Forgotten fast cars: 1988 Porsche 965

Porsche was in trouble in the late Eighties. To put in perspective quite how deep it had sunk into the financial mire, consider this. Despite a six-week halt in production in 2020, the company built 272,162 new vehicles. Back in ’87, it built a mere 48,520 vehicles and, aside from the facelifted 928 S4, they were all versions of the elderly 911, 924S or 944.

The only truly new model was a financial basket case. The first customer deliveries of the 959 supercar began in 1987, with Porsche charging A$292,000 for a car that cost double that amount to bring to market.

Keen to amortise that cost, Porsche had been secretly developing Project 965 in the background, a car that would replace the 911 Turbo and sit atop the forthcoming 964 Carrera range, to be badged as a 969. It adopted much of the 959’s tech, with adaptive air suspension, all-wheel drive, a dual-clutch transmission and an air-cooled twin-turbo flat-six with water-cooled heads powering it.

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While the Black Monday financial crash of 1987 did much to affect Porsche’s plans, even prior to the biggest single-day drop in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the 965 project was in trouble. In short, it didn’t have the power it needed to make at the price it needed to be.

The project target of 272kW was only deemed possible by water cooling the entire engine, which scuppered the cost-savings realised by parts sharing with the rest of the 964 range. The alternative was to carry over the old 911 Turbo motor, which, in its latter guise, was only good for 210kW under new emissions control regulations. Neither seemed appetising.

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All 16 of the 965 prototypes built were scrapped, with one engineering car displayed in the Porsche museum powered by a mule-spec Audi V8

Peter Schutz stood down as Porsche’s CEO in 1987, unable to see how unfavourable exchange rates could realise a profit for the company in the medium term. Porsche’s long-serving financial director, Heinz Branitzki, stepped in, but he was no product guy, famously presenting the 964 to the press as ‘the 911 for the next 25 years’.

In 1988, development boss Ulrich Bez took one look at the 965 project and wisely put the red pen through it.

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Unable to develop a turbo version of the 964’s M64 3.6-litre engine in time, Porsche replaced the 965 with the 964 Turbo, powered by a carry-over version of the 3.3-litre unit which took 18 months to make power in a catalysable state. Meanwhile, development went on in the background for a turbocharged version of the M64, which appeared in 1993.

As a case study in bringing the right product to market at the right time and at the right price, the 965 is an utterly fascinating one. It’s just a shame that its stars never aligned.

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