1988 Porsche 944 S - My Car

Through its years, Porsche has made some cars that are slightly more attainable. These have offered a gateway into the Stuttgart-based marque - a taste of the brand without the need to buy a 911.

In the air-cooled days, this was models like the 912, the 924, 944, and 968 - cars that still bore the Porsche name and gave a Porsche experience, but which weren’t quite a 911.

That’s not to say that all of those cars were on the more accessible end of the scale - they’re still Porsches after all, and some fancier versions with more power and more upgrades were made - cars like this 1988 Porsche 944 S.

The 944 S (“S” standing for “Super”) was only produced for a year, between 1987 - ‘88. Featuring a 2.5L naturally-aspirated inline four engine good for 190bhp and 170lb-ft, it was a step up from the 150bhp and 142lb-ft that the non-S of the time made.

Being an upgraded model it was also much rarer than the standard car, with 113k regular 944s produced versus just 13k of the S. Of those, around 253 were imported to the UK - making the condition that this one is in all the more remarkable.

The car itself is owned by Richard Douthwaite, who also owns the 911 Targa we covered recently. A German car man through and through, this is far from his first Porsche and, like his 911 Targa, this is also in excellent condition.

“I do like to get nice examples,” Richard told us. “I like owning nice stuff because you’re proud of it - if a car needs anything, I can’t bear it and have got to get it done. If it’s a kerbed wheel or anything like that it plays on my mind, so everything I’ve got is right.

“That’s why people keep nice cars though isn’t it - because you’ve got that passion for them.”

It’s this passion for cars, and this car in particular, that Richard says helped him to secure it.

See, with only one real owner - it was first owned by the manager of the Porsche service department, who then sold it to the owner before Richard - and with only 68k miles on the clock in almost 40 years, it’s a car that has been cared for. It spent its life in a heated garage, helping to keep everything in check, and came with an incredibly comprehensive list of paperwork. It even has the original sunroof bag - proving that it’s not just been a fast car to thrash and get rid of.

As you can imagine, the owner wasn’t easily parted from it - wanting to know that it was going to be in good hands before allowing it to go.

“I think he needed to meet me a few times to know that he was happy for me to be a custodian [of the car],” Richard explained. “It was phone calls and a couple of meetings… the fact that I wasn’t just going to buy it and flip it was what did it.”

The car had been sat for five years before Richard took ownership of it, so the first task was to essentially give it a full service.

“We’ve done all the belts, pulleys and tensioners, all the fluids and the water pump, new pads, all the retaining clips, fuel lines, brake lines - pretty much everything you need to do after a five-year hibernation,” he mentioned.

Making sure perishable parts have been replaced isn’t the extent of it though - he wants it as period-correct as possible. The car rolls around on Firestone Firehawks, as it would have come out of the factory on, and he’s even custom-printed new license plates with the original dealer’s brand and phone number on.

It all paints the picture of someone who truly is passionate about their cars - with Richard enthusing about being the car’s new caretaker.

“I’m like a kid at Christmas [with it]. It’s not a £300,000 Lamborghini - it’s an old Porsche - but it’s because of what it is and how good it is, I’m really pleased to own it.”

And at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want from a car? It’s a reminder that in today’s ever-expanding car world, where numbers get forever increased, that you don’t need infinite performance or money to be proud of your car. Sometimes all you need is a twisty road, and something you love to drive. And that’s enough.

More on Richard's car can be found on his son's YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/_62HuS37poA?si=rgzu_LVb9mSzoHd_