This is Magnus Walker’s 1977 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera, it’s the car that appeared in the Turbo Fever film and was later featured in both Porsche Fahrer and Total 911 magazines.
The car is now being offered for sale out of Magnus’ private collection on Bring a Trailer. It comes with service records, magazines featuring the car, a Porsche Production Specifications Certificate, and a clean California title in the Walker’s name.
Fast Facts – The Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera
- The first Porsche 911 Turbo, better known as the 930, is a sports car that’s both loved and feared. It has a reputation as a widowmaker given the fact that the car has a rear weight bias and fist-fulls of turbo lag, but once mastered it offers one of the most rewarding driving experiences out there.
- Porsche began experimenting with turbocharging in the late 1960s, the project to create a turbocharged version of the 911 started in earnest in 1972. The original plan was to develop both race and road going versions of the car – the latter to meet Group 4 and Group 5 homologation regulations.
- The Porsche 930 officially debuted in 1975, it was powered by a 3.0 liter version of the Porsche flat-six that was fitted with a single KKK turbocharger and it offered power output of 256 bhp at 5,500 rpm and 243 lb ft of torque at 4,000 rpm.
- The Porsche 930 you see here has been in the personal collection of automotive icon Magnus Walker since 2013. The car featured in Magnus Walker’s “Turbo Fever” film and it’s been showcased in both Porsche Fahrer and Total 911 magazines. It’s now being offered for sale by Walker out of Los Angeles, California.
The Mighty Porsche 930 Turbo
There are few cars in history with a reputation that is at once both broadly admired and generally feared as the Porsche 930, often just referred to as the first Porsche 911 Turbo. The car is known as a widowmaker and it’s not a reputation it acquired altogether unfairly, that said, once you master the rear weight bias and the turbo lag it’s one of the most truly engaging driving experiences there is.
Magnus Walker is well-known in classic car circles and is one of the most famous Porschephiles on earth, but interestingly he got his start in the fashion industry.
The first turbo 911 almost entirely owed its existence to the FIA’s homologation rules for Group 4 and Group 5 racing. Long story short, Porsche wanted to take turbocharged versions of the 911 racing and the homologation requirements for Group 4 were that a minimum of 400 cars had to be sold over a period of 24 months through the manufacturer’s regular dealerships to consumers.
If there were any concerns at Porsche about being able to sell enough 930s to meet those homologation requirements there needn’t have been. The company introduced the 930 in 1975, they sold enough to homologate it by December that same year, and by May of 1976 they had sold 1,000 of them.
The 911 Turbo became a cult classic almost immediately and the two racing cars based on the 930 platform, the 934 and 935, were among the most successful sports racing cars of their time.
The early years of the production Porsche 930 were marked by a constant series of changes and upgrades, the earliest cars were powered by the Porsche 3.9 liter flat-six with a single KKK turbocharger, no intercooler, and power output of 256 bhp at 5,500 rpm and 243 lb ft of torque at 4,000 rpm (though these numbers could vary depending on region).
This 1977 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera is finished in Ice Green Metallic over an over Dark Green leather interior. Walker has owned the car for a decade and is now offering it for sale out of LA, California.
The early 930s were given revised suspension over the standard 911, as well as larger brakes, and a stronger 4-speed gearbox versus the 5-speed gearbox used in the naturally aspirated car. A distinctive “whale tail” spoiler was fitted to the rear of the car to channel air through the engine bay and to generate more downforce and keep the tail of the car planted at speed.
Wider tires and wheels necessitated wider wheel arches, which helped give the 930 its characteristic wide body look which it would keep for many years to come. The non-turbo 911 would later be offered as a wide body due to the popularity of the styling.
For 1978 the 3.3 liter intercooled 930 Turbo would be introduced, it offered more power and a slew of other upgrades, however the earlier 3.0 liter 930s are today considered the most desirable by many and their values certainly reflect this.
Above Video: This is the complete “Turbo Fever” film. In it Magnus Walker talks through the history of the Porsche 930 and his own collection of early 3.0 liter cars. He discusses their engineering and handling characteristics, and the Ice Green Metallic 930 shown in this article features in the film.
Magnus Walker’s 1977 Porsche 930 Turbo
Magnus Walker has become one of the most recognizable people in the global Porsche community, if not the most recognizable outright. Interestingly, he started out not in the automotive world but in the fashion world.
Walker was born and raised in Sheffield, England and showed an early interest in Porsche thanks to a visit to the 1977 Earl’s Court Motor Show with his father when he was 10 years old. He got into the punk rock and heavy metal scenes as a teenager and in 1986 he made the fateful decision to move to the United States.
The Dark Green leather interior features classic Porsche Black Watch Tartan seat inserts – a look that came to characterize many Porsches of the era.
Having learned how to sew from his mother as a boy, Walker soon began customizing and designing his own clothing, he established a shop on Venice Beach. The popularity of the designs skyrocketed, soon he had a store on Melrose Avenue in LA and his designs were being worn by everyone from Madonna and Alice Cooper to Bruce Willis.
Soon he found himself in a position to fulfill that childhood dream and buy himself a Porsche 911, he acquired a 1974 model in 1992 and in the years since has added many more Porsches to the collection.
He bought the 1977 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera shown in this article in 2013, the car is finished in Ice Green Metallic over a over Dark Green leather interior, with power provided by the original 3.0 liter KKK turbocharged flat-six.
The car has power-assisted four-wheel disc brakes, 16″ staggered-width Fuchs alloy wheels front and back, fog lamps, headlight washers, black Turbo Strobe side stripes, an electric sunroof, a whale tail rear spoiler, power windows, Black Watch Tartan seat inserts, and air conditioning.
Power is provided by the original 3.0 liter KKK turbocharged flat-six, sending power to the rear wheels via a 4-speed manual transmission.
It was given a servicing earlier in 2023 which included dry-ice blasting the underside, overhauling the tachometer and distributor, and replacing the clutch, ignition components, oil thermostat, fuel accumulator, oil lines, sway bar bushings, battery, and tires.
Walker is now offering the car for sale out of Los Angeles, California and it comes with a factory workshop service manual, manufacturer’s literature, the toolkit and jack, a portable tire inflator, service records, magazines featuring the car, a Porsche Production Specifications Certificate, and a clean California title in his name.
If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here on Bring a Trailer.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
