The Porsche 928 is a pretty incredible car for a lot of reasons, most of which revolve around the fact that it’s the only well-respected serious sports car with a rear based on the design of the AMC Pacer. Seriously, that’s true. But that’s not what I’m talking about today. The 928 has one strange little detail that I think is unique among nearly every other car, and I think that little detail deserves its own post. Which is exactly what you’re reading, right now!
Before I get to this detail, I want to make sure I show you this GIF of a 928 morphing into an AMC Pacer so you fully understand how the humble Pacer influenced the 928, which, again, was admitted by Porsche chief designer Tony Lapine:
Okay. I just wanted to be sure everyone has this image firmly in their minds.
I was recently at a local Cars and Coffee event where I met up with one of the few other Pao owners in North Carolina, and while I was there I saw a really lovely metallic brown Porsche 928.
This 928 had been in the owner’s family since new, and it was a lovingly-maintained car, but still actively driven and used, as a car should be.
The part that caught my attention was in the rear:
Look by where the hatch meets the body, at the top of the tailgate.
Those are sun visors.
Now, I can’t think of another car that has sun visors in the rear—it’s possible some limousines might, or cars designed to chauffeur people around, but I’m just about positive there are no other two-door cars that have rear sun visors.
Is this something most people knew about 928s? I’ve always been focused on that big V8 and the upward-flipping headlights, but I’m amazed I hadn’t heard of this before.
The way the visors are designed to work is a bit backwards from what most of us are used to, as well. Where the front windshield sun visors we normally use flip down to keep the bright sun out of our faces, these visors are designed to flip backwards to keep the sun off the heads of the people in the rear seat.
The 928’s rear seats are so crammed in back there that the heads of the people in them are pushed back behind the actual roof, so over their heads is the rear window glass of the tailgate. That means in the summer heat, heads can get pretty cooked, hence the visor’s ability to do this:
Presto, your brains are shielded from the sun frying them into a delicious mush.
As I said, I’m pretty sure this application of rear-passenger sun visors is unique in all of motoring, almost definitely for a two-door sports car. If I’m wrong, I’d love to know, because details like this I love, and I don’t care who knows it.
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