Press "Enter" to skip to content
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.

Tag: 1996

This site contains Ebay partner affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you.

1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S

I have been enjoying my romp through the Porsche paint spectrum and I will continue with that theme with today’s car. Love or hate these colors, I think we can all agree that Porsche does an excellent job of keeping interesting options available to allow customers to set their cars apart from the many silver, black, white, and red vehicles of the world. On the air-cooled market these cars can be particularly noteworthy. This brings us to the car we see here, another paint-to-sample color that certainly will not appeal to everyone, but which we so rarely will ever come across: an Amaranth Violet 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, located in Maryland, with 43,000 miles on it. Like the last paint-to-sample car I featured the original buyer selected a previously available color for this Carrera so there should be a sticker to verify the color itself. Any shade of purple is rare on a car and its variants make up some of the fewest offerings Porsche has made available. There is one consistent feature amongst them: they are incredibly eye catching. Like with orange, there is almost no subtlety to these cars and draped over the curvy figure of the 993 C4S Amaranth Violet should attract even more attention.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S on eBay

3 Comments

B4 Variant-off: 1997 Passat GLX VR6 v. 1996 Passat GLS TDi

Without a doubt, Wagon Week is one of our favorite features here at German Cars For Sale Blog, and while there are plenty of desirable, big name Avants, Tourings and Estates that grab the headlines and generate the “likes” on Myface or Spacebook or Instaselfie or whatever, if I’m honest I’m always a fan of the underdog Passat Variant. Perhaps it’s because I’ve owned two, perhaps it’s because it’s the less common choice; I’m not entirely certain. True, the Passat isn’t the best performing wagon out there, and I’d concede that it’s not the best looking or best made one either. But in terms of the performance you can get in a stealthy, good looking package on a budget, I think that the Passat may be the real sleeper in the German wagon realm. But the positive aspects of the Passats aren’t unknown to all; the Quantum Syncro is always a popular if rarely seen ’80s icon for the company, and when we got to the Golf-based B3 and B4, there were some cool options too – such as the not-for-the-U.S. G60 Syncro. But even in the U.S., the B4 offered some neat performance options for the wagon aficionado – interestingly, in very different directions. Check the “GLX” option on your order form and you’d get the torquey, great sounding VR6 engine and BBS wheels in a sporty package. Check the “TDi” option, and you had a hyper-miler capable of over a thousand miles on a tank of gas. Yet while both have their niche markets, finding good examples of each can be quite difficult. Today we have one of each to compare, and I think it makes for an interesting showdown. Will either hit the $11,000 mark of the last B4 Variant we looked at?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1997 Volkswagen Passat GLX VR6 Variant on eBay

Comments closed

1996 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe – Sonderwunsch

Porsche’s Sonderwunsch Programm – now known as Porsche Exclusive – provides customers with a wide array of options to make their car just that extra bit more special. The most well known vehicle to pass through their doors probably was the original Slantnose 930, which took the excessive performance of the 911 Turbo and gave it a front-end to match. Then there are even rarer, but less obviously special ordered, examples like the 993 Speedster, commissioned by Jerry Seinfeld, but most commonly cars ordered through the Sonderwunsch Programm showcase one consistent feature: color. There is, of course, a (significant) cost associated with making such choices and we always enjoy coming across these cars with their unique color combinations, especially in the interior where we are more likely to see greater diversity among the various trim pieces, carpets, and seats. Occasionally these Special Wishes cars are tame with only an external color choice that most may not even realize was specially ordered. In other cases they can be downright wild – for better or worse. The one we see here, a 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe, located in Alabama, appears to have found a nice middle ground with plenty of details that set it apart from any standard 911, but without going crazy. The color combination may not be to everyone’s liking, but I would assume that would have more to do with individual color preferences rather than the particular choices made here. I think the choices made here were fantastic:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe on eBay

3 Comments

1996 Porsche 911 Turbo

This has inadvertently become “Red 911 Week” for me here at GCFSB. While I do enjoy a bright Red 911 my interest lies in a few other areas with the car we see here. Most notably this 993TT provides a nice market contrast to the 996TT featured on Tuesday. It is simply amazing to compare the relative value of these two Turbos and there are very good reasons for the differences that probably are not necessary to regurgitate here. We know what’s driving 993 values. I am also interested in the value of this particular 993TT as the bidding has brought the price up fairly high and it isn’t too often that we see these low-mileage examples come up for an auction; typically they are listed with a sky-high asking price, making it difficult for us to get an accurate gauge on real world values. So this one will be one to keep an eye on: a Guards Red 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo, located in Florida, with Beige interior and 23,805 miles on it.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo on eBay

4 Comments

Tuner Tuesday: 1996 Alpina B8 4.0

While Ruf and AMG grab most of the big tuner headlines from Germany, Alpina quietly and competently produced some of the wildest and best executed BMWs ever made. Simply put, Alpina made already good BMWs better – and arguably still do today. One of the most interesting aspects of the company is the close working relationship they have with the factory; a partnership which results in truly special treatment. Take the Alpina B8 for example; any normal tuner might have simply enlarged the inline-6 under the hood of the already potent M3. Or, in the tradition of the 1980s Alpinas, they could have turbocharged the engine. But instead Alpina asked BMW to make them a special V8. And, somewhat surprisingly, BMW did – a new block was designed for Alpina since the normal 4.0 couldn’t be bored out. The result was a 4.6 liter motor which was fit to the B8 4.6 and B10 as well. The motor was so large in the E36 that a special oil pan had to be designed, and neatly a German camera maker had to be employed to design and build a special oil pump to run it. Yet in true Alpina tradition, the fit and finish was factory and accompanied a host of suspension, interior and aerodynamic tweaks. Capped off by special Alpina paint, these B8s are truly special E36s. While the B8 4.6 is the headline grabber, Alpina built a short run of 5…or perhaps 6….4 liter models that were sold in Japan:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1996 Alpina B8 on Bimmerforums

6 Comments