TIL

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 04/11/2018 at 23:36 • Filed to: None

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TIL that Porsche only made 10 B32s, which is probably fewer than manyof their homologated race cars. I guess I’ll never buy one and will just have to make my own tribute version.

VW Max > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/12/2018 at 00:11

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This is now a Porsche B32 appreciation thread

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > VW Max 04/12/2018 at 00:33

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All of the 911-powered Vanagons I’ve seen (and the one I’ve driven) have had a big cutout in the engine compartment lid, and always wondered how Porsche got away without having to do that. It wrecks one of the best things about this engine layout. That electric fan - a perfect solution, and can probably be better controlled than one that is mechanically driven.

VW Max > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/12/2018 at 01:19

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Interesting. I know pretty much nothing about the B32 beyond the first page of google. Even the first thesamba thread that came up was disappointing.

What was driving the 911 Vanagon like? My family has a 1978 bus with the slushbox, and driving that on the highway is terrifying. Last summer when I had only a learners permit my dad and I took the bus out on some backroads which would have been a lot of fun in something less tippy.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > VW Max 04/12/2018 at 01:32

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Power is nothing without control, and this thing had no control. The suspension and brakes were bone stock, so when you accelerated the nose pitched up and you thought you were in an airplane taking off, and when you applied the brakes it seems that all you could see was pavement because it pitched forward so strongly making you think it might do a forward flip.

It was simultaneously scary as all hell and absolutely hilarious; we were busting out laughing at the sheer absurdity of what we were experiencing, especially after having driven a Westfalia diesel earlier that day; 4,000 pounds and 52 screaming horses made glaciers seem like speed demons. I’m sure that Porsche did a much more comprehensive conversion when they made the B32, tweaking suspension and brakes. The B32 has Fuchs alloys, so you know those must be hiding some much bigger brakes.

AuthiCooper1300 > VW Max 04/12/2018 at 03:42

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Compared with the kind of tosh I’ve seen written on the B32 over the years (also in Jalopnik/Oppositelock, unfortunately) that thread in The Samba is pretty good.

Thomas Donohue > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/12/2018 at 10:10

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There were supposedly built as support vehicles for the 959 rally cars, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of one in any of the Paris-Dakar races.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Thomas Donohue 04/12/2018 at 13:29

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I might agree if they were Syncro models, but these were just RWD. My understanding was that they were used for executive transport throughout Germany, kind of like an executive jet. It was said that the top speed was 139 MPH, but they kept it down to 116 MPH so they could carry a full load of passengers and have the air conditioning on the whole trip.