I’ve owned a couple of 1980s Porsches and like to think I’m reasonably well informed on what the Stuttgart firm was doing during that decade. But it looks like I need to get back to Porsche fanboy school because today I learned about a car I had no idea even existed, and it’s spectacularly cool.
Technically, the car I’m talking about isn’t a car at all, but a combination of options that I didn’t know was available until I spotted this example for sale on Bring a Trailer. It’s a 1987 Carrera coupe with the M491 Turbo Look package that included the wider front and rear fenders, brakes and suspension from the real 930, the 911 Turbo of the time. In the UK it was known as the Carrera Super Sport.
Though that lot all added weight, making the M491 cars slower in both acceleration and top speed than the stock Carreras that used the same 3.2-liter naturally-aspirated flat six, it really did add some visual clout. But what makes this particular M491 car even more special is that its original owner also specified the M470 spoiler delete option for his Grand Prix white coupe.
Related: Lanzante’s F1-Powered Porsche 930 TAG Turbo Is Even Cooler Than The AMG One
Ticking that box removed the big Turbo tea-tray at the back, but it also removed the front air dam too, because leaving one and ditching the other wouldn’t have been a smart thing to do from an aerodynamic and stability point of view. The result is a car with huge swollen fenders but a much cleaner appearance overall than a Turbo or the usual Turbo Look Carrera. It looks a bit like an early prototype for one of Singer’s restomodded 911s.
According to the ad, only eight cars were built with those two major options that year, and being a 1987 model 911, this one has the much improved G50 transmission, which makes the driving experience feel far less Beetle-like. Emissions-choked U.S. versions of the engine it bolts to were rated at 217 hp (220 PS) and 195 lb-ft (264 Nm) of torque, and this one should still be in good condition since the car has only covered 71,000 miles (114,000 km).
Would you have ticked the spoiler delete box if you’d been speccing your Carrera with the Turbo Look package, or are you a sucker for the Turbo rear wing? You can check out the full auction listing on Bring a Trailer to help you make up your mind.
