Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
If the insanity of the crazy modified 80s wasn’t enough for you in earlier’s DP 935 Targa, how about a 962-powered 911 Speedster? Sound absolutely bonkers? Yup, it sure is. But in the no holds barred world of the well-heeled, you can create just about anything that you want. Borrowing elements from the 962, 934, 959 and DP935 and adding them to the already quite rare and valuable Speedster, Bruce Canepa created the ultimate enthusiast’s dream of a convertible 911:
Most of the time we’re writing about 1980s E30s coming up for hassle-free importation we’re looking at tourings, as they were never brought here. Today, however, reader Bruce has alerted us to an intriguing E30 convertible from Japan via Canada. It’s still left-hand drive, but is in great condition after 90k miles and comes with the same plaid cloth and leather interior that was in the S38 M3 featured earlier this week. The biggest detraction is the automatic, but if you’re looking for some classy and easy top-down cruising, this would be a nice option.
I almost threw up when I went through my saved eBay searches today and saw a stock Alpineweiss E30 M3 with 67k miles that was asking $59k and had been bid up over $40k. The ceaseless rise of the E30 is just crazy, folding values over on themselves and dollars into sellers’ pockets. I still love the M3 as a car, but the insanity surrounding them has tainted my love with disgust and disdain. As I tire of the creampuffs setting new records every time they come up, I become more interested in what I’ve grown to think the E30 M3 was about: making it into the Bimmer/racer you wanted. I’ve joined the scorn at removing the S14 before, but as I fall more in love with my S38 every day, I now see it as the ideal E30 swap. With more character, rarity, and power than the standard E36 swaps, getting an M3 (or any E30) with one of these beasts interests me greatly. Today’s E30 M3 comes fully redone after a big-mileage life, and looks extra awesome for it. A Sport Evolution bodykit backs up the significantly improved grunt on the outside, and the creator has made an awesome choice with a plaid interior on ///M seats. At this point in time, this is my ideal E30 M3.
There has been a decent bit of discussion lately concerning the current prices for air-cooled 911s and whether they’re being over valued. Much of that discussion has been concerned with a variety of rare variants that have seen very high prices. We might then wonder about the standard 3.2 Carrera and whether those prices too have shot up. The short answer is yes. The car featured here should provide us with a reasonable barometer of the current market for a classic 911 from the ’80s. Here we have a Black on Black 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera, located in New York, which has seen 57,000 miles. The value of this particular 911 should be buoyed by a couple of factors: 1) it comes from the final year of classic 911 production so it will be as refined as these cars get, including possessing the very desirable G50 5-speed manual transmission and 2) it has the factory sport seats.
If you missed Paul’s MerCamino earlier today, I’ve got another strange conversion for you. The 1980s were a heady time for “tuners”, some of which made some downright odd creations and others of which took existing really good cars and just…well, made them worse. One of the best ways to wreck a good car is to chop the roof off, and making cabriolet or roadster versions of coupes seemed to be a sure tuning bet in the 1980s. We got convertible versions of the Quattro, Porsche 928, BMW 6 series – heck, even the Ferrari Testarossa wasn’t immune. But if you wanted luxury and sun for 4, of course you needed a Mercedes-Benz 500SEC convertible. And while you’re there, why not throw in some AMG bits. “What?”, you say, “But I’ve never seen one!” Search no more: