At $8,699, today’s Porsche 968 may be ironically priced, but that’s not the only irony bestowed on it, there’s also the matter of its mill.

There’s something about an old pickup truck that people just love. Maybe, like an old pair of blue jeans, they just get better with age, wearing the patina of proletarianism like a badge of honor. Lots of you felt that way about yesterday’s rare as los dientes de la gallina , and fully 65% of you felt that it had also been honorably priced.

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While old pickups may benefit from a little dirt, dents, and chipped paint befitting their status as a working man’s (and woman’s) vehicle, you don’t usually want to see those signs of wear and tear when you are contemplating the purchase of a Porsche.

It’s a good thing then that today’s presents itself in exemplary fashion. The cabriolet’s black paint seems rich enough that you could go elbow deep in it, and the top is without sag or tear, and has a clear backlight, albeit a plastic one.

On the inside it also seems to be in decent shape, although the seller’s Zoolander-esque photography skills - what are these, pictures for ants? - doesn’t allow for much detail inspection.

The thing of it is though, you probably wouldn’t be spending much time inspecting this Porsche’s seats and stick shifter as you’d most likely be unable to tear yourself away from its under-hood view.

There, with furrowed brow and fly catcher mouth, you’d take in, and attempt to process the motivation for the Mazda rotary that now resides there. Yeah, feel free to release your inner Moe Sizlack and go whaaaaaaa?!

The seller says that he bought the Porsche sans engine and transmission, and seeing as the car was otherwise in good shape, decided to plop in the 13B from his 1984 RX7 GSL. The Mazda, by the way, is now full of Ford 302.

From the Zuffenhausen factory, the 968 was powered by a honkin’ big 3-litre four- one of the biggest four cylinders in modern history in fact. Just to put it into perspective, each pot in the 968’s engine displaces 750-ccs, or about half a ball-bouncing Harley twin.

All that displacement made 236-bhp in NA form, which was able to move the 3,280-lb car to sixty from a standstill in under 7 seconds, and on to a 143-mph top speed. And now that big four is all gone, along with the Porsche’s rear-mounted transaxle. In their place, as documented in , is a 160-horse Wankel and five speed from the aforementioned RX7. Out back where all the cogs used to live there’s an LSD rear-end, another refuge from Mazda.

Bringing the Mazda bits to the Porsche party was no mean feat, and the seller says that it required a lot of custom fabrication to get everything to fit. He also notes that the lighter drivetrain makes up for some of the power lost, and that the car is a nice driver. YMMV.

Okay, this is certainly a weird combo, but then I’ve had garlic ice cream and that wasn’t half bad so let’s see if this humming 968 is a hum-dinger of a deal at $8,699. What do you think, is this a mashup that makes that price seem marvelous? Or, does that make this a refuge from the Island of Dr. Moreau-ver priced?

You decide!

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H/T to DBG for the hookup!

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