Warning!
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.
This site contains Ebay partner affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you.
I was visiting Europe again last week, but through the magic of social media it feels as if I lived through the first blizzard of 2016. You know, there’s the people who like to post photos of their vehicle temperature gauge or the folks who kvetch over the mere sight of a snowflake when in reality those were the same people complaining about a warm winter in the first place. Let’s face it. It’s winter. It snows. Deal with it. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I would say it would be mighty tempting to own a car like this 1991 325ix just so I could post photos of everywhere I’d go with it in the white stuff.
There’s something that’s just so right about the 1990-1992 GTis. The bigger bumpers gave a chunkier, more menacing look than the 85-89 cars had, and the swap to the 4-headlight grill worked so well. More power and bigger, better BBS wheels made these the best GTis in the eyes of many VW faithful. By 1990, the GTi 16V had gotten fairly expensive so Volkswagen reintroduced a more budget-conscious 1.8 8 valve version. It wasn’t a total poseur, though – Volkswagen made an attempt to differentiate the entry level GTi from the standard Golf. With 105 horsepower on tap (5 more than the standard Golf) and a 5-speed close-ratio gearbox, they channeled a bit of the original A1 GTi even if they didn’t sing up high like the 16Vs did. There were other subtle differences between the 16V and 8V; externally, they looked very similar except that the 16Vs wore appropriate 16V insignia front and rear and on the slimmed down side moldings. The 16Vs also got the larger and wider BBS RM multi-piece wheels with wider flares, while the 8V model wore the 14″ “Teardrop” alloys that had previously been the signature of the 16V. Both now wore roof mounted antenna and integrated, color coded rear spoiler with 3rd brake lights and color coded mirrors, along with the aforementioned 4-headlight grill, deeper rocker panels and integrated foglights. The 16V got beefier Recaro Trophy seats, while the 8V was equipped with the standard sport seats. Both wore the same sport suspension. And, both models now had the passive restraint “running mouse” belts. Today we’ve got one of each to look at, so let’s start with the big brother:
I have pretty much made it my goal to feature every Slate Grey 964 that I come across. The one we see here, a Slate Grey Metallic 1991 Porsche 911 Turbo, even is a little more special since it’s not just a standard Carrera and at its current asking price it could be a very good value. Naturally, when value becomes such an important consideration then there are a lot of boxes to be checked to insure that the car is as it is represented to be. On the surface, there’s a lot of promise here as the exterior and interior look in good shape, there are a couple of nice options, and it comes with a good deal of recent documentation. It doesn’t sound like it’s fully documented from day 1, but it’s asking price isn’t really at the level of that sort of 964 anyway. As we’ve discussed with previous 964s, the market has really taking a liking to any 964 variant and the Turbo, whether 3.3 or 3.6 liter, stands to perform very well (pardon the pun).
I’ve talked about opportunity costs before, and when considering a car such as yesterday’s 320is it bears reminding. There are plenty of people, myself included, that spend a fair chunk of the day dreaming about what super rare car they’d import from Europe if given the chance. And we’ve be Mr. Feelgood for you, supplying a steady stream of somewhat attainable European market goodies over the past few weeks. But does all this dreaming overlook something that’s right at your fingertips? In the case of the E34 M5, I think that might be true. This chassis is still generally overlooked compared to the E28 and E39 models, but those that have spent some time behind the wheel of these well engineered, hand built Q-Ships proclaim they’re one of the best BMW products made. They’ve got plenty of the right ingredients – the last of the S38 motors producing 315 horsepower, Motorsport details throughout, a great subtle look which still is commanding of respect, and limited numbers – only 1,678 were imported. It’s the right recipe for a future classic:
The 964 is looking like the hot car on the 911 market at the moment, serving as a fitting reversal of the overall struggle the model suffered under during its production run. Porsche offered a huge variety of colors for the 964 – granted, Porsche always offered a wide variety of colors, though on the surface it has always felt like they expanded even more for the 964 – but we don’t come across many of those wild colors very often on the standard models. For instance, the Lime Yellow Carrera RS Paul featured over the weekend is one of the few yellow 964s I can recall seeing and I cannot recall any of those being a standard Carrera. That is the nature with rare colors, of course. But here we have one: a Coral Red 1991 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Targa, located in Montreal, with Beige leather interior and 79,900 miles on it.
