While the Ford Mustang 5.0 was by far the volume selling king of of the small block coupes in the 1980s, let’s not forget the fastest one. Yes, from the factory the late 1980s Porsche 928 was a period rocket with a 316hp 5.0L V8 under the hood. Unlike millions of Mustang owners, most Porsche people didn’t tweak on that engine so the performance advantage (in a straight line, anyway) was basically only present when the cars were faced off as stock vs stock. This said, the 928 was a hauler and by 1987 the S4 generation of the car with the 5.0L engine was the fastest Porsche being sold in the USA. This is laughable now, but it was also before every company decided that its customers wanted some version of a hyper-car.
We remember laughing at these cars in the 1990s and early 2000s when they were no longer “cool” and their market value had cratered. Like the C4 Corvette it did battle with, the 928 has aged pretty well and the market for them is once again swelling as schmucks like us who grew up in the 1980s try to recapture some part of our youthful love of cars.
This is a pretty comprehensive review and it definitely got us thinking about the good old days of the late 1980s and how excited we would get to spot one of these suckers on the street. They were flashy, expensive, and yes, the “other” 5.0 of the ’80s.
