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Edit: Thanks to several readers for pointing out several details that prove this Cayenne is a Turbo, but not a Turbo S. Only 450 horsepower, then!
It’s been a few weeks since my last 10K Friday entry, and I wanted to get something together for the impending snow New England is once again expecting. To remind us of the terms of the comparison, I’m looking for themed cars around $10,000 (give or take, we’ll see later). I try to generally find the newest cars possible, figuring that for many these will be a daily driver. In this case, I was looking for performance all-wheel drive cars that offered year round practicality with a touch of sport. So lining up the best I could find from Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche gives us an interesting amount of diversity for your hard-earned dollars. Today we have two sedans, a hatchback, a wagon and a S.U.V. to contemplated; which is the winner?
A few alumni from these pages popped up on eBay again, giving us the rare opportunity to compare two generations of Volkswagen Sciroccos for about the same money. The first is the original Scirocco; a 1978 example which has been thoroughly gone through and restored with some light modifications. The second is a second generation Scirocco in what appears to be all-original condition, but with total mileage unknown and a less desirable automatic. The last time the ’78 popped up, the auction ended at just over $7,000; strong money for an unoriginal car, but a witness to the large amount of work performed. The second was a no-sale, not surprising given the high opening bid price at $5,500. The recent sale of a first generation Scirocco with desirable modifications for over $22,000 has given some weight to these sporty coupes; will that sale help pull this ’78 up to a higher price than before? And the ’87 has been lowered to a “Buy It Now” of $4,500 – is that the right price?
The below posts originally appeared on our site October 29, 2013 and November 14, 2014:
For German car fans who love racing, it doesn’t get much more exciting than Porsche’s long history of endurance racing. Indeed, Porsche’s venerable 911 seems intrinsically linked with racing – undoubtedly, part of its mystique. However, true factory racing Porsches have always been pretty expensive when new and still are so. Watching yesterday’s coverage of the 24 Hours of Daytona had me cringing as the multi-hundred thousand dollar Le Mans class 991 Porsches took each other out, attacked Opossums and exploded crankcases. It wasn’t a great day for Porsche at a track where the company has had an impressive string of successes. So, today I decided to take a look at two racing Porsches as an homage to their first rate engineering, their enduring appeal and incredible performance:
It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a full decade since the first generation of the reborn MINI Cooper has passed. Four years ago I made the fateful choice to sell my 2007 Mercedes-Benz C230 Sport for a low mileage 2006 Cooper S. I haven’t looked back. It’s been a fantastic ownership experience and a car that suits my needs quite well. I choose a 2006 Cooper S because it was the final year for the Brasilian sourced Tritec supercharged engine. The first time I got behind the wheel of an R53 Cooper S I was hooked. The engine was punchy, had torque in every gear and, oh, that whine from the blower under the bonnet. In an age where a lot of newer cars seem to just blend together, this little car had serious character.
For the R53’s final year, MINI would introduce a special run of 2000 Cooper S models, with the John Cooper Works package labeled the “GP.†This was a very focused, track ready beast built in Italy by Bertone, sans rear seat with some other weight savings measures and a higher output motor. The sole color choice was Thunder Blue with red door mirror caps, carbon fiber rear wing and unique four-spoke alloys. This Cooper S JCW GP for sale in Miami has done just over 40,000 miles and is ready to tackle any curve you could throw at it.
The market has spoken, and the 1983 European-spec Porsche 928S 5-speed I wrote up back in August is still available having been relisted several times. Pricing has dropped $400 to just below $10,000 since August; surprising given the perceived lack of interest over that time. While there are some issues to sort overall this still looks like a pretty decent and rare Porsche to get into with 1980s 911 prices now rapidly heading up. What price would you pay for this neat bit of Euro goodness and would you keep the 944 Turbo alloys or run the original forged “manhole covers”?
The below post originally appeared on our site August 10, 2014:
