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 can’t remember the last time I wrote about the Porsche 993 Cabriolet, assuming I ever have, so here I have two of them. Of all of the air-cooled models the 993 Cabriolet is the one I see most frequently on the streets today. This simply may be a coincidence of where I live, and after all they are the youngest of the air-cooled 911s on the road, but I still see the Cabriolet quite a bit more frequently than the 993 Coupe. All of that is to say that these remain quite popular and given the elegant shape of the 993 design it shouldn’t be too surprising that these open-top versions continue to grace our streets. The two we will look at here both come in excellent and rarely seen colors and each presents with pretty low mileage. These are cars likely destined for collectors, but that shouldn’t stymie our appreciation of them. We will begin with this Amaranth Violet 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet, located in Missouri, with Black interior and 22,736 miles on it.
I’ve written up a number of E34 540i/6 M-Sports (henceforth referred to simply as 540i) during my time with GCFSB and I honestly think this might be the cleanest, most appealing example I’ve come across. The seller has the original “throwing star” wheels, which I would certainly opt for over the 16″ Schnitzer Monoblocks that are pictured. I know they’re rare, but I never cared for the bloated starfish look. The rest of the car appears stock and there are some neat factory installed upgrades, like sport seat arm rests and factory rear reading lights. I know the latter isn’t of much concern, but it shows real attention to detail from the seller and that’s always a good thing.
I constantly find myself waffling back and forth between preferring the BMW E34 to the E39, or the other way round. Both cars so well thought out and as time goes on I suspect that proclaiming on better than the other will only get more difficult. The older a car is, the more consideration it gets for classic status. The E39 5 Series has already achieved that to some degree and final models only rolled out 12 years ago. Does the E34 have the edge right now simply because it is older? Personally, I don’t think it’s the time that has passed that makes the E34 a classic, so much as the era that ended with it. I look at the E34 as the last holdout of the old guard. The round headlights, the forward tilting hood, the exterior lines, all true classic BMW. At this point both the 3 Series and 7 Series had a more modern, squared off look. Perhaps most importantly, the headlights were now enclosed, gone was the iconic side by side design. If there is one little detail that I can point to that makes a BMW a classic, that would be the one. It also happens to be the reason that the E34 typically comes out on top when I’m thinking about which body style I would rather own. I love a lot of things about the E39 5 Series, the headlights are not one of them.
I’ll get this out of the way right off the bat, this car has a salvage title. I’ll get this out of the way as well, I don’t care. For what the seller wants for the car, and what you could likely get him to come down to, you’d be getting enough car for the money that a salvage title shouldn’t matter. The way I see it this is a car you buy and drive into the ground. It is not an investment, it is not a collectors item, it’s a W202 Mercedes that happens to be an AMG car. Even if you paid what the seller is asking I think you’d be getting a fair deal. The car appears to be in great condition now and depending on what earned it a salvage title, this could be a real steal, especially with a little big of negotiating. Salvage title cars are really hard to sell these days, given that everyone has access to the internet, and has seen those commercials with the smug Fox. I agree that 9/10 it is a bad idea to buy a salvage title vehicle, but there are exceptions, and this might just be one of those.
The 1995 Audi A6 we featured back in March is back up on offer, at a well reduced price. It’s rare enough to find a clean C4 A6 2.8 in good condition with low mileage, but equipped with a 5-speed manual as we see here, it makes for quite the rare piece.
The below post originally appeared on our site March 18, 2015:
