Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight – Jürgen Barth’s Favorite

Officially, there has never been an RS with all-wheel drive in Porsche’s long and glorious history. But the Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Leichtbau came suspiciously close. As a project close to the heart of Jürgen Barth, then head of Porsche’s customer racing department, a unique model was created under this name. But what exactly made the super-rare all-wheel-drive sports car so special? And why was it almost forgotten?

A motorsport department without a mission

It sounds grotesque from today’s perspective, but at the end of the 1980s, Porsche’s customer racing department in Weissach did not have enough work for the development engineers. Jürgen Barth’s employees may had been working on the outgoing Porsche 944 Turbo S but apart from that, they had nothing else to do. Because initially, Porsche only offered the 964 with all-wheel drive. However, this configuration could not be accommodated in any racing class. Only the later Carrera 2 and its RS sibling were intended for this.

In order to gain experience with the new platform with his team, Barth ordered some 964 Carrera 4 bodyshells and let his team just do their thing. As there was no real intended use, the Weissach engineers did not have to adhere to any regulations. The bodyshells were stiffened – possibly in a similar way to the RS later using seam instead of spot welds. An aluminum roll cage was then fitted to the empty bodies. In addition, all lightweight 964s received an additional oil filler neck at the rear right, as was known from the oil flap models of the early 70s.

Aluminium, Plexiglas and all kinds of leftovers made the Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight into a kind of Frankenstein

The extreme diet also affected the outer skin. The Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight featured an aluminium front hood and a rear lid with a fixed spoiler made of fiberglass. Of course, the wheels were made of magnesium. Inside, there was very little to marvel at apart from the bucket seats and steering wheel. There was no headliner, sun visors or carpets. The spartan door panels, which were later used in the Carrera RS, didn’t even have window cranks. This was because the aluminium doors had Plexiglas sliding windows and did not need window regulators. Barth’s department went even crazier with weight saving measures and binned the model lettering and put a sticker on the hood instead of a crest. The result: an unladen weight of 1,095 kilograms – 355 kilograms less than a Carrera 4 and still 125 kg less than a 964 Carrera RS!

But that’s not all. Two adjustment wheels on the center console catch the eye. They are an indication of what is under the hood of the all-wheel drive Carrera 4 Lightweight. This is because the all-wheel drive does not originate from the 964, but from the Dakar racer Porsche 953. The rally-proven technology contained manually adjustable differentials. This included the aforementioned rotary controls. They could be used to regulate the drive force between the front and rear axles, as well as between the left and right wheels.

Even though the Lightweight was the quickest 964 Carrera, it was the slowest as well

However, the decision in favor of the 953’s all-wheel drive technology was driven more by pragmatism, which also explains the unconventionally short gear ratios – the car maxed out at 200 kph. This is because they were simply leftovers from the Dakar project, which was victorious in 1984. The brakes were also not from the base Carrera, but from the Turbo. There was no handbrake at all, which is why the Lightweight could not be registered in Germany. There was only a manual locking mechanism for the rear wheels. The chassis was also a full five centimetres lower than in the Carrera 4. To give owners more choice in the chassis balance, it also featured five-way adjustable anti-roll bars at the front and three-way adjustable anti-roll bars at the rear. In the end, this potpourri of parts had little to do with a Carrera 4.

When it came to the engine, Weissach’s engineers sandbagged massively

Funnily enough, it was the engines which were still based on the regular 964’s. However, they were assembled by hand in Weissach. Due to the open exhaust system without catalytic converters and a simplified auxiliary belt drive, the power output is said to have far exceeded the stated 265 hp. The talk – unofficially, of course – is of around 300 hp. In view of the outstanding acceleration values, this figure seems credible. Thanks to the extremely short-ratio 5-speed gearbox, the lightweight 911 was able to sprint to 100 km/h in just over four seconds.

Between 1990 and 1992, 22 Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight were built in Weissach

The idea for the lightweight Carrera is said to have come to Jürgen Barth at the request of a customer he knew in the USA. And although the Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight was never to be homologated for racing and cost a hefty DM 285,000 – more than twice as much as a regular Carrera 4 – Barth is said to have had around 50 orders. In the end, only 22 were produced between 1990 and 1992 – why so few? The reason is just as pragmatic as the gearbox choice: there were simply not enough parts for more.

Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight for sale on Elferspot

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Most Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight went to collectors

Viewed from a sober perspective, Jürgen Barth’s creation was a finger exercise without any real purpose. The cars did not even have a regular VIN, but only a six-digit chassis number. Conversely, this meant that road registration was only possible in a few countries around the world. Not to mention the other registration and noise regulations. And the flyweight all-wheel-drive 964 could not be entered in a racing class either.

The vast majority of vehicles therefore went to collectors in the USA, Japan and Great Britain. Only very few of them have any significant mileage. Every time one of the 22 Porsche 964 Carrera 4 Leichtbau came onto the market, it caused alarm in the Porsche world. After all, this story is exemplary for many Porsche products of the time. The approach of using the parts shelf and making things simple ultimately brought many exciting models to light. If you like, even Porsche’s first super sports car of the 21st century, the Porsche Carrera GT.

After all, this story is exemplary for many Porsche products of the time. The approach of using the parts shelf and making things simple ultimately brought many exciting models to light.