The first production Porsche 930 was introduced at the 1974 Paris Motor Show to homologate the 934 group 4 race car and 935 group 5 car. The 930 became a production model in 1975 and was marketed as the 911 Turbo. The 930 didn’t come to the US until 1976 where it wore the Turbo Carrera badge.
While modest by today’s standards, the early turbo had a 3.0 liter air cooled naturally aspirated engine and single turbocharger and set a new performance benchmark for Porsche. Only 274 customer examples were built in 1975, and it’s estimated that only ~100 of them are still known to exist (totally unverified and pulled from the Interwebs).
Known for its power, massive turbo lag, and tendency for snap oversteer, the 930 earned the nickname “The Widowmaker”. The car lacked any driving aids, no traction control, ABS and was under-braked for the power it had. Lift mid-corner, bad news. Turbo kicks in mid-corner, bad news. Come in too hot expecting the brakes to save you, bad news. It attracted drivers with more money than sense and several of them ended up wrapped around a tree.
In the hands of a skilled driver, that understands the nature of these early Porsche Turbos, the cars are engaging, visceral, and nimble given they only weighed ~2500 lbs. The 1975 was the lightest production Turbo that Porsche would ever produce.
Here’s a great article for a more detailed look from Stuttcars.com
Ryan Snodgrass wrote the definitive guide to these early Turbos and I highly suggest picking up a copy of his book if you are serious about these cars.
“Without the 3.0-liter Turbo, Porsche’s turbocharged racing story would be a shadow of what it is today and, perhaps, Porsche would never have achieved the reputation of being the groundbreaking, technology-driven manufacturer that it still trades on today.” – Ryan Snodgrass
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