Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
The Aventurine Green Metallic 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S we featured in early January is still looking for a new owner and is back up for auction. Pricing remains more or less the same, though the seller has now provided some leeway by making it a No Reserve Auction with a starting bid of $72,500, while keeping the Buy It Now price at $75,000. I can’t help but think that the lack of quality pictures is holding this car back a bit, but at the moment the ad remains unchanged.
Jeremy Clarkson was fond of saying that sticking a Turbo badge on a car made it better. Didn’t matter the car, if it said Turbo it was good! In this way, the 911 market agrees completely with Jeremy. An air-cooled 911 Turbo is a highly sought after commodity in any guise, and for good reason. Enhanced performance trumps almost anything but the rarest of the naturally-aspirated models and given that a Turbo had a higher cost of entry to begin with we can understand why the market for them has remained so strong. As the last of the breed the 993 Turbo has held a special place in the heart of most Porschephiles, even if its all-wheel drive system dims the ferocity and purity of its dynamics to some degree. But the fact that it is the most advanced air-cooled model and, arguably, the prettiest of all the 911 Turbos lends it credence any debate and it is sure to maintain a high place within the 911 market for many years to come. The example we see here is a Guards Red 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo, located in Texas, with Tan interior and only 8,646 miles on it.
I am consistently amazed by the value many examples of the 993 can command. I fully understand the reasons these beautiful 911s command such values, but that doesn’t stifle my amazement. That these cars would attract the attention of collectors was virtually guaranteed once Porsche decided to switch to a water-cooled engine in the 996 and given such an attraction the lower-production models have always garnered quite a bit of interest, especially low-mileage examples such as this one. Here we have a Guards Red 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, located in North Carolina, with a scant 18,900 miles on it. The C4S is, effectively, the Turbo-look version of the 993, though in this case it doesn’t complete that look as the C4S lacked the Turbo’s rear wing. But with braking sourced from the Turbo, along with those wider rear fenders, these come pretty close to replicating the look, though not the performance, of the last of the air-cooled Turbos.
Yesterday we saw a “Turbo-look” version of the 993 – the Carrera 4S – and today we will look at the full-bodied, full-blooded, twin-turbocharged 993. These cars possessed the performance to match their brawny exterior while also taking on new technologies. Borrowing some cues from their development of the 959, for the first time Porsche fitted twin turbochargers to the 911 Turbo and also a refined version of the all-wheel drive system that had debuted with the 964 Carrera 4. With power now exceeding 400 hp the 911 Turbo was capable of competing with the world’s best, but now came with more manageable dynamics and a power curve that was less prone to sudden bursts as the turbo came up to speed. While some enthusiasts may have yearned for the more hairy chested pre-AWD days, the 911 Turbo had long been a way for Porsche to combine the best of its performance and luxury and these refinements fit that bill perfectly. The 993 was the last of the air-cooled Turbos and for that they have always been beloved. Here we have an Arena Red 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo, for sale at Canepa, with only 9,352 miles on it.
Narrow body versus wide body, rear-wheel drive versus all-wheel drive. These are the choices Porsche buyers are presented with when considering a 993. While there were no power differences between the standard and S models there were still performance differences as they received revised suspension and in the case of the Carrera 4S, the 993 Turbo’s larger brakes. So whether you care only about performance or aesthetics or, as is most likely, some combination of both there are plenty of choices. While from time to time I will comes across a narrow-body coupe that looks just about perfect, my preference almost always leans towards the wide-body, especially on the 993 where the smoother curves of the car suit that wider rear really, really, well. Here we have one of those wide-body coupes, a Black 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, located in Brooklyn, with Cashmere leather interior and 60,127 miles on it.
