Porsche’s fabulous 968 Turbo RS

The story of the fabulous 968 Turbo RS, one of Porsche’s sweetest front-engined racers, might be full of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if only’ but it is also certainly a story of lost opportunities.
The end of the 1992 motor sport season saw the curtain fall on Group C racing, which was quite possibly one of the most lively, innovative and spectacular decades in motor sport in recent times. From 1982 up until around 1987/1988, Porsche dominated this period with its 956 and 962 models, after which Mercedes, Jaguar, Nissan and Toyota increasingly gained the upper hand in the latter years of Group C which ended in 1992.

Between 1982 and 1992, the production of Porsche road cars seesawed with the front-engined 924 and 928 models losing market popularity. Fortunately, sales of the 911 and 944 models were buoyant and kept the company afloat, and in 1992, Porsche’s final version of the front-engined 4-cylinder models, the 968, was introduced. The 968’s design was the work of Harm Lagaaij, who had also been responsible for the design of the Porsche 924 back in the early 1970s. Lagaaij, a Dutch-born designer, left Porsche in 1977 for a stint first at Ford and then at BMW, before he was enticed back to Porsche in 1989, where he was responsible for designing the successor to the 944, the 968.