[DFWX]

When a car company is owned by an individual or family, they build cars as they wish to their own desires - resulting often in the best and worse designs, and for Porsche that is the 911. It has always been the 911 back to when Porsche after creating the VW decided he wanted a souped up VW with a custom body - which is what an early Porsche basically was.
Of course, whoever owns a car company can do as they wish...
It is clear they did not really care for the 928. Once the fear of outlawing of rear engines passed with GM releasing the Fiero, it was essentially the end of the 928 in any development with only minor - very minor - changes. For 18 years no substantive change in the body, chassis or interior.
But, then, to Porsche the 928 really is not a Porsche. It was exactly everything a 911 was not and visa versa. Thus, with the 911 out of the water, Porsche to a to-hell-with-that-thing, and just ran out the 928 and 944 series until they were such an old and repeated body style sales fell off.Porsche had been arguing on behalf of and then defending the rear engine, rear wheel combination for decades and stuck with it.
Endlessly more style 911 models over the years -so many now it like trying to count stars in the sky. Wide body, semi-flaired fenders, no flairs, turbo, targa, convertable, slant nose, whale tail... then change the body a bit and also give the 911 names, Boxster, Carrera...
I guess if I owned a car company, I would make the car I wanted to make too.
Where I believe the 928 fits in the history of Porsche and automobiles in general is my contention that the 928 saved the rear engined car, and is what defined Porsche as a supercar in the minds of the public.
Would it have worked as ongoing lines if Porsche had reskinned the 928 and particularly popular 944 series? The probably answer of Porsche was "who cares about those, they are not really Porsche, they were just a necessary concession and diversion."
What if Porsche had but the 944 turbo to the 928? The bore, stroke, heads, rods, pistons identical? The result would have been a 500h horsepower GT 2+2 unlike the world had ever seen in the mid 80s.
Such is the project among all the 928s I now have.
Now having a 928 with the early 4.5 V-16 motor with a turbo, I can comment that such a combination makes for an radically fast muscle car given the generally superior torque and horsepower curve of the 928.
The next step is to replace the 4.5 16V with a 32 valve, 4 cam 5.0 in turbo form and with the modern engine management (TEC 3) in a 1986 1/2 with the dual piston discs, dual clutch plates etc, and to somewhat modify the body on the front with an old aftermarket kit (discontinued) for different headlight profile (hidaway), wider flairs and updated nose, with a tad of flair to the rear fenders, with it already having CUP wheels...
This is the threat Porsche had as a retailiation if their 911 was outlawed - a threat then did not have to execute and instead just dropped front engined models and back to only the 911 in all its forms. Yet I suspect, that although now all of 20 year old designed, that car (a 32 V turbo 928) is a potent as any 4 seater made in the world today - and it was a car Porsche could have off the line in under 30 days as all the components and design work done in the 1/2 928 motor as is the 944 turbo.
It was the 928 and only the 928 that earned Porsche "world's fastest" and a fair number of times. It could have kept doing so if Porsche had cared to do so. Easily with the 944 turbo setup.
Would a turbo charged 32 valve 5.0 928 have been such an incredible supercar?
I should know in about 3 months...