In early 2009, I grew tired of the hassles I was having with "GEIST", my 1987 924S, and worked out a sweet trade: "GEIST" in exchange for this 1981 931 (924 Turbo), plus two "parts donors": a complete black 1987 924S AND a complete grey 1985.5 944!!!

This car was dubbed "GEBLASN", and abbreviated form of the german word for "blown"...a reference to the turbocharger (get your mind out of the gutter!). Here's how she looked with the snow tires on:

GEBLASN came to us in dire need of some loving attention. The previous owner was a 2.5L guy and was unfamiliar with the CIS (continuous injection system) fuel injection on the earlier 2.0L cars. Unfortunately for him, he took the car to three different mechanics, none of whom knew how to properly diagnose and work on the CIS system, much less the finnicky DITC (digital ignition & timing control) that is unique to only two model years, the 1981-82 924 Turbo. As a result, the car was running very very poorly, and he had given up. After seeing the car in person and hearing how it was running I knew I could fix it, so I agreed to the 3-for-1 deal.

To make a long story short, after a few tweaks to the CIS mixture control, we got the car running pretty well. However, it took us a good three months to work through sporadic problems with the DITC system, but finally, after doing a thorough restoration of the main DITC connector, all of the running problems disappeared, and GEBLASN is now a joy to drive.

The same guy I got GEBLASN from sold me a very nice set of staggered 7x16 / 8x16 Design90s with decent rubber, which are now on the car. The D90s are definitely my FAVORITE wheel for the narrow body toofahs!

Next up for GEBLASN: the front hood has some hailstone damage and a good sized corrosoin spot right smack in the middle as a result of them not being attended to. I had a special hood decal made up that will cover the corrosion spot (after we clean it up and primer it), which will allow us to avoid having to respray the whole car. We're going to try some DIY paintless dent repair techniques to fix the hailstone damage.

The interior is in OK condition. We've already replaced some of the worst pieces and put a dash cap on. We were also able to salvage some of the interior parts from the 944 donor car that are in better shape, and will be swapping them in as well. She won't be concourse, but as a daily driver for my eldest son, she's perfect!