Why you should buy an early Porsche 944 NA (Naturally Aspirated)

These were the Miata before Miata!
From our perspective there is so much in common between the Alfa S4 and Porsche 944 NA that most auto experts miss. First both cars are front engine rear wheel drive cars with the differential sitting at the rear of the car creating a close 50/50 weight balance. Both have a 5 speed transmission designed by Porsche. The fuel injection system is Bosch Motronic which is one of the most reliable systems to be found in cars from the 1980s to 1990s.

Simple to Work on in home garage.
One of the things we liked about owning these 2 classics is that we use all the same products like Valvoline Vr1 20w50 for oil. Redline Gear Oil, ATE TYP Gold brake fluid...
Both cars are about 1200kg, 0-60 in 8.0-8.5 seconds, parts are readily available and reasonable in cost. Also nothing is exotic or complicated mechanically in these cars any competent mechanic can work on them. Finally the best part is with time and some effort anyone can do all the work at home on these two cars.

1980's Transaxle Icon.
The Porsche 944 was made from 1982 in Europe and 1983 in North America and continued til 1991. The initial NA (Naturally Aspirated) models were a 2.5L 4 cylinder, then in 1989 went to 2.7L, and the 3.0L in 1990-1991 as the S2 versions. The 1985 - 1991 Turbos were always 2.5L with power going for 220hp-250hp, and they represented fastest cars of the 944. In our opinion the best cars are NA and either early 2.5L or 3.0L S2 Models. We are looking at these 30 years later and none of these cars are fast by today's even the Turbo S models would be beaten by today's economy cars. Also everything these days has turbo so it's no longer special, but naturally aspirated cars are a dying breed so is a manual transmission. Also the S2 NA models are similar power as the turbos and performance. Some people will say you can tune a turbo to 400hp plus but this is not the point of owning a classic in our opinion plus if you're into tuning modern cars are so easy to tune.

Skip the Turbo get an early model with no power steering.
Our goal here at SASI is to focus on NA cars with Manual transmission, we want the cars to drive like they did when new, we will upgrade to modern sticky tires and tweak suspension, maybe intake or exhaust to give an OEM plus performance. In general we do not want to change the character of the car or enhance it's capabilities beyond how it was engineered. Classic cars are like a time machine to take you back to the past. We love modern performance of the current GT3 or Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifolio GTA. Now this brings us to our next two cars Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm one of the greatest classic Alfa's and the Porsche 911 RSR.