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The Cayenne and Panamera are great performance cars in their own right, but for the Porsche purist, it is little more than a vehicle by which they can keep their favorite sports car manufacturer in the business of just that: manufacturing sports cars. It seems the diversity in the lineup, the earlier water-cooled, front engined Porsches are now getting the respect they deserve. This 968 Cabriolet for sale in Florida is equipped with the 6-speed manual gearbox and is closing in on the 100,000 mile mark. Still a lot of life left for someone who wants to live out their P car dream on a budget.
Few would have seen it coming when the W124 Mercedes-Benz E class was introduced, but towards the end of the model run, the mid-sized luxury sedan got a shot in the arm by way of V8 power. While a new E class was being readied for 1996, Mercedes needed to do something to compete with the V8 heavyweights from Japan, the Lexus LS400 and Infiniti Q45. While the Lexus LS eventually went the way of the S class, the Q45 eventually died altogether, but the impression these cars from the Far East made on US consumers has been lasting. Still, there are those of us who appreciate classic German engineering even if it comes with some compromise. I would wager to say that this E420 for sale in California has aged a bit more gracefully than its Japanese competitors.
Back in December I stated that I hoped to feature a few more examples of the 996TT, in part because of my own interest in the market for them and in part because they remain somewhat under appreciated. Then the holidays happened, other work got in the way, and for a while I simply didn’t come across a car that I found particularly interesting. But now I have. The car featured here, located in Las Vegas, is a 2003 Speed Yellow Porsche 911 Turbo with the factory X50 package. At 13,588 the mileage is reasonably low, it hasn’t been ridiculously modified, and did I mention that it’s Speed Yellow? A standard 996TT was always a quick car and these days one can be had at pretty reasonable cost. Add the X50 package and you’re into supercar territory without the supercar pricetag.
I’m not alone in my preference for the E38 7-series; its minor updates over the E32 seemed to really take the design to a new level of cleanliness and aggression. Relative to the well cared for E38s that still roam the streets looking amazing, most E32s look beat up, frumpy, ridden hard and put away wet. All that changes today though, as this is hands down the best E32 I have ever seen. Rocking lowering springs, M-Parallels, and a nice front lip, this black V12 beauty is the business. It’s not just a pretty face, either; it’s covered just 37k miles in its life and has had tiny issues tended to. It takes a really nice E23 for me to be more attracted than pretty much any E38; this is the first E32 that’s really ever required a second, third, and fourth glance.
Without a doubt, two of the favorite tuning platforms of the past two decades have been the E36 M3 and B5 Audi S4. Almost a right of passage for recent Euro car ownership, they took middle-class sedans to the track offering out of the box 240 and 250hp respectively, though in very different ways. Out of the box, the E36 was the more lively of the two, though the Audi was undoubtedly more refined and a better all-arounder than the E36 was. In an almost Yankees/Red Sox-esque rivalry, both have their supporters who either respect the other’s performance or point out its multiple flaws. Production didn’t overlap on these two, but it was close and pricing is similarly close these days. Which is the better deal? Well, you can help decide – let’s look at the BMW first: