Porsche Transaxles

This page is a subpage of the Porsche page.

A Brief Introduction

A transaxle is a device that combines the functions of a transmission, axle, and differential into one object. They can be frequently found in front-wheel drive (FWD) vehicles, where the front-mounted engine is on top of the drive and steering wheels. It is considerably less common to see it mounted at the rear of the vehicle, especially when the car has a front-engine design. However, the Engineers at Porsche realized that their focus on lightweight vehicle design meant moving the weight of the transmission from the front of the car to the back would have heavy impact on weight distribution.

And so in the very German interest of making their cars as mechanically perfect as possible, Porsche utilized this technique heavily through the 70s and 80s. The most notable vehicles to feature their rear-transaxle design were the 924 and the 944. However, in the very German interest of making the most of available parts, Porsche developed a bad habit of grabbing transaxles from any manufacturer who could provide them and throwing them into whatever car they were making at that moment. The haphazard and random switching of transaxles and related parts between model years has long been a headache for enthusiasts and repair guide writers alike.

Additionally, almost every Porsche-installed transaxle had two or three different names that are interchangeably used to refer to them. Infuriating.

In the interest of making this catalogue as useful to people as possible, I will group the transaxles below by the cars they were available in. This means that most transaxles will appear multiple times, and that some parts will be from other manufacturers. This is simply meant to make indexing and searching for these parts easier for anyone who is looking for information on their vehicle.