THE TUSCAN TURBO

The Tuscan Turbo

Getting to know Fabio Don and his box-fresh 1978 Porsche 911 Turbo.

Finished in the rare shade of Talbotgelb, Fabio Don’s Porsche 930 Turbo is finally back on the road following an 18 month long refurb, one that slowly woke it from a long slumber in a garage in Tuscany where it had been tucked away since 1996.

“The colour was love at first sight, I remember walking into the storage space with my mechanic, already looking for any possible excuse to buy it without any knowledge of its mechanical condition. Fortunately my mechanic agreed, confirming that it was complete and in excellent overall condition, despite having been out of service for over 20 years.”

Fabio is a regular in Milan’s Porsche scene, he’s often spotted driving around the city in his 1980 911SC, his very first car and one that remains his daily driver. So far as he’s concerned, that’s a car that will never need replacing, so he wasn’t on the lookout for another 911, particularly not for one so close in production year to the SC. When he received a tipoff about this Turbo however, you couldn’t blame him for at least going to check it out.

“The reputation of this particular model is infamous, along with its nickname, the widow maker. It always reminds me never to get married! I kept the car completely stock, simply restoring the engine, gearbox, brakes and suspension. The SC is still my everyday car, but I like to drive the Turbo on weekends or on longer trips when I’m on vacation. Its first official outing was at last year’s Tutto Bene Hillclimb. The engine was still being run in so I decided against driving it in the event, but it was the perfect way to baptise the car!

There’s something special about the way the boost kicks in on the 930 Turbo. It’s rather abrupt compared to current turbocharged cars. You have to learn to get to know it, respect its reputation and modulate its operation. It reacts differently depending on the outside air temperature, producing more power in cooler, denser air and less in warm temperatures, where the intercooler runs less efficiently. All this makes the car seem less mechanical and more alive to me, as though it has a soul.”

On the timeline of 930 Turbos, Fabio’s car is a fairly early example. Delivered in 1978, it was among the first 150 built with the newly upgraded 3.3 litre engine, an improvement on the earliest cars, but still among the days when turbocharging on any road car was in its infancy. In the right hands the technology was effective, but crude. It demanded a heightened sense of caution from the user, and it was known to bite if approached a bit too casually.

"The reputation of this particular model is infamous, along with its nickname, the widow maker. It always reminds me never to get married!"

On the timeline of 930 Turbos, Fabio’s car is a fairly early example. Delivered in 1978, it was among the first 150 built with the newly upgraded 3.3 litre engine, an improvement on the earliest cars, but still among the days when turbocharging on any road car was in its infancy.

“One of the features that immediately appealed to me was the fact that the car only had one side mirror, a sort of ‘monospecchio’ in Porsche form. Back then a second mirror was available at additional cost. It also doesn’t have a sunroof, which makes the car feel sleek and rather minimalist to me.”

Talbotgelb was a shade of yellow available on very few years for the Turbo, so there really aren’t many like Fabio’s example. The 930 is thought of as a distinctly 80s car, often only seen in very 80s specs of red, silver or black. Once in a while however, an early car like this pops up in a shade that so obviously reminds us of its 70s roots. If its seems a lairy car today, it’s hard to imagine how outlandish a thing it would have been compared with anything else it once shared the road with.