[Cobalt]

Redbook, Peter Morgan and Adrian Streather are all incorrect. I know this has been the published numbers for a long time and I have been trying to get people to understand that they are all incorrect.

I had been arguing this for well over a decade but nobody believed me until Porsche noted in Classic book volume 2 that vin numbers 001-060 are not used for production vehicles starting with the 964. All vin numbers begin with 061 instead of 001.

All the last vin numbers are known but you need to subtract 60 from the total number based off the last known vin.

Last known vin
Coupes...1608-60 = 1548
targas......746-60 = 686
cabs.......2207-60 = 2147
turbos......674-60 = 614

This is applied to each and every vin number for both US and ROW production. I had run several threads over on rennlist and nobody has been able to produce a single vin below 061 for any model.

We also don't have a full understanding of how many cars were double counted due to code M718 which changes the vin from the prior MY to a year later. This applied to US spec cars only. In the case of the 1994 turbo 3.6 for example we know the last vin number is 466 for 1994 although the first 288 units were actually produced in 1993 and sold as 1994 MY cars via option M718 and the engines and transmissions all carry a P code but the vin number carries an R code. These cars for a long time were double counted as 93 and 94 MY cars and many reputable sources claimed a total of 754 were imported in US spec. In actuality there were the 39 known turbo S Flachbau's, 15 turbo S package cars and 335 US spec stock 94 turbos imported to the US an additional 13 stock turbos went to Canada 2 more with the X33 power package and 2 more of the turbo S package cars. This info was verified by Gabriel and Franz in their book on air cooled Porsche's. Add these numbers up and you get 406 but you need to subtract the turbo S and package cars out as they fall into an entirely different category.

So as you can see there are a considerable number less of the 964's produced than everyone seems to believe. The known sources won't admit to their errors and we have not seen any change in these numbers which needs to be corrected.