You need to be either willing or able to wrench. Buy every tool in the book the day you buy one.
Research the difference between the Early (pre 85.5) and late (after 85.5) cars and pick which one you'd like.
The NAs are simplistic and fun but slow. You lose out on upgraded suspension, a more powerful engine, a better looking front-end (other than the S2) upgraded brakes, and bigger wider tires stock. You will end up spending the difference or more LS swapping or trying to meet or pass turbo specs with an NA -- keep this in mind.
Turbos can easily be chipped and put down ~250-280whp.
Buy a running one, preferably the best example you can find, which will not be cheap -- this is where people fuck themselves by looking at cheaper un-maintained cars.
Do all the preventative maintenance the day you buy it. Waterpump/timing belt, new plugs/wires, new battery, etc.
They're fun cars and get a lot of attention on the road and gas stations. Very DD-able as long as you have alot of time/patience and saved cash to keep it going -- they aren't hondas that can go 300k on just gas and oil.
Julian Jenkins
Have you guys noticed how the 1970s-1990s transaxle Porsches all seem to fall into a sort of a Project Management Triangle? As in, instead of having to choose two out of three in the "Fast, Cheap and Good" scheme, you have to choose between these three:
>Good performance >Reliability >Affordability
The 924 is by far the most affordable Porsche and, since it was mostly engineered with sturdy Volkswagen and Audi parts that are widely available on the aftermarket, you can at the very least expect some reliability, but the performance is nowhere on the pace of its successors.
The 944 is still pretty affordable and the handling is easily amongst the best for a 1980s car but relying on it as a daily drive without any form of back-up is pure madness.
Same goes for the 928, it's even more powerful than the 944 and, despite being slightly more expensive, you can still find one in decent condition for less than 10k, but don't expect anything but pain when the rare and expensive engineering intricacies and the incredibly obsolete engine computer dies down on you.
The 968 is easily the most well engineered out of the four, it has superb performance (especially the Club Sports version) and, being the most recent, it is also easily the most reliable, but you're certainly not going to find one in proper working condition for less than 10k.
