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$1.4 million. That was the selling price of a 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS Lightweight at last year’s Amelia Island auctions and it sparked quite a clamor within the Porsche market for anyone seeking to own one of these great machines. Or course, not every Carrera RS will ever see that sort of price; the Carrera RS Lightweight is probably the most sought after of what is already a highly sought after car so some of the high price comes down to those combinations of rarity. But the price of every Carrera RS went up following that auction. That rise also brought with it a concurrent rise in the price of the car we see here: a 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 MFI Coupe, located in Illinois. Mechanically, these cars were essentially a 1973 Carrera RS Touring, but they were now surrounded by the redesigned body with impact bumpers that debuted in 1974. The resulting car possessed Carrera RS levels of performance, just with a slightly different look. For those on the market today, the Carrera 2.7 MFI provides an alternative: Carrera RS performance and highly collectible, but with a significantly lower cost of entry.
We’ve featured a few cars of similar intent to the one we see here and they are always difficult to gauge, but one of the persistent criticisms of those cars, especially considering the asking price many sellers seek, is that most of them have retained their stock drivetrain. Given the 911 market, there are cogent reasons for those build decisions as cosmetic details can be reverted to their stock configuration, whereas a car without its engine will never be wholly original again. One solution is to use a 911 with a relatively unloved drivetrain and replace it with something more desirable. This build followed that route utilizing a 1974 911S as its foundation and replacing its 2.7 liter flat-six with the 3.6 liter engine from a 993. Transmission, braking, and suspension received similar upgrades and the interior has been stripped and rebuilt with only the essentials leaving a spartan environment that appears bare but well sorted. With a reported 2550 lb weight this is sure to be screamer and for the well-heeled might make for a very interesting track car.
The 1974 Carrera is one of those 911s that I enjoy spending some time lingering over the details. As the first to sport the redesigned body it’s interesting to get a sense of how Porsche chose to transition from the beloved long-hood 911 to these with impact bumpers, especially when we consider that the basic shell of this design would be with us for another 15 years. There are a lot of interesting touches on these cars, from the Carrera side graphics with color-matched wheels to the use of the ducktail rear spoiler, that set them apart from other mid-year 911s. The 1974 models tend to show the most value of the 911s produced from 1974-1977 and the Carrera is the only model that’s shown the ability to compete in value with a long-hood 911. The example seen here is a restored Grand Prix White 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 Coupe, located in Georgia. The listed mileage is 1,974 miles, which I presume is the miles traveled since it was restored.
I’ve made several references comparing the BMW 8 series to a few Ferraris, suggesting that it was perhaps a budget alternative to running a 456GT, for example. However, the E31 isn’t the only Ferrari-esque design to come from Munich; in many aspects, the E9 coupe shared some visual DNA with the Ferrari 330 2+2 from the 1960s. Now, for some that may sound like heresy and I can appreciate that; but take off the Rosso-colored glasses for a moment and look at the side profile of a 330 GT versus the E9 coupe; it’s nearly identical. The rear end treatment was quite similar as well, and while the grill on the BMW was obviously quite different the two even shared a quad-headlight setup. Obviously, underneath the Ferrari had that wonderful Colombo V12 versus the rather pedestrian inline-6 in the BMW; but pound for pound the BMW punched hard, especially in CSi trim. With 200 horsepower on tap it was certainly no slouch, especially in the midst of the oil crisis which neutered most V8s in America. It would take another two generations for the Big Three to break back into the 200 horsepower realm with nearly double the displacement of the E9. But the E9 wasn’t about straight line performance; it was a whole package – a speedy grand touring coupe with luxurious appointments and gorgeous looks:
November was, unofficially, Targa month here at GCFSB and we featured just about every air-cooled variant of the Targa Porsche produced. Here is one of the earlier variants that we didn’t feature: a Gemini Blue Metallic 1974 Porsche 911 Targa, located in California, with a reported 41,400 miles on it. We did feature a European Targa from 1976 during the November Targa explosion, but the ’74 models garner a little more interest on the market and this one is Gemini Blue, one of my personal favorites within the Porsche paint spectrum. 1974 was a year of significant change for the 911 and while typically unloved they are ever-so-slowly beginning to gain some appreciation, whether as a simple function of time (and thus increased rarity) or perhaps as the first 911 to take on the new design. Still, with a couple exceptions, the mid-year 911s remain a long way off the value of their predecessors.