DISCOVERING THE LAST CIS CARRERA EVER MADE

Discovering the Last CIS Carrera Ever Made

Now living a quiet retirement on Japan’s Shikoku island, what you’re looking at here is the last of the line for a very particular type of Porsche 911.

If you were to walk into an American dealership back in 1975, before the 930 Turbo was introduced of course, and you asked to see the top-of-the-range road going 911, they’d point you to this. It’s a 2.7 litre Carrera CIS, with “CIS” referring to a fuel injection system only ever fitted to these US market cars. This one is owned by Marcus, and it happens to be the last one ever sold.

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It’s an incredibly unique car, painted in a PTS shade of Slate Grey with an interior to match. From new, the car passed through a series of fastidious owners, keeping it preserved in as-new condition until it finally made its way to Japan in 2017 with its original engine, transmission, and chassis still intact.

“I wasn’t looking for this car” says Marcus. “I was chasing a ghost, my father’s long-lost Speedway Green 911. What I stumbled on was something else entirely. At first I overlooked it, I was still stuck on MFI cars, but the Slate Grey spoke to me. The car’s soul; yes, it has one, reeled me in”.

An MFI car refers to the European market equivalent of the CIS. An MFI car has a mechanically identical engine to the one housed in the 1973 2.7RS, so naturally they’re more desirable. The US delivered cars were fitted with the CIS system to meet emissions regulations, but there are more reasons than you might think for why they sometimes make for better cars.

“After driving it, I was stunned. The CIS engine had a smooth urgency that my MFI didn’t. On the highway it surprised me with its responsiveness. I had owned a few Carreras, including a beautifully restored MFI car, but it never connected with me. It wasn’t until I drove this car that I understood what I’d been missing.

There’s still some mystery about this Slate Grey finish. The original owners didn’t order it that way, and Vasek Polak, the original dealer, didn’t have an answer either. Was it a custom build by Porsche to quietly honour the end of the CIS line? A final one-off flourish? I guess I’ll never know”.

“After driving it, I was stunned. The CIS engine had a smooth urgency that my MFI didn’t. On the highway it surprised me with its responsiveness."

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For Marcus, owning the last ever 2.7 CIS is a responsibility he takes seriously, appreciating the car for its essential character, not for what it seemingly lacks.

Though it looks very much at home in Japan, the sugar scoop headlights do give the car away as a US market original, one of many details that Marcus has gone to great lengths to preserve.

“Every part has its own backstory. Even the toolkit was pieced together with the help of friends like Cem Ozbey, who helped find the missing pieces. A one-year-only fuel line? Bryce at Aase Porsche tracked one down. I also swapped the radio for something period-correct and a previous owner found the original headlight covers and kindly sent them to me. These little efforts weren’t chores, just tributes to a car that had already survived half a century.”

Conventional wisdom would have it that a CIS car isn’t worth preserving, that it was a lesser machine than its Euro spec equivalent. Those who know these systems tell a different story. The CIS engines produce less power, but they’re considerably more tractable at lower revs, easier to tune, and smoother in stop-start traffic. The CIS system is also less prone to mechanical wear and requires very little maintenance to run well, even in a daily driver, which was a job that it was particularly well suited to.

For Marcus, owning the last ever 2.7 CIS is a responsibility he takes seriously, appreciating the car for its essential character, not for what it seemingly lacks. In any other hands this car may well have been gutted, engine swapped, or lost to history entirely. We’re glad it ended up where it did however, winding around the roads of Shikoku island. Far from home, but right where it needed to be.