A few years later, a ‘honey I shrunk the 928’ miniaturised Porsche was launched onto the Brazilian market, known as the Dacon 828. Dacon had been a Porsche distributor in Brazil until the late 1970s, when the importation and sale of all none-locally-built cars was banned by the Government of the day.
Dacon had managed to bring in a handful of Porsche 928s just before the Brazilian imported car ban kicked-in. Suddenly unable to legally sell any new 928s in Brazil, Dacon set about creating its own small-scale version of the car, its tiny 98-inch long 828 used some Porsche parts and looked particularly like the 928 from the rear. The 828 was powered by a rear-mounted Brazilian 1.6-litre VW boxer-four engine, connected to a four-speed gearbox and developing a whooping 67bhp. Dacon built the 828 until July 1994, with a paltry 47 examples of this expensive city car model being sold.
Undeterred by the 828s poor sales, Dacon went on to launch the PAG car brand in Brazil, offering a wider range of marginally larger coupes, all still taking their design inspiration from the Porsche 928. Though not as slavishly 928-esque as the Dacon 828, the Porsche’s influence was still quite apparent in the PAG Mini Nick, Nick L, the oddly-named Chubby, plus its own eponymous 928, this model having a near-identical elongated 928 rear end, the early model’s famous ‘telephone dial’ alloys, but (thankfully) not the Porsche’s ugly dead fish eye pop-up headlamps.
The rare Dacon 828 city car was later used as the basis for the Obvio! 828, a modern update of the Dacon, with a 170 bhp mid-mounted engine, CVT transmission and scissor-doors. The Obvio! 828 remains available in Brazil today, with an electric version now also offered and that familiar Porsche 928-esque profile still visible, 41-years after the Zuffenhausen original was launched!