No roundup of the Mooney line would be complete without mentioning the ill-fated M20L PFM, built in 1988 and 1989. The PFM, for Porsche Flugmotoren, was an attempt to merge the Mooney airframe with a 217-hp six-cylinder Porsche automobile powerplant. It was to be a high-tech computer-operated marvel with single-lever power management, but it proved to be too heavy and low on power to meet traditional Mooney owner expectations. Only 41 were built, few actually being sold. But the M20L’s airframe, stretched by 18 inches to accommodate the Porsche engine, did serve to become the foundation of the M20M and M20R, the “super Mooneys.”
The M20M TLS was the first of the modern big-engine Mooneys; attaching a 270-hp TIO-541 to the airframe turned the Mooney into a real rocket. In 1994, it was joined by a non-turbocharged, but equally potent, M20R Ovation model, using a 280-hp IO-550 big-bore Continental engine. The M20M TLS became a “Bravo” version in 1997. An M20S Eagle variant came along in 1999, using a 244-hp Continental IO-550G engine.
