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EA425 was developed solely by Porsche using some of VW/Audi's parts bin to take advantage of VAG groups mass production techniques. By 1974 the first prototypes were being built, but the World Oil Crisis had changed themarket place and a change of management at VW meant that after spending $50 million EA425 no longer had a place in VW's future plans.
Porsche had faith in the design and purchased the project back from VW at the bargain price of $40 million! Although now the sole owner of the project, Porsche did not have the facilities to build the 924 in volume and turned to VW/Audi again. An agreement was struck. VW would build the car in the old NSU factory at Neckarsulm, Germany under strict Porsche quality control. Production began in November 1975 with the first cars arriving in dealer showrooms early in 1976. With its simple construction, fantastic build quality (apart from the very early cars all 924 bodyshells were fully galvanised) and use of VW/Audi parts it is cheap to buy, run and insure and easy to maintain.
The layout provides a surprising degree of practicality too, with a large boot area and lots of front seat legroom, making it a good Grand Tourer.
In its day the 924 was quite a quick car and even now, 30+ years on can keep up with modern traffic with ease. Handling is excellent with its near perfect 52% - 48% front to rear weight distribution and the car has character galore!
It was the first Porsche to use a water cooled engine mounted at the front of the car where previously Porsche favoured the air-cooled rear mounted layout. The front mounted engine was connected to the rear mounted transaxle via a torque tube running under the centre of the car and it is this layout that is responsible for the cars excellent weight distribution and therefore its brilliant handling.
The basic 924 design hardly changed from its introduction in 1976 until 1988 although during that time there were a number of engine and trim options available to the buyer.
The 3 main models were the 2.0 litre N/A (normally aspirated), the Turbo (with a highly modified version of the N/A engine) and the S which was fitted with the super smooth and powerful 2.5 litre all-Porsche designed unit.
Along the way there were various special editions starting with the Martini and LeMans and also included Carrera GT, GTS and GTR models which are more sought after.
The Porsche 924 remained in production until 1988 when it was finally retired to enable larger-scale production and development of the 944.
In total over 250,000 units were built in its various guises and, along with its younger siblings the 944 and, the later incarnation, the 968, it accounts for almost a third of Porsche's total production.
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