Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Here is our counter to yesterday’s low mileage no reserve Carrera: a 1986 Grand Prix White Porsche 911 Carrera, located in California, which has seen 162,000 miles. We’ve seen the rapid escalation of the air-cooled 911 market, but my interest here is on the effect that rise has had on higher mileage, less pristine vehicles. Can those still be had a reasonable value or have they too shot through the roof?
You don’t have to despair if you’ve missed out on the E30 M3 and Porsche 911 market – there are still plenty of alternatives that make great occasional vehicles with enough sport to have fun with and enough presence to make you feel really special. Two of the best coupes from the early 1990s are often overlooked and are still very affordable – the Porsche 968 and the BMW 8 series. Now, truth be told most 968s are out of the “10K” price range, and 850i/Cis are often close in disrepair if they’re at or below $10,000. But if you’re willing to take higher miles on the well-built 968 chassis and opt for the smaller motor in the E31, you can find examples of either that fit a budget. Which would you choose?
For those of us in the Northeast US who don’t enjoy warm weather year round, the question begins to be thrown about as we approach the Memorial Day holiday: “where do you summer?†Well, for me, it would be less of a question of where rather than what do I do it in. If I had my way, it would be in one of these classics, the Mercedes-Benz 280SE Cabriolet. These grand touring machines have skyrocketed in value over the past few years, and it’s no surprise, as they are some of the last truly hand-built Mercedes-Benzes, from a bygone era. This 1970 example for sale in New York is convenient for those about to hit the Hamptons this coming weekend.
For awhile now we here at GCFSB have extolled the virtues of the 911SC and the 3.2 Carrera as excellent choices for a buyer looking for a relative bargain on the air-cooled 911 market. Those days appear to be mostly behind us, especially with regard to low-mileage pristine examples. There are still some values available to buyers who simply want a driver-quality car, but even if those have not increased in value to the same degree as a pristine car, prices still have moved upwards. Today and tomorrow we’ll have a couple of examples at either end of the mileage spectrum. So how high might things go? Well, the car featured here, a Guards Red 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera with 38,677 miles on auction with no reserve may provide us a nice gauge.
The 1985 Volkswagen Scirocco from last fall with a 2.0 16 valve conversion and some nice touches like BBS wheels, Euro bumpers and Euro headlights is back up on Ebay with a 10% price drop to just below $5,000. I think its great looking in the rare to see shade of Titian Red Metallic on these Sciroccos and the upgrades are just what I’d want – for the money, it seems like a pretty hard to beat value performance package.