This Incredible Art-Car Takes A Porsche 928 And Brings It Into The New Millennium

The multiverse has gone mainstream. From multiple recent Marvel films playing with inter-dimensional travel to Everything Everywhere All At Once cleaning up at the Academy Awards, the human curiosity of alternate timelines is intense right now. Of course, Porsche couldn’t sit this one out. At Austin’s South by Southwest festival, the marque unveiled an art car that poses a very interesting question: What if the 928 continued to be sold alongside the 996?

First, a bit of background if you’re not hugely familiar with the 928. This big front-engined V8 flagship was originally intended to replace the iconic 911. We all know how that went. Still, it packed star power alongside Tom Cruise in Risky Business, was powered by a water-cooled V8, and sent power to a transaxle mounted between the rear wheels. The 928 also had sun visors for the rear passengers, which was gloriously weird.

Anyway, 928 production ran from 1977 to 1995, which is a long time. Most cars should be long-in-the-tooth after 18 years of production, but the GT car climate of 1995 was unique. The Jaguar XJS was still in production and the Aston Martin DB7 was built on an evolution of the ancient XJS platform. Japanese GTs like the Mark 4 Toyota Supra and Mitsubishi 3000GT weren’t as plush as the European competition, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class coupe was massive, so aside from the BMW 8-Series, there wasn’t much in the way of modern direct competition. However, the times were changing at Porsche, and the 928 was discontinued to make way for the more profitable 986 Boxster and upcoming 996 water-cooled 911.

Still, artists Daniel Arsham (whose crystal-car exhibit our editor David Tracy recently visited) and Khyzyl Saleem wanted to imagine a 928 for Y2K, and Porsche’s exhibition at this year’s South by Southwest event offered a crack at the concept. It’s called the 928 Nebula Car and it pairs turn-of-the-millennium aesthetics with old-school bones. For a start, the earth tones of the 1970s are out in favor of a fantastic metallic mauve. It’s the sort of color that makes you believe that anyone who doesn’t like it has a lump of coal for a heart. Porsche had all sorts of great main-line colors in the 1990s from Riviera Blue to Ocean Jade Metallic, so it’s entirely plausible that this outlandish mauve could be part of a main color palette.

The art car retains the 928’s iconic pop-up headlamps, but the front and rear fascias are all-new and all-curvy. You can see a bit of Luigi Colani in areas like the rear lamps, organic shapes that bubble with the optimistic zeitgeist of the late-’90s. There’s inspiration from technology too – ports in the front fascia are reminiscent of reflex ports you might see on home audio equipment.

Granted, there are a few details that are pure show car outlandishness. The six-spoke wheels calling back to the 1989 Panamericana concept are likely a love-it-or-hate-it proposition, and both the steering wheel and shift knob don’t look particularly ergonomic. Oh, and if you thought the outside of the car was purple, wait until you see the interior. How many Grimaces were killed to upholster that dashboard?

However, this 928 is an art car, so the misshapen gear knob and when-pigs-fly steering wheel can be forgiven. We’re looking at something that’s less a useful object and more of a concept from an alternate universe. What’s more, it draws attention to the 928, a car often thought of as a lesser Porsche. Sure, it isn’t cooled by air, doesn’t carry its engine behind the driver, and is rarely seen equipped with a manual gearbox, but it’s a remarkably advanced classic GT that deserves proper respect.

(Photo credits: Porsche, Khyzyl Saleem)

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