsche. Whether the engine really did come out of a Volkswagen van or not.

Joshua Sewell

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