This is the spec.
Don't argue.
The Vagabund Porsche 944 Safari takes Stuttgart's most underrated transaxle car and sends it somewhere it was never supposed to go. Off-road. Sideways. Into the dust.
Austrian design studio Vagabund Moto — working alongside Nine Eleven Outlaw and Garage Dakar — didn't ask for permission. They just built it.
This is how icons get reimagined.
Why It Made The Cut
Start with what Porsche got right the first time.
The 944 is a front-engine, rear-transaxle coupe with near-perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Built from 1982 to 1991. Quietly respected by everyone who has actually driven one. Consistently undervalued by everyone who hasn't. The kind of car that doesn't need defending — it just needs the right context.
Vagabund found the context.
The conversion lifts the chassis 40mm through a fully revised rear axle, new spring plates, custom axle conversion parts, and specific rear shock absorbers engineered for the application. Five 205/70/15 off-road tyres fill the arches — Maxxis Trepador or Bridgestone Dueler A/T, your call. Rims stripped and powder coated in black or gold. Four HELLA Rallye 1000 lights mounted up front like they were always there. Custom roof rack. Aluminium skid plate. Rubber mud flaps. A UV-resistant Safari livery that looks factory if the factory had ever been to the Dakar.
The original inline-four and manual gearbox are untouched. 163 horses. All of the character. The transaxle layout that gave the 944 its balance on tarmac now serves traction distribution across loose surfaces. The physics didn't change. The terrain did.
It's not cosplay. It's a platform being used correctly for the first time.
The kit fits any 944 or 924 from 1975 to 1991 without turning the car into a science project. Clean lines intact. Proportions respected. Nothing bolted on that doesn't earn its place.
This is what the 944 was waiting forty years for someone to do.
Lifestyle Integration
This is the car parked outside the cabin with no mobile signal and no apologies.
It's analog in the way that matters. No screens performing wellness metrics at you. No artificial exhaust note piped through speakers. Just a balanced chassis, a mechanical gearbox, and terrain that suddenly looks like an invitation rather than a problem.
You don't maintain this one from a distance. You drive it into situations your modern SUV would file a complaint about.
The 944 has always been the thinking person's Porsche. The Safari conversion gives it somewhere interesting to think.
Let's Be Clear
The 944 spent forty years in the shadow of louder siblings.
That era is over.
Vagabund didn't restore this car. They reframed it. Took a platform with impeccable bones and gave it the visual authority and physical capability its dynamics always deserved. The Safari movement in automotive culture exists for exactly this reason — not to novelty-modify cars, but to reveal what was already possible in them.
The kit runs approximately €16,990 through Nine Eleven Outlaw. Donor car not included. Shipping logistics your problem. Worth every variable.
This isn't about resale graphs. It's about narrative control.
While everyone else is debating originality, you're already sideways in the dust.
