1975 Porsche 911 Turbo

With an RSR as the test bed, Porsche began to experiment more seriously with turbocharging. The concept proved successful and the 911 was forever changed. Porsche's innovation on the track often found its way into the road cars, and the turbo was no exception. The Turbo Carrera, known as the 930, was introduced in 1975 and featured the venerable 3.0-liter with a single turbocharger. The car was viciously fast and the turbo lag was often too much to handle for inexperienced drivers, who quickly found themselves facing the wrong way on a corner. The 930 Turbo was one of the fastest production cars of the era and easily outperformed its contemporaries.

The glorious whirlwind of performance vehicles of the 1960s were quickly extinguished in the 1970s brought about stricter safety and emission regulations. The cravings of the performance-starved world were laid to rest when Porsche introduced their Turbocharged 911 in 1971. Internally dubbed the Type 930, it featured a three-liter air-cooled six-cylinder engine backed by a KKK turbocharger. With maximum pressure of .8 Bar, or about 11.5 psi, the engine developed an impressive 260 brake horsepower at 5,500 rpm and 253 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000 rpm.

The exterior amplified its sporty persona, with muscular bodywork, flared front fenders and rear quarter-panels, and 15-inch diameter Fuchs forged aluminum road wheels, seven inches wide in front and eight inches in the rear. The dramatic look continued to the rear, where a 'whale-tail' spoiler was added to provide additional down-force and to provide cooling to the engine compartment by way of a separate intake grille. A deep chin spoiler was added below the nose to balance the handling.

Zero-to-sixty mph was accomplished in about six seconds flat, and maximum speed approached 160 mph.

By Daniel Vaughan | Apr 2017