Carpoint has transformed the Porsche 944 into a proper shooting brake. Each conversion requires hundreds of hours of hand-built bodywork. The conversion costs €100,000 ($117,000) before taxes and the donor car. The Porsche 944 and its ever-so-slightly lesser sibling, the 924, have long been some of the most inexpensive ways to experience a classic Porsche. But if you’re looking for something that’s a little different, check out what Carpoint just built. Called the GT-K44, it’s a hand-built 944 shooting brake that looks surprisingly close to something Porsche itself might have cooked up in the 1980s. The catch? The conversion alone costs about as much as a brand-new 911 Carrera. Importantly, this isn’t simply a 944 with a taller hatch grafted onto the back, either. Carpoint, a Germany-based Porsche specialist, says the GT-K44 requires several hundred hours of work, including extensive modifications to the roof, B-pillars, rear quarter panels, and tail section. The transformation is substantial. More: BMW’s $580,000 V8 Shooting Brake Spied Undisguised The roofline now stretches toward the rear of the car, while enormous new quarter windows give the 944 a genuinely wagon-like profile. Carpoint also fits a completely new rear hatch and modifies the taillights around the larger opening. Perhaps most notably, it all looks remarkably cohesive. Shooting brake conversions can very easily stray into uncanny valley territory, but the GT-K44 doesn’t. From most angles, it could pass for some obscure factory prototype Porsche quietly buried four decades ago. There’s actually a good reason for that. The project takes inspiration from the Porsche 924 Kombi created by German coachbuilder Günter Artz in the early 1980s. Carpoint founder Andreas Freund says he drove one of those exceptionally rare cars for several months before eventually deciding to create his own interpretation. Rather than copying the Artz car outright, Freund teamed up with designer Michael Söhngen to reimagine the idea around the wider and more muscular 944. The first GT-K44 is based on a 944 S2, meaning there’s a naturally aspirated 3.0-liter four-cylinder under the hood making 211 hp (157 kW). It’s finished in Oak Green and paired with very period-correct Pascha upholstery. Customers don’t have to start with an S2, though. Carpoint recommends either that model or one of the 220- and 250-hp (164- and 186-kW) versions of the 944 Turbo. Both manual and automatic donors work, but the company won’t perform a transmission conversion as part of the build. That said, buyers can specify things like wheels, suspension components, interior treatment, and exhaust systems. Of course, all of this comes with a hefty price tag. Carpoint charges €100,000 before tax for the GT-K44 conversion, equivalent to roughly $117,000 at current exchange rates. German customers pay €119,000 including the country’s 19 percent VAT. Again, that’s just the conversion. It does not include the donor car in any way. Carpoint says it can help with sourcing an appropriate donor, and it doesn’t have to be some pristine museum piece. Each GT-K44 requires hundreds of hours of fabrication, bodywork, and paint, including refinishing the door jambs and modifying the headliner and rear interior panels to work with the new body. That probably explains why only ten are being built. Photos: Carpoint
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