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"The Original Porsche 924/944/968" by Peter Morgan pages 34 to 36 discusses the 924 turbo and it's continued use of the Audi powerplant.

Now this of course seriously contradicts you assertion that the 968 was born of the 951 because the 968 was a 16 valve head.

Nobody is disputing that, but I am disputing the fact that you are trying to associate the 968 with the 951, when the engines are completely different. The 944S2 and the 968 had similar engines, and I quote from Mr. Morgan "The

Perhaps you want to share with the group exactly what the 951 and 968 shared, and remember, don't include any 944S2 parts...they came after the

you through the birth of the 924. Nowhere did it mention reliance on VW or Audi.

Then his history is incomplete and flawed. The information in Porsche Legends was gathered in combination from Porsche factory records and interview material with the men who worked on these projects. The section on the 924 includes information given directly by Tony Lapine, who was the head of Porsche's design studio during the 1970s and who was intimately involved with the 924 project. He recounts in meticulous detail how the project was developed and notes more than once that Mr. Leiding, VW/Audi's managing director at the time *required* that the

the V10 powerplant.

I can't find the book, nor am I going to make a special trip to the bookstore simply to try and figure out where this idea came from. I'm asking you to quote from the passage that says that a V10 was intended to be used in the 924. It's becoming apparent to me that no such qoutation exists.

the 924 turbo and it's continued use of the Audi powerplant.

Apparently our issue here is not so directly related to my facts as it is to your inability to properly decode what I've written. The bottom end of the 924 Turbo engine was *identicle* to what was used in the N/A version which was, indeed, an Audi engine. The top end however, was modified by Porsche to better suit the use of the turbo system. Now, I'll again agree that I'm splitting hairs on the matter, but the 924 Turbo motor was in a way a combined design by Audi and Porsche, using Audi's bottom end and Porsche's modified heads and turbo system. Note that Audi never produced a factory turbocharged version of that engine.

of the 951 because the 968 was a 16 valve head.

My assertion is now is at it has been for the last several posts: The

I'll now refuse to continue this argument any furthur unless you're willing to provide quotations on the magical V10 engine that never existed.

the V10 powerplant.

Well, you guys "made me look".

At the time, Audi was developing their 5 cyl engine, and yes, Morgan does state that there was an idea of "combining" two to make a 10-cyl engine. However Morgan also states that the platform would have been the

The 944S2 and the 951S are pretty similar in almost all respects, except the engine. There really wasn't much development of either of them after 1989 or so, because Porsche was developing the 968.

FWIW, While Morgans book has lots of pretty pictures, I really like Brian Longs book on the 944.

Walt - 86 944 NA

Heh. This "debate" made me recall an incident unrelated to Porsche, but involving Audi. Back in the early 80's I had a work associate who bought an Audi 4000. He was a bit of a snob and was always reminding us of how refined his car and engine was compared to the cheap American junk the rest of us drove.

One day he popped the hood and was showing off his engine. I looked at it and realized it looked very familiar. So, I went over and popped the hood on my '79 Dodge Omni and sure enough, it was basically the same engine except the Omni had a carburetor and the Audi was fuel injected. Everything below the manifold was pretty much the same.

I called him over and said, "Hey, look! I've got the same engine in my Omni!"

He was BS and traded the Audi for a 124 Fiat Spyder.

Turns out that as Chrysler was reorganizing they didn't have an available engine for the Omni/Horizon so they outsourced them to VW or Audi or whoever was building the engine.

Eisboch

Walt, thanks for the help! This was a debate that certainly needed to end. Also, can you give me the name of Brian Longs book? I'm always interested in picking up new Porsche related literature.

I always thought the Omni was just a Chrysler badged version of the Golf I. Anyone know much about it?

Also, if memory serves me, there was a Shelby version of the Omni with a turbocharged engine that was unique to the model and a retuned suspension. My understanding is that it was a hell of a car, at least in terms of performance. I'm partial to the MKII 16 valve GTi though.

According to Wikipedia the Omni/Horizon was developed by Simca, the French division of Chrysler Europe. Simca was bought by Peugeot which released the car as the Talbot Horizon. Chrysler retained the US production rights.

From Wilipedia:

"The ultimate Dodge Omni was the Carroll Shelby-modified Omni GLH. 1984 was the first year of the GLH, which carried over most of the modifications that had been made the previous year to the Shelby Charger. 1985 was the debut of the real Goes Like Hell model with the turbocharged Turbo I engine option. The car carried over into 1986 unchanged and production was stopped. The final 500 GLH cars were sold to Shelby, who used them as the basis for the

Man, I hated those cars. Ugly as sin. My best friend had an Omni in highschool. We did just about everything we could to kill that car, but it kept going. Don't worry, it wasn't the Shelby version.

There were Shelby variants of several cars back then, weren't there? Nearly all ugly as the base cars were abortions. No amount of power could pretty them up.

I realize this is subjective, but were any American cars attractive betweeen, say...77 and the late 80s? I can't remember any off the top of my head.

Well, if you didn't like the Omni or Horizon, you could always get an AMC Pacer. :-)

Sure. It is simply called "Porsche 944". I bought my copy at the Petersons Auto Museum in LA a few years ago, but now see that it is available through Amazon (and no doubt, many others.)

Appended is a review I posted on rennlist back in 2002 on it.

Walt - 86 944 NA

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Auto Museum in LA a few years ago, but now see that it is available through Amazon (and no doubt, many others.)

I'm going to be at the Petersen next week, so I'll check there first, but I often find that their store is a bit highly priced.

Several years ago they had a Porsche exhibit there with several vehicles (including some incredible one-off vehicles) from the museum in Sttutgart. I wish they'd bring it back. Thanks again.