Gav’s Garage Project 928 EV

Hello fellow Porsche Club members, passionate Porsche promoters and readers, welcome to my journey: Back to the Track.

Having had the thrills of winning third place in Class B, PCQ Motorsport sprints in 2004 in my 951 and the spills, like shortening my 944 coming onto the straight at Lakeside but having to give up my beloved 944T and donate the funds to my mortgage during the GFC was a major downside. I wanted to return to the much-loved purpose of buying a race-proven and designed marque like Porsche and go back racing or at least Club sprints again.

So, being an Electrical Engineer, I decided, like Porsche AG, to go Back to the Future. If you count down from the 997, 996, etc back to Porsche’s Project 1 (P1), you’ll recall it was electric. The P1 was an electric hub drive horseless carriage designed by Ferdinand Porsche. The future of cars, as recently announced by Porsche, is now back to electric. As a matter of interest, the details of the P1 are: And so begins the long and winding road of my own Porsche EV. Having not recently won lotto, or gone with my bags of cash to the High Rollers club at Star Casino and bet a fortune on 32 black, I can’t just go into the Porsche showroom and buy a Taycan, which, at the time of writing was the fastest production car to lap the Nürburgring.

Having experienced the awesome power of a Taycan Turbo S, with 751bhp/561kW via all four wheels, and an acceleration rate of 2.8 secs to reach 100 kph, road conditions prevented the car from reaching its top speed of 260 km/h. You can feel your face deforming and the push back into the seat from the initial acceleration is what all Porsche racers desire. There is no wait for the turbo to spool up such as in my 944T or any 930T. So, I decided to build my own EV, for hopefully a little less money.

Manufacturer: Porsche Automotive Production: 1898 Assembly: Austria Designer: Ferdinand Porsche Class: Electric car Powertrain: Single speed Battery: Tudor batteries Range: Approximately 49 miles (79 kms) Having started with a front engine, rear wheel drive side of the Porsche camp, and still having memories of the screeching sounds of Alan, the Spin-Out King, going into Hungry at Lakeside, back when the 911 was a bit tail heavy, I decided to stay with a front-engine car and determined that the 928 was the ideal car. It had more space and could accommodate the weight of the batteries. After searching the on-line sales sites, I managed to find one that already had the engine removed.

So, I donned my mask but no cape, remembering it was during Covid and took the morning flight to Sydney. After enduring further mask mandates and listening to Arabic music in the taxi from the airport, inspected and paid for the donor car after checking it wasn’t stolen or encumbered. Fortunately, the owner could be classified as a “motivated seller”’. The car was located amid a building about to be demolished the next day for a housing project in Crows Nest. A local towie was organised to remove the vehicle, while I flew back to the Gold Coast. I was once again the proud owner of another Porsche. This time a 1980 928S, minus the S, Hong Kong import

As the home garage was full of valuable memories from the past ie left over junk I never bothered to get rid of since moving to the Gold Coast. I’m sure a lot of readers can relate to that. So, the home garage option was a no go. After organising an interstate towie to drop the car off outside a friend’s place in an industrial area of Nerang, I rushed to get a local towie to have it moved into a spare carport at a Retirement Village. At the same time, the local Police patrol car was slowly circling it, probably on a tip-off that an unregistered Porsche was dumped in the street.

However, the owner of the carport in the Retirement Village turned out to have dementia and couldn’t remember giving permission, and demanded it gone by the next day or he would call the Police. That meant, it was back to option 1, the home garage. After buying a garden shed or two, followed by a late night, relocating all those treasured memories, my back paid the price for not acting earlier. By this stage, I was well acquainted with all the local towies. The car was finally moved to the garage with a foot of clearance on either side. After much drama, I finally had my 928EV project to physically work on, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and after a few stumbles the journey has begun. So, having completed Stephen Covey’s management course and for those who have read his book: “The Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People”, I have just completed Habit 2: “Begin with the end in mind” by putting the Porsche badge on it. This is the end I have in mind.

Work on Project 928EV has begun. The next step is the EV configuration design and parts acquisition, which has now begun, and this will be explained in the next exciting episode of Project 928EV. So, stay tuned, same Porsche page. same Porsche magazine, coming to a letterbox or computer screen near you. To be continued……