This has inadvertently become “Red 911 Week” for me here at GCFSB. While I do enjoy a bright Red 911 my interest lies in a few other areas with the car we see here. Most notably this 993TT provides a nice market contrast to the 996TT featured on Tuesday. It is simply amazing to compare the relative value of these two Turbos and there are very good reasons for the differences that probably are not necessary to regurgitate here. We know what’s driving 993 values. I am also interested in the value of this particular 993TT as the bidding has brought the price up fairly high and it isn’t too often that we see these low-mileage examples come up for an auction; typically they are listed with a sky-high asking price, making it difficult for us to get an accurate gauge on real world values. So this one will be one to keep an eye on: a Guards Red 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo, located in Florida, with Beige interior and 23,805 miles on it.
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We have 15 years of archives. Links older than a year may have been updated to point to similar cars available to bid on eBay.Month: April 2015
Stare at a BMW E39 estate long enough and I’m pretty sure you’ll forsake all other wagons, perhaps even all other cars depending on your level of longroof love. This car was just one of those times when the designers got it so right it’s almost scary. The artists over at BMW took one of the greatest sedan designs of all time and molded it into the greatest family hauler of its time. The seller goes so far as to say the 540i Touring is the best looking wagon ever made, now or then. He certainly has a point if you focus on the competition of the era but as far as best looking wagon of all time, I’d have to give that to the beastly RS6 Avant. I will however give the 540i Touring the silver medal without a second thought. The proportions on this car are wonderful and it looks good from any angle, the hallmark of a truly exceptional design.
The positives extend far beyond the appearance of the vehicle, it is equally as impressive inside and under its skin. The 540i Touring is powered by a 4.4 liter V8 churning out 290 hp and 340 lb-ft of torque, not too shabby even by today’s standards. The superb handling dynamics of the E39 sedan carry over to the estate which makes the car even more desirable. It is by no means a canyon carver but from what I’ve read these cars handle with far better precision than one would think, especially since the damn thing weighs in at 5,043 lbs. When you consider that torsional rigidity was increased over the E34 5 series by 40 percent, the reasoning behind the affinity for these cars becomes quite clear. Â It’s a big steel caged missile that bests a car held in high regard for its handling capabilities. Having a hot rod that can haul will always be an attractive proposition to me and many other German car enthusiasts, the hard part is picking the right one. I’m always torn between the quintessential 90’s design of the E34 and the slightly more modern E39 but when push comes to shove, I seem to end up envisioning myself in the latter. I’m not sure why but the addition of a few more curves and rounded edges pushes the overall look of the elongated 5 series from great to all time classic.
CLICK FOR DETAILS:Â 2002 BMW 540i Touring
6 CommentsWhile the first generation BMW M3 kept a lot of its DTM racing roots in tact, the second generation E36 M3 moved the chains a bit. More power was dialed in but a bit more softness was added to the equation. Gone was the high strung, race derived 2.3 liter four-cylinder powerplant in favor of a six-cylinder engine that was related more closely to its lesser siblings than any other M engine had been before. Still, 240 horsepower was nothing to sneeze at in the mid 1990s. This 1995 M3 for sale in Connecticut represents the first year of US sales for this sports car icon. Its odometer reads less than 50,000 miles and it has the super desirable M Cloth interior.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1995 BMW M3 on eBay
4 CommentsVintage Porsches are some of the most collectable cars out there on the market these days, but for those looking to kick up the collector quotient, there are plenty of options. Chief among these options are colors. Porsche is known for its color palette and perhaps the heyday of this was the 1990s, in the twilight of the air-cooled 911 era. One of the most affordable ways into the air-cooled 911 game is to opt for the Targa version. The 964 Targa still had the classic removable roof panel before Porsche switched to a powered glass roof for the 993 Targa. This 1992 Targa is reportedly one of two Mint Green examples in the world. The color might look very 1950s, but I pine for the days of the imaginative hues carmakers used to offer.