[911nut]

Originally Posted by RarlyL8

The way I understand it Porsche had a bunch of 3.3T CIS 930 engines when the 965 was stillborn in the late 80's (partially due to price overrun). They used the engines they had through 1994 in the 964T saving a ton of money. The Carrera went on in '84 with Motronic/EFI and then the 964 in '89.

What I've read was that Porsche was in tremendous financial trouble in '89 mostly due to antiquated product design and assembly methods. They are a small company and didn't have the manpower or budget to develop the 965 3.6 EFI Turbo engine alongside the n/a 964 engine they were developing to launch the new car.
The 930 was the company's cash cow ($40-50k premium for not a lot of extra content) but was going out of production with the other accordion-bumpered cars. The 930 engine could still meet the U.S. emissions standards almost as-is so they went ahead and developed the 965 for minimum cost, as a way to bring much-needed capital into the company.