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I’m going to take a break from “regular” Porsches to go to the full length of excess, at least with regard to road cars. Here we have a 1988 Porsche 930 Cabriolet with the factory Slantnose option and a mere 9,100 miles on it. By itself it’s nearly a preposterous looking car and while stunning it’s not likely to be a car most would call beautiful. Add to that already rare and interesting design a specially ordered Midnight Blue leather interior with contrasting Red piping along with a burled wood dash and you have a car that’s full of contradictions. It’s both sophisticated and garish. Powerful and dynamically befuddling, but capable of relaxed top-down cruising with the wind in your hair and sun on your face. There are few cars in Porsche’s history more polarizing than a 930 Slantnose, with the Cabriolet raising that bar even further. But they are extremely rare and desirable nonetheless and near impossible to find in this condition.
Porsche’s 935-derived Slantnose option, made available throughout most of the ’80s, remains a polarizing design among 911 enthusiasts. Because it alters the iconic profile of the 911, through the removal of its forward-pointing head lamps, some have always felt it was a detraction rather than enhancement. Yet, because it replaced that shape with the equally iconic front of the 935 racer the Slantnose does lend an added dose of aggression and purpose to what was already a notable design. It pushes the limits of what we consider over-the-top and epitomizes the excesses we saw in ’80s design. I happen to be a big fan of the design – at least on the Coupe. It is audacious, there is no doubt about that, but if there was ever a car to benefit from an audacious design the 930 fits that mold as well as any other. The second-hand market has found them extremely attractive as well as they tend to garner premiums over a similar condition non-Slatnose 930. The example here is a very striking Grand Prix White 1987 Porsche 930 Slantnose Coupe, located in California, with Bordeaux interior and only 24K miles on it.
Say you want a certain level of audacity in your driving machine, but not too much. You’d like to retain a measure of apparent civility. What are you to do? Well, here’s one possible option: a Silver Metallic 1989 Porsche 930 Slantnose Coupe with a scant 17,800 miles on it. There really aren’t many cars with a more audacious appearance than a 930 Slantnose, at least when viewed through the lens of ’80s excess. Hood vents? Check. Side grills? Check. Enormous spoiler? Check. Crazy performance? Check. These pretty much have it all, which should be no surprise given where that slantnose shape was derived. The 935 always was insane. Yet this one sits in a very understated, but still appealing, Silver Metallic paint that tries its best to subdue the rest of the car. Completely obscuring those lines isn’t possible, but attention is surely diverted, even if only a little.
It feels like it has been a while since I featured a Slantnose. For pure audacity it is one of my favorite designs from Porsche and epitomizes the ’80s style excesses that compliment the 930 so well. The Slantnose isn’t to everyone’s liking as it diverges from one of the 911’s primary design cues, the two forward-pointing round headlamps that immediately signal to any knowledgeable observer exactly what car is approaching. In the case of the Slantnose Porsche reached back to its design of the 935 racer for its inspiration and the design certainly lends an extra degree of aggressiveness to the already aggressive lines of the 930 itself. In Coupe form I absolutely love them; Cabriolets and Targas I am less enamored. But in this case, we have a coupe! A Guards Red 1988 Porsche 930 Slantnose, located in Atlanta, with 33,780 miles on it.
One of the great things about this blog is that we keep a pretty good inventory of rare cars written up, so that when one looks familiar we can go back and check it out. This doesn’t always work, as occasionally we forget that we’ve written one up, such as the S6 Avant I managed to write up twice. However, both of today’s tuner cars appeared on these pages before in one form or another, and I managed to track both down. Later we’ll look at an Alpina B11 3.5 that was seen here five years ago, but with 332 made it was still a bit surprising that the same one popped up for sale. When it came to today’s Ruf BTR Slantnose – one of only five made – I was sure we’d seen it before, and I was somewhat right…
