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The end is near for 2019 and the decade as a whole, so I figured we might as well go out with one last bang. Only this bang comes in some wild shades of green and ironically requires enough green to buy that would knock your house down. This 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S is finished in Wimbledon Green Metallic over a Nephrite Green leather interior and needless to say, is one wild 911. I took a look at another 993 Turbo S a few months ago, from the same dealer no less, that was finished in Glacier White and had just 7,600 miles on it and was left wowed by that. This car? Almost certainly a 1 of 1 example given the colors. The miles? How does 532 sound? Total.
Color is everything. Kind of a broad statement, I know, but when it comes to classic Mercedes-Benz, it is pretty important. Light Ivory, Astral Silver, or Pastel Beige? Okay colors, but no one is clamoring over them. Henna Red, Mimosa Yellow, or today’s car, China Blue? Now people are excited. In all seriousness, I do see a fair amount of price different between two comparable cars with one painted something bright, with the other a little more drab. It just so happens that this 1981 300SD up for sale in Atlanta is one of the few to be painted in the aforementioned China Blue. So that begs the question, how much of a premium will this bring?
After last week’s adventures in Paint to Sample, where a surprising number of people actually liked the color combo, I thought I’d go a little bit more traditional. As far as sports car tradition goes, it really doesn’t get more classic than British Racing Green, although it’s on a German car. This 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S is not only a street legal rocket ship that is capable getting to 60 mph in just 2.7 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 10.7 seconds, but also tame enough to be driven early single day. It also somehow manages to look like a 911, even though according to those numbers it has to be some kind of space rocket. What isn’t to love here?
A few weeks ago I took a look at a new 2019 Porsche 911 Speedster that had a little bit of identity crisis. The dealer couldn’t seem to decide what color it was, so much so that it altered all the photos of the car after it was live on eBay. It’s easily one of the strangest things I’ve ever come across in my time writing about cars – especially from a big-time dealer. Just to wash my hands of that Speedster experience, I thought I’d take a look at another one, and this one even has something a little extra special.
This 991 Speedster is optioned with the $24,500 Heritage Design Package. What does that entail? Porsche’s goal was to pay homage to the 356, so they add gold badges, a vintage-look hood badge, black calipers, and a leather interior. There also was an option to add circle numbers on the doors and white graphics, but it looks like this build totally skipped it. So yes, nearly $25,000 for some badges, paint, and special leather color. Can’t say you didn’t see that coming.
I think it is going to be a long time before we see a car depreciate like a Maybach 57. Way back in the early-2000s, Mercedes-Benz decided to wanted to play in the same league as Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Not an outrageous idea, so they revived the storied Maybach name and launched two models, the 57 and the 62. They shared a general platform with the then-already replaced W140 S-Class, and kind of looked like a W220 S-Class on the outside. On the inside, you could see this was a W220. The steering wheel was a straight rebadge job along with the gauge cluster, and everything felt like a W220 which is not a good thing at all. Under the hood, you’d think they would have stuck with the twin-turbo M275 from the S600, but they changed it slightly to make an entirely new engine unique to the Maybach called the M285. All these one-off changes that had to be made and extremely low production resulted in the base model 57 carrying a sticker price of $320,000. That is $435,000 in today’s money. You’ll be shocked at what this 2004 57 can be had for today.
