Asinine or Awesome?
by Chris Hafner
on July 01, 2010
I recently spotted this listing for a Boeing turbine-powered Porsche 928, and I have absolutely no idea how to feel about it. On the one hand, I love Porsche 928s and the sight of one belching flames through the hood causes me some degree of physical pain. On the other, I like quirky and innovative engineering, and the idea of a 928 with a turbine in it is extremely cool. Plus, it gets 17 MPG!
The details:
- It's a 1982 Porsche 928
- It has a "flame shooter"
- It produces 365 horsepower and 700+ foot-pounds of torque (or TORK)
- It tops out at 160 mph
- It still gets 17 MPG
- It's a daily driver (or a DAYLEY DRIVER)
- It used to be new (really!)
So, what do you think? Asinine? Or Awesome? Perhaps a little bit of both? John B., do you have any temptation to make this the third 928 in your stable?
--Chris H.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on July 01, 2010 at 07:02 AM
Awesome, if only for the sheer audacity of its engineering.
Chris Mallow on July 01, 2010 at 07:39 AM
Actually, that is really awesome! I'm wondering how he fabricated an adapter to mate the turbine to the transmission. And with that much extra HP and torque I'd hope the transmission has likewise been beefed up a little bit. I don't know what the numbers were for this car when stock, but I doubt it would've been that high. He mentions upgrading the driveshaft and brakes, but it's still worth asking. In fact, it would be interesting to see if a different gearing has been done, or if it would be possible to get something in there to take better advantage of the turbine...maybe a 7-speed or something that could push you a little higher than a mere 160...
That Car Guy on July 01, 2010 at 08:26 AM
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the copper color of the 928 looks like it just happens to match Chrysler's Turbine Cars of the 1960s:
http://www.carlustblog.com/2008/08/car-lust----196.html?cid=126332724
Anthony Cagle on July 01, 2010 at 09:10 AM
Awesome.
No debate.
David Colborne on July 01, 2010 at 09:29 AM
Belching fire to belch fire is asinine. Belching fire because your car *literally* has a jet engine under the hood is absolutely gobsmackingly awesome.
No debate.
Rob the Audi Guy on July 01, 2010 at 09:50 AM
I looked into this car a few days ago. Really cool, but I would never ever want it. It registers 115 db at idle. You cannot hear anything, except the high pitched, utterly obnoxious whine. This did set off my 928 lust though, so I started looking into them. Man, those are affordable cars with a lot of potential!!!
Anthony Cagle on July 01, 2010 at 10:41 AM
I have a fetish for those as well, although all I've read says they're mondo expensivo to maintain. I think if my Mustang bit the dust tomorrow I'd have a hard time avoiding looking for a 928.
I blame it all on the movie 'Looker'.
Joe in Minnesota on July 01, 2010 at 04:11 PM
I am the temporary preservator of one of the fewer than 70 1995 GTS cars left intact. Luckily it is Guard's Red. It is a magnificant ride.
Varooooooom!
dvan on July 01, 2010 at 04:11 PM
Imagine the reaction in the high school parking lot when you drove up in one of these.
Narniaman on July 01, 2010 at 04:24 PM
A couple of comments. . .
First, the turbine shouldn't have fire coming from the exhaust -- unless it has an afterburner, which would make absolutely no sense at all.
Second, the car's acceleration would be atrocious. Jet engines are notorious for the amount of time it takes them to spool up from idle.
Third -- Boeing quit making their turbine engines in 1968. They would only develop 300 hp -- at 32 gallons of jet fuel an hour!
It is extremely unlikely that this car would get 17 mpg.
Alan Schwarz on July 01, 2010 at 04:54 PM
I love the engineering of this.Seems more workable as a daily driver than the 60's Chrysler. The belching fire could be directed into a killer climate control.Sorta like a Bond ejecter seat.
toad on July 01, 2010 at 05:32 PM
The engine is a centrifugal flow engine for a turbo prop application not an axial flow. It is already geared to swing a prop at a relatively slow rpm and with high torque.
Mark on July 01, 2010 at 05:51 PM
As an exhibit or to drive - looks phenomenal.
As something to buy - not so much. There was a similar project on Jalopnik a while back, a 911 with a 501 cid Caddy engine transplanted into it. Probably had similar levels of awesomeness, but one poster made the point that, no matter how awesome, he wouldn't buy it simply because it's someone else's vision and work - you just wrote the check. And that would drain most if not all of the pleasure of ownership out of it. I thought that was a great insight.
If I had the technical chops, time, and money - yes, I'd take this as inspiration to do something similarly wild.
John S on July 01, 2010 at 06:36 PM
I wonder if you floored it and actually drove 160mph for a while if the heat from the exhausts would crack the windshield.
flataffect on July 01, 2010 at 07:36 PM
Check out the spec on the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. When it was first road tested, it shot 4 foot flames out of the tail pipes. 4 MPG
Top speed 254 mph. No turbine, just 16 cylinders.
Wind Rider on July 01, 2010 at 08:18 PM
Are you guys nuts? That's totally ridiculous! I guess the only good thing here is that they hacked up a Land Shark to do this.
Bleh.
Nat on July 01, 2010 at 08:42 PM
If there is a world in which fire-shooting jet-engined cars are not automatically awesome, I don't want to know about it.
On the other hand, the seller's literacy is... well, not promising.
Smoke_Jaguar4 on July 01, 2010 at 09:16 PM
AWESOME = Porsche + Jet Engine + Flames shooting from the hood. This car is completely irrational, which is why it makes so much sense.
As far as the seller goes, his "English as a second language" literacy only adds to this car's awesomeness. I'd imagine he's a displaced Moldovan nuclear engineer, a veteran of the Angolan war, and his other car is a cold-fusion powered Citroen DS.
Alan on July 01, 2010 at 10:57 PM
17 MPG seems to be OK, until you realize you're fueling it with Jet-A. Anybody got a recent price for that? The FBOs at the Austin airport seem to want about $5.30 per gallon. Of course, they're more expensive than other locales, but since we have a dearth of GA airports around here, I think that's where I'd be stuck filling up.
Walter Sobchak on July 02, 2010 at 07:07 AM
It is a desecration of a great classic.
tigerstrypes on July 02, 2010 at 11:46 AM
I wouldn't have cut the hood for the "flame shooters". I'd leave the body and interior as stock as possible and let the flames shoot through a custom exhaust on the stock tailpipe location... with a certain degree of care taken not to burn off the mufflers.
I could care less about the guy behind me. He's supposed to leave some space between cars. Guess I'll use that as a "safety margin" for flame distance, unless I crank it up to 11. ^^
Oh, speaking of jet-turbine daily drivers, you guys may have probably seen this before:http://www.ourlighterside.com/stuff/engineer/image001631.jpg
john bono on July 02, 2010 at 02:06 PM
I'm kind of surprised the top speed is claimed at 160. My 85 928s will top out somewhere near that, and I've only got 288 hp on tap. He's claiming GTS power levels, and that's well north of 170mph.
I heard about this car on rennlist, and this isn't the first turbine 928:
http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/928-forum/545569-new-to-the-forum-i-have-a-928-jet-car.html
As far as the power, if the 928 is an auto, it can handle an awful lot of power. There are guys who've built streetable supercharged 928s with north of 500 rear wheel hp(at the crank, probably closer to 600). My neighbor, who I met at the shoprite parking lot, has a supercharged 928 with over 400 whp, that he drives to work every day.
With a manual it is a little iffy. Pre-S4 928s have a dual disk clutch which can handle awesome amounts of power, but are supposedly a pain to drive properly, and the clutches are expensive. However, pre '85 manuals supposedly have weak synchros in first and second, so the best alternative is an s4 tranny with a retrofit of a pre s4 clutch.
Do I want one to go with the '79 and '85? Heck yeah. Since a turbine will run on nearly anything, I can fill it w/biodiesel and out-smug the Prius drivers--while spitting flames!
Jack on July 15, 2010 at 02:32 AM
I found this one awesome......extreme design and extreme engineering.......powered by Boeing turbine....nice concept......innovative ideas......
Alex Flander on July 21, 2010 at 12:35 PM
Wow.
Awesome