Junkyard Find: 1977 Porsche 924
These days, nearly all of the Porsches you'll find in American car graveyards will be Cayennes. From the early 1980s through the middle 2010s, the 924 was the Porsche junkyard king, and discarded examples still show up now and then. Here's a first-U.S.-model-year 924 that now resides in Greeley, Colorado.
The original idea behind the 924 was that it was going to be sold as both the cheapest Porsche model and the most expensive Volkswagen model. This had worked, sort of, for the 914.
But then Volkswagen went with the Golf-derived Scirocco as its sporty model and the 924 never got VW badges. It was sold in the United States for the 1977 through 1983 model years (or the 1988 model year, if you consider the 924/944-mashup 924S to be a true 924).
My favorite fun fact about the 924 is that it's the only Porsche ever to share an engine with AMC products. Yes, the AM General DJ-5G Dispatcher, AMC Gremlin, AMC Spirit and AMC Concord were available with the same 2.0-liter SOHC straight-four as the 924 (with different equipment and output numbers, of course).
This engine, the EA831 (seen here in an AMC Concord), had NSU ancestry and was designed originally for the Volkswagen LT commercial truck.
The LT was never sold new in the United States, but I found a gray-market '73 LT van in a Northern California junkyard back in 2014.
Since the EA831 was made for use in rear-wheel-drive trucks with longitudinal mid/front mounting, it was the only cheap engine that VAG had available on the shelf for easy bolting into the planned 924.
In the U.S.-market 1977 Porsche 924, the EA831 was rated at 95 horsepower and 109 lb-ft of torque.
The base transmission was a four-speed manual, and that's what this car has.
The 924 was the replacement for the 914, the entry-level Porsche model for the first half of the 1970s.
Like the 914, it may have been the cheapest Porsche but it still wasn't for the thin of wallet. The MSRP for the 1977 Porsche 924 was $9,395, or about $53,626 in 2026 dollars.
That put it up against some interesting competition. How about a new Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT Coupe with 15 more horsepower for $8,595? Or a Toyota Celica with the same horsepower and more torque for just $4,199?
This car cost a lot more than the MSRP, thanks to some big-ticket options. This power sunroof cost $710, or about $4,053 after inflation. Air conditioning was $548 ($3,128 today).
The high-altitude emissions sticker suggests that this car was sold new in Colorado (or maybe in adjacent Utah, Wyoming, or New Mexico).
Just to confuse non-Germans, the fuel Oktan sticker uses the ROZ/RON system (91 is roughly equivalent to 87 of our Freedom Octane Units).
This Monza exhaust might have added a couple of horses.
I didn't see any rust and some stuff off this car will work on early 944s, so we can assume it will be picked fairly clean before its date with The Crusher.
She will neh-vurr get tired of your Porsche.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A 1977 Porsche 924 in Colorado wrecking yard.
A three-speed automatic transmission was available, but I've never seen one in a junked 924. Here's what the shifter in an automatic 944 looks like, to give you the idea.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Fun fact: When AMC bought these 2.0L engines, there was a contractual agreement that AMC could not advertise the engines with any reference to their VW/Porsche origins.
Coincidentally on Monday afternoon, I found myself driving behind a 924 that was in quite good condition. Found myself thinking that I liked the looks of it now, much more than when they were new.
Of course the 924 was not the first car sold as a Porsche in North America with a VW engine. The 914 shared its engine with the Type IV VW. One reason why it is so difficult to find a running Type IV, as with 914s now being worth something, the engines from Type IV's are being removed for use in rebuilt/restored 914s.