Where do we all stand? Porsche 928? It’s not a car I think about much, but if I do, the first thing that strikes me invariably is how strange the thing is. The headlights in the off position don’t point in any particular direction, but somehow look weirder in use than when not. The elongated windows behind the B-pillar. The awkwardly placed taillights on the pre-facelift model. Sure, there’s a vague elegance to it, but there’s also a big old V8 under the hood, and there’s nothing more un-Porsche than that.
It’s a strange car. This might explain why it was chosen for a sort of Y2K-style reimagining by artists Daniel Arsham and Kyza. Meet Nebula 928.
This one-of-a-kind, which started as a 1978 model, is showing at South by Southwest starting today according to Designboom. The violet metallic gives a decidedly 2000s space age feel to the whole thing and reminds me a lot of the Violet Blue Metallic that was offered, barely, for 996 days. The wheels may also have been taken directly from a “German tuning scene magazine from the 90s.
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It’s the rear spoiler and bumpers, however, that I expect will garner the most passionate opinions. If there was an official Y2K-era shape, it would be a bridge of oblong circles. They replace most of this car’s lighting, echoing two small outlets flanking the main hub and repeating once more in the cabin for the speaker covers and steering wheel.
I’m going to come right out and say it: I think the lights look great. They complement the fluidity of the 928’s surface, the roundness that covers the silhouette of the wedge. But then I would feel that way, because I believe too Porsche design reached its peak with the fried egg, and Apple are cowards for not making all iPhones out of candy-colored translucent plastic. The illuminated “Nebula” text that takes up the space where “Porsche” would normally be engraved is a bit much, but this is an art car after all.
It’s also the kind of art car that would normally bring out the cynic in me, the person confused and certainly infuriated by high fashion, how scarcity of manufactures could give value to ordinary streetwear, and why anyone would ever bag a pair of sneakers. But Nebula 928 recontextualizes a “80s icon in a different era, and that’s a cool premise. It looks good too.
