Form 944: Fill & Download for Free

Would Porsche 944 be a good first car?Not only no, but OMG - hell no!Don’t get me wrong, I GET IT. Trust me, I feel every bit of the attraction. A 944 can be such an incredibly sexy machine you’d think that sucker runs on hormones. Then add the fact that it’s one of the few real sports cars on the planet. As any true sports car enthusiast can tell you, it’s not really about power - it’s mostly about weight. The 944 has great horsepower to weight ratio, and almost perfect weight distribution. For the unenlightened, this is most of the recipe for fantastic handling.A 944 even boasts a benefit very few sports cars can claim. A person over 6ft tall can actually be quite comfortable in a 944. In fact, I’m 6′2′’ with disproportionately long legs - and I had oodles of legroom. I actually had to move the seat forward to reach the pedals. I seriously think a 7 footer would still have plenty of legroom - which is frankly astonishing.Here are pics of the beauty I owned - briefly.Porsche 944Sooo nice, right? Oh no, so very wrong! All this raw sexiness is a trap. It’s the siren song that leads you down to automotive hell. Such frustration as you have never before known awaits you!First off - you need to be a GOOD mechanic - or you need to know one very well indeed, like in the biblical sense. If you have a sister or a daughter, try to get her to marry him.If you are not a deeply skilled and experienced mechanic, plan on your 944 being at your mechanic’s place more than its at home. A lot more.In addition to needing a damn good mechanic, you will also need nearly infinite patience - and money - scouring the internet looking for almost non-existent parts.Then factor in a few more things… On the rare occasions that it runs, it’s noisy as hell, and not in a good way. It will have endless little “personality traits”, and oh yes - no AC. The heat might work, after about half an hour of warming up the car - assuming it will start at all on a cold morning. The radio might work - more likely not. Not that you can hear the radio if it does work - did I mention it’s noisy?The window mechanisms, door handles & latches all feel like they belong on a toy car. Yes, they break that easily too. The wipers very likely won’t work - especially if you need them. And you simply will not believe how much it costs to fix any of these “little” things!The transmission is really weird. One of the oddest and most controversial engineering/design decisions in automotive history. Just Google “944 transaxle” - you will learn more than you EVER wanted to know. Suffice it to say it’s part of that wonderful near-perfect weight distribution I mentioned, and it’s also a demon, spawned in the Pit.For an enthusiast who’s a very good mechanic, has at least one other reliable set of wheels, lots of tools and a nice warm garage, and who loves to work on “fine German engineering”, a 944 is a thing of beauty. It can also undeniably deliver moments. Moments at the very pinnacle of driving joy, say for instance when cornering thru a twisty canyon road - or perhaps on a lovely road near the seashore - on a fine spring day. And if you have the money and the inclination, take it to the track. By all means!If you are such a mechanic/enthusiast - or if you have an overabundance of money and need something to spend piles of it on… Go right ahead, a 944 is right up your alley - and it has rare rewards waiting for you.But for a FIRST CAR?! For a typical broke teenager? OMG… No. No, no, no, no, NO! Run! Run away - and keep running!!If you can find one, (and fit in it!) buy a used Mazda MX-5 (Miata). It’s nowhere near as sexy (I know!) but you will be much happier. An MX-5 is widely acclaimed as one of the finest true sports cars in the world - and it won’t break every few days! You can actually stand to drive it every day, and a normal human can even afford to fix it, if it (very rarely) breaks.I know, I know… You have your sights set on something badass - and a Miata doesn’t cut it. So buy a Toyota MR-2, or an old AE86. A Honda S-2000. Maybe even an old Ford Mustang or Chevy Camaro! But if you are foolish enough to buy an old 944… you will hate it beyond all imagining. It will suck up every dollar you ever make, while you ride your 10-speed to work.It will guarantee that you never have a date.Smarter people will laugh at you - and have no pity.

True story:In 1994 I was driving a Jeep Cherokee and starting to make some real coin. I was thinking of getting something exotic, and then out of the blue my Cherokee was stolen.I proceed to test-drive some used exotics. A Ferrari 400 (4 door), Maserati Biturbo, a Lotus Esprit. They were… temperamental. The Lotus in particular just felt fragile.Then I went and looked at a 1986 Porsche 944 Turbo. I talked to my friend the Porsche mechanic. He said “Here’s the thing. Porsches are supercars, but they are built to be as reliable as a Volkswagen.”I bought the 944 and used it as my daily drive for 4 years, followed by a 1988 911 and a 1989 930. In 10 years, the only work I ever did on those cars was a power steering pump on the 944 and a new clutch on the 930. All in, they cost less per year in maintenance than my wife’s Honda.

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