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I’ve been waiting for this 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera to come back around and am happy it finally has. This 930 was listed at the same time (and by the same seller) as the Ice Green Metallic 930 I featured a month ago and I chose to feature that one since, well, it’s Ice Green Metallic and that’s such a wonderful color. But I’ve had this Grand Prix White example on my mind ever since. The condition is excellent and it looks to be well documented, but what really draws my attention are the specially ordered RSR 8- and 9-inch wheels. That extra width really helps fill in the wheel wells and gives this 930 some additional presence. Other than changing the headlights out for the much better looking H4 units this 930 also has retained its originality. There’s certainly a lot of positives surrounding this early Turbo, but whether it will reach this sort of price may be another matter.
This is one of my favorite cars to come across: an Ice Green Metallic 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera. I realize that’s really specific, but the combination of the 3.0 liter 911 Turbo with this color really works for me and it always grabs my attention immediately. For my tastes this one is also helped by its Cinnamon interior, which has just enough darkness to it to provide the right contrast to that light green exterior. I even like the somewhat quirky and, in this application, subtle “Turbo” graphics that run the length of the car. I can’t really vouch for the seller’s claim that it is the single-most beautiful early Turbo to exist, but it would certainly rank highly.
One of the things I enjoy most about Porsches – beyond their brilliant mechanical abilities – is the possibilities available to buyers. Porsche is happy to provide its customers with just about any color combination or pattern, along with a host of options, through Porsche Exclusive. Granted, there typically is significant cost to those options, but as someone principally eyeing the second-hand market all of that variability keeps things interesting. One of my favorite options has been seat inserts. In some cases these are fairly standard solid colors that provide contrast with the rest of the interior. But Porsche has also offered other choices. My favorite is houndstooth, which we mostly see on early 911s, though it was revived most recently on the 50th Anniversary 911. That interior is spectacular. For those who desire something even more eye-catching, Porsche has also offered a variety of tartan seat inserts. If memory serves, I’ve only seen these on Porsches from the ’70s. They certainly won’t appeal to everyone and I’ll admit some of them don’t work, but in a few cases they look great and provide for an interior that has a lot more going on than the standard monochrome we typically see. The example we see here came with just such an interior: a Black 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0, located in Texas, with around 94,000 miles on it.
Last week I featured a Guards Red 1976 Porsche 930 that probably would have made for an interesting option if the price was right. Unfortunately, the current asking price is not right. Here we have another example, but this one appears to lack the flaws of that Guards Red 930 and as such it likely stands a much better chance of reaching its high asking price. When I came across this 930 I was immediately struck because I could swear I had seen it before, but couldn’t immediately place it. The pictures obviously have been heavily edited with regard to shading and lighting, but there’s a pretty good reason for that: the collection from which this 930 hails was featured in Excellence Magazine’s December 2015 issue and the pictures from that shoot used these same lighting changes. That was the aspect of these pictures that immediately recalled this 930 to mind and I am sure the seller hopes that buyers will recognize the car as being related to those in that article given the praise that was heaped upon the restoration work carried out on those early 930s. As far as I can tell this isn’t one of the three 930s featured in the Excellence article, or at least if it is one of them then the interior has been changed since those cars each had tartan fabric seat inserts. I’m not sure if those seat inserts were original, but I really hope they haven’t been removed because they looked fantastic and provided for a much more interesting interior.
When I come across them I will almost always choose to feature a 1976 Porsche 930. They are one of the earliest examples of what has become an iconic model – the 911 Turbo – and their simplified and pared down nature relative to later examples brings with them a purity that many others fail to match. But they can be difficult, which the example here, a Guards Red 1976 Porsche 930 located in North Carolina, demonstrates quite well. As some of the earliest examples of the 911 Turbo these cars tend to be quite valuable, as we’d expect. But especially in the current market, where 911 prices have begun to retreat somewhat for all but the very best examples, there tends to be a disconnect between asking prices and where we’d actually expect a 930 to sell. We’ll get to the problematic parts, let’s start with the good. Generally speaking, inside and out this 930 looks very ncie. The Guards Red paint shows well and the interior looks crisp throughout. In addition, other than the steering wheel the interior appears to retain all of its original parts. I would guess the interior has been refreshed at some point during this 930’s life, though the seller makes no mention of that so perhaps it’s wholly original. All in all, for a 40-year-old Porsche with more than 100K miles on it the condition is good and while we’d likely classify it as driver-quality rather than concours it definitely has a lot going for it.
