Test drive and walkaround of a 2004 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet with Chris Moran from Chicago Cars Direct. Produced by Chris Moran and Dave Bryja.
2004 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet
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By now you know that Porsche is planning to introduce a cabriolet version of the 911 Turbo in 2003. As far as Porsche is concerned, it’s the first time the factory has produced a droptop turbo.
But there is a car so rare that even Porsche fanatics aren’t aware of its existence. Hell, many in Porsche management don’t even know about it. It is the previous-generation 911 Turbo convertible, known internally as the 993. Only 12 were ever constructed and sold to hand-picked friends and long-time customers of the company. The cars were constructed right under the nose of Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche’s CEO.
The story starts with a man named Fritz Haberl, who as the chief executive of the Porsche Center in Munich, a large car dealership, has been selling the sports cars from Zuffenhausen for more than 50 years. He sells lots of Porsches. He therefore has wealthy and eager customers. And hence he has some influence and contacts at Porsche.
In the spring of 1994, when Porsche was still mired in serious financial difficulties, the company presented its 911 Cabriolet at the Geneva motor show. Haberl found himself wondering if the company would install in this open car the 3.6-liter Porsche Turbo motor, the most potent piece Zuffenhausen then made. Haberl expressed this wish to a small number of engineers at the Porsche Experimental Center in Weissach with whom he happened to be personally acquainted. He also took steps to make sure Wiedeking, the new CEO, didn’t hear about it. Wiedeking at that time had more urgent problems to tackle than building a few Turbo convertibles for good friends of the company.
Porsche’s technical experts at Weissach have always been responsive to new ideas. After making sketches and calculations, they reported back to the Munich office that the desired model was entirely feasible—but it would be best to find at least 10 potential buyers for this more or less unique product. The price would be about 264,000 deutsche marks, or about $133,000. To put this sum of money in perspective, the 1995 993 convertible cost 151,950 DM, or about $76,300.
The technical people also expressed another wish: that potential customers keep the lid on this, at least for a while, so the new chief executive wouldn’t find out about this hand-built, back-door car.
Looking back, Fritz Haberl comments, “Money wasn’t a problem. I took six orders in Munich alone, even before the price had been decided on. The remaining cars of the scheduled batch of 12 went elsewhere in Germany or to the United States. Nor was it too difficult to persuade everyone to keep quiet about the true character of the car.”
The black Turbo Cabriolet pictured here, the first of these 12 cars to be registered, rolled out the doors on May 10, 1995. In the years that followed it was taken out for an occasional quick run, at speeds as high as 174 mph—but only in clear weather. With its single KKK turbo, four-pipe sport exhaust system, 355 horsepower and 384 pound-feet of torque on tap, and the Turbo’s brakes, this was surely the ultimate wind-in-the-hair car.
Duration : 0:13:26
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A McLaren SLR starting up and reving just fitted with Sports Exhaust pipes made by QuickSilver the Exhaust Specialists.
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