We all know Magnus Walker as the dreadlocked dude who has a serious collection of modified and original air-cooled 911s. He fell in love with the marque as a 10-year-old living in the UK, and in the decades since he’s moved to Los Angeles and become one of the more prominent figures in the vintage Porsche community, here and internationally. His Urban Outlaw brand is no stranger to even the smallest 911 gatherings, and one might conceive of him as having definitively chosen sides.
His actual stated goal however, is to collect one of every Porsche-produced sports car. This means the mid-engined 914 and the water-cooled Cayman, one of every 911 generation, and of course, the transaxle, front-engined cars like the 928 and the 944. He’s also accrued a handful of 924s, and while most still think of the model as an entry level Porsche with no power, he understands and celebrates the merits of these typically under-appreciated cars. The 924 Carrera GT is quite different from the standard version though, and even the 911 die-hards must admit it carries some serious presence in those bulging box flares.
Only 406 were built by the factory, and this 1980 example has traveled the world in its day. It spent 25 years in Tokyo before a brief stint in Australia, wherein the car’s previous owner emailed Magnus out the blue. People telling him what to buy isn’t a new story, but sometimes these unsolicited emails are worth opening. In this case especially so.
He hadn’t been actively searching for a Carrera GT, but it was on his list of cars to acquire in the future (recall the mandate for his collection), and so he bought the car, shipped it to Los Angeles, and started making it his own. Seeing as the factory added some 40 horsepower over the base car along with the wild ‘80s hero bodywork, mot much else has been changed, but it is unmistakably unique from the typical—if you can say that—GT. The original cars were only offered in black, silver, and red, so Magnus added a fetching dash of Minerva Blue along with a Slate Grey pinstripe to add some flair to the staid paintwork.
He’s also fitted some of his Fifteen52 Outlaw wheels, which are of course wrapped up in some beefy semi-slick rubber—Pirelli Trofeo Rs—to take full advantage of the 924’s excellent weight distribution and momentum driving characteristics. It sports a balance of 49/51, and though it doesn’t have the same responsiveness as a naturally-aspirated six, the turbocharged water-cooled inline four pumps out 210 playful horsepower, and that’s more than enough to climb the high-speed curves of the Angeles Crest Highway.
Rising to an elevation of 8,000ft, the elevation changes, cambered turns, and the kind of radii that allow for flat-out fourth gear driving makes this road up there with the best in the world, and it’s Magnus’s favorite place for an early morning shakedown when he has the place to himself. He notes the improved stability over the 911’s he’s usually in the driver seat of, but it’s not really a comparison that needs to be made—they’re different cars entirely, but they’re both entirely, purely, Porsche.
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