- Porsche’s long relationship with turbocharging
- The ultra-rare 968 Turbo S and its four-cylinder setup
- The even rarer 968 Turbo RS race version
- Performance, production numbers, and collector value
- Porsche’s broader history with four-cylinder engines
Porsche has built its reputation on flat-sixes, but the company’s history gets a lot more interesting when the four-cylinder cars come into view. One of the wildest examples is the 968 Turbo S, a rare machine that took Porsche’s biggest four-cylinder and pushed it into serious sports car territory. It sits in that sweet spot where engineering weirdness, motorsport needs, and collector obsession all collide.
The 968 Turbo S was not some volume model dressed up for hype. Porsche Motorsport built it in Weissach using parts pulled from the 944 and 968 parts bin, then turned the formula into something far more focused. Under the hood sat a 3.0-liter four-cylinder with a 944 S2-style block, a 944 Turbo cylinder head, and a KKK K27 turbocharger, all working together to deliver a very serious punch.
There were only 14 street-legal Turbo S cars, and that tiny run was tied directly to the 968 Turbo RS race car. Porsche needed the street version to support the RS effort in the 1993 ADAC GT Cup, which is the kind of detail that instantly makes the car cooler. The final numbers were strong for a four-cylinder Porsche of the era, with 305 horsepower, 369 lb-ft of torque, a 175 mph top speed, and a curb weight of 2,866 pounds.
What makes the Turbo S feel even more special is how narrow the window was for buying one. Porsche intended to build 100 examples at a price of 175,000 Deutsche Marks, but the market only got 14. That kind of scarcity is exactly why these cars now live in another financial universe, far beyond what their original sticker suggested.
The racing side, the 968 Turbo RS, went even further into the deep end. Built for competition, it used a Club Sport base, NACA ducts in the hood, and distinctive Turbo badging, while the engine setup kept the boost at 1.0 bar and sent torque in hard at 3,000 rpm. The RS also used a 75 percent locking Torsen differential, which helped it put power down in a way that matched its mission.
On track, the Turbo RS was more niche than dominant, but it still left a mark. At AVUS in May 1993, Manuel Reuter started third and finished fourth for Joest, which stands as the best documented result for the car. The project also had its share of bad luck, including a crash for Joest’s white RS later that season at the Nürburgring.
Even with its limited racing success, the RS remains one of those machines that collectors can’t stop talking about. Porsche priced it at 228,000 Deutsche Marks and built no more than four, which makes surviving examples feel almost mythical. In the collector market, rarity can be just as powerful as a trophy case, and the Turbo RS has that in spades.
That collector fever has already shown up in real money. A Turbo S prototype sold for $516,500 at RM Sotheby’s in 2023, and another example brought $792,000 in 2021. For a car that so few people could have ordered when it was new, the jump in value says everything about how much enthusiasts now care about oddball Porsche history.
It also helps that Porsche’s four-cylinder story is much bigger than this one model. The brand has used four-cylinders in cars like the 356A Speedster, 904 Carrera GTS, 924 Carrera GTS Club Sport, 944 Turbo S, 914, and 968, proving that this layout was never just an afterthought. Even today, turbocharged four-cylinder power still has a place in Porsche’s lineup, from the 718 family to the Macan, and that old-school engineering flexibility still feels very much alive.
