A MIGHTY WIND

THE 930 TURBO LAUNCHED PORSCHE'S DOMINATION OF THE RACETRACK AND THE SHOWROOM.

- CHRIS CHILTON

TURBO-BADGED PORSCHES have been throttle actuated lumbar support for drivers with money and roads to burn for 50 years. Now Turbo isn’t only the original blown 911 but a brand of its own.

These days, Porsche sells Turbo versions of its gas-powered SUVs and sedans, as well as its Taycan and Macan electrics, despite the fact that EVs don’t have combustion engines let alone turbochargers. But for purists, the only real Porsche Turbo is the one that started it all: the 930. It’s the one whose image still gets stuck to many teenagers’ bedroom walls and whose reputation bustled into hedgerows around the globe.

This Ice Green Turbo, or Turbo Carrera, as it was known in the U.S., is one of the first 30 ever made. It’s tiny like all old 911s, the doors open with that same mechanical click, and you sit so close to the firewall that the windshield wraps around you like an astronaut’s helmet. But this isn’t just an old 911; it’s the origin of the newest one and arguably Porsche’s most important car ever.

For all its aesthetic and cultural appeal, the 1975 Turbo is often dismissed as a fatter, softer follow-up to the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7, a car built to homologate the species for Porsche’s European racing exploits (and never sold in the United States). But the Turbo was also a homologation special, created so Porsche could compete successfully in the World Championship for Makes beginning in 1976 under new Group 5 rules that demanded racers be based on genuine production cars, not just a handful of prototypes like the old 917. If Porsche hadn’t built the 930 for the street, the 935 wouldn’t have cleaned up on the track in the second half of the Seventies.