The second Porsche 928 to become a Brave Pill gives us a fascinating insight into the strange rules of supply and demand that the more interesting end of the used car market plays by. Our first example was an earlyish 928S that had been given a partial respray, but which was still clearly in need of some more TLC. It was also being offered - as recently as March last year - for just £8500, a price that made it look like a bargain outlier even then.
17 months later and this week's Pill is almost twice as expensive, wears more miles and is in need of its own respray - and yet still looks alluringly priced for what it is. That's because the market for Porsche's muscular tourer has risen a bit further in the intervening period, but also because this one ticks several more desirable boxes. Our Pill is a much later 1988 S4 with the very desirable option of a manual gearbox rather than the slushy auto most of its peers were ordered with. The seller admits its paintwork is shabby and it is wearing a properly courageous 191,000 odometer reading, but there is evidence it has received plenty of love and attention to get it there. It also seems to be the cheapest S4 manual in the country at present.
Few cars have been as influential as the Porsche 928. It arrived in 1977 as if beamed from an ultra-cool Germanic future, its sculpted flanks and angular lines in spectacular contrast to the humps-and-bumps most other sportscars still wore, and which immediately seemed dated. Ask sharp-end car designers to cite their automotive influences and it will be referenced as often as a Jaguar E-Type; a young Peter Horbury copied the flared B-pillar treatment when he styled the Sierra XR4i.
Yet for all the early critical love - including being the only sports car to win the European Car of the Year gong - the 928 was also a commercial failure. Indeed it's one that suffered the ultimate indignity of being outlived by the car it was intended to replace. While it might sound ridiculous in a world where the rear-engined 911 is venerated as the Pure Essence of Sports Car, in the mid-1970s Porsche was becoming ashamed of what seemed like an archaic cart-before-horse layout.
Thinking there must be something in the front engined thing that everyone else was doing, the company dug deep to create two new models with their powerplants at the front. The cheaper 924 was intended to replace the 914 and used a Volkswagen-sourced four-cylinder. But the 928 would sit atop the range and use a mighty V8 developed in house (and this agreed only after development boss Ferdinand Piech's even more awesome plan to make a V10 had been nixed.)
The production V8 wasn't as mighty as originally intended. The prototype motor had displaced 5.0-litres and made 306hp - that's about 1000hp adjusted for inflation - but Porsche was panicked by the 1973 oil crisis and opted to reduce capacity to (slightly) increase economy. So the 928 was launched with a 4.5-litre engine that made 240hp. You'll be unsurprised to hear that one of the consistent trends throughout the car's long life was incremental increases in both displacement and power: the 296hp 4.7-litre 928S arrived in 1980, the 316hp 5.0-litre S4 came along seven years later and the ultimate 5.4-litre GTS that was launched in 1992 took output to 345hp.
Yet none of these revisions, or the corresponding chassis upgrades, turned the 928 into a roaring success, or ever persuaded a significant percentage of 911 buyers to switch allegiance. Having decided the world wanted a large, elegant GT rather than an oversteer-happy thrown hammer it took Porsche some considerable time to acknowledge it had backed the wrong horse. The 928 was a great car, but its appeal was different to that of the 911 and by the mid-80s Porsche bit the bullet and started significant development work on the 911 again. The final air-cooled generation, the 993, was launched just as the 928 was quietly retired after 17 years.
The 928's long life meant that early examples were already collecting their pensions when the car was still in production, something that created a stratified secondhand market that maybe puts too much store by what now seem to be fairly limited differences. The 928S, S2 and S4 were pretty much regarded as being new models in period, despite the obvious similarities that connected them all to the earliest cars. Even now the S4 still commands a premium, although not as much as the GTS.
Launched in 1987 the S4's engine got a pair of spiffy new DOHC cylinder heads, each identical to the one used by the 944S, as well as a useful increase in torque over the old 16-valve engine, taking it to 317lb-ft. Other revisions included a more aerodynamic profile to the front and rear bumpers (metalwork was unchanged), fractionally plusher trim and new wheels and tyres. Of these, one contemporary write-up referred to the 245/45R16 rears as being "ultra low profile." Bless.
Our Pill's near double-ton mileage makes clear that it has lived an interesting life as well as a long one. Its current owner has been running it as a daily and claims to have gradually got on top of its various issues and foibles, rectifying faults so that everything now works with the exception of the heated seats. Even the climate control is functional and the aircon reportedly blowing cold, a significant achievement on any 'eighties classic. On the other side of the sheet the vendor admits the S4's paintwork is showing its age and that the car really needs a respray, but adds that it has recently had the all-important cambelt change.
Despite the 928's galvanized bodyshell - another innovation in period - the MOT history makes clear that the car has suffered from some corrosion, failing last September with excessive grot within the rear suspension mounting area on both sides. A near two-week gap before a passed retest suggests some proper remedial work was carried out. The official history also makes clear that mileage has been creeping up slowly in recent years; if the record is correct the car has only done 6500 miles since 2009. It won't be sold with the private plate it is currently wearing, but should revert to its original reg that includes the digits '928', appropriately.
Only around 10 percent of the 928s sold in Britain had the five-speed manual gearbox, and in recent years they have started to command an increasingly chunky supplement over the much more plentiful autos. A 52,000-mile manual S4 recently sold for just over £30K at auction, a figure which excited some comment for being cheap at the time. Our Pill could doubtless be smartened and sharpened to a significant degree while still owing its next owner less than that. It's a car that has clearly been enjoyed, and which deserves to be enjoyed some more.
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