Weird Wagons: Porsche 924 DP Cargo

It seems as though the 1980s made anything possible when it came to cars.

Seatbelts were a thing, sure. But airbags were fancy new future tech, and regulations didn’t require you to survive even a low speed collision. After all, it was the decade that introduced us to Group B rally.

Coachbuilders, once on the fringe of post-war extinction, enjoyed a renaissance during the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bertone, Pininfarina and Giugiaro were dropping space-age wedges left right and centre.

Some other companies tried to have a crack, too, not to miss out on all the coachbuilt glory. One of them was German Porsche tuner DP Motorsport.

In 1986 they built this: The Porsche 924 DP Cargo.

Wagonised. (image credit: Gmund cars)

The tuning house does various modifications to Porsche cars to lighten and tune them up, even increase specification or ‘optimise’ the body in different ways, but this design for the 924/944 is by far the most extreme.

It’s a 1977 base 924, upgraded mechanically to 924 Turbo spec and given that wild wagon-back coachwork. The extra parts to construct the roof and frame were sourced from Volkswagen Passats headed for the scrapper. Only nine cars were ever delivered.

Woah, that's a funky back-end. (image credit: Gmund cars)

Inside, the tuning house would provide matching leather, roof liner and boot floor to ensure that this is no simple hack job. DP cars reportedly had the equipment for 5-10 more cars, but nobody took them up on the offer.

To order one you’d need to have a donor car, separate yourself from around USD$30,000, and wait two months. Worth it? We’d argue: probably.

You can still get '90s computer grey to bring out your inner businessman. (image credit: Gmund cars)

DP cars say on their own website that this ‘kit’ was only for 944s but given this car’s chassis is dated 1977, it must be a (pre-Turbo) 924, which alone makes it unique.

Assuming DP Motorsport did little else to upgrade the internals the 924 at European Turbo spec produced 130kW from the 2.0-litre four-cylinder EA831 block sourced from Audi. It is unclear whether this car received the upgraded ‘Series 2’ version of this motor with 132kW and better reliability.

This exact car was put up for sale over on Gmund Cars for AU$46,000. For one of nine cars, that mightn’t be a bad buy.

Would you carry cargo in this weird 924? Tell us what you think in the comments.

This is part of a series on Weird Wagons - see more here:

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Weird Wagons: Ferrari 456 Venice
Weird Wagons: Saab 900 Safari
Weird Wagons: Mercedes-Benz 300 Messwagen
Weird Wagons: Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX Wagon
Weird Wagons: Bentley Continetal Flying Star
Weird Wagons: Subaru Impreza Casa Blanca
Weird Wagons: Toyota Classic
Weird Wagons: Maserati Bellagio Fastback