Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
It’s amazing how one little piece of bodywork can change the look of the car. On Porsche 911s, its all about what is out back. Ducktail, duckbill, whale tail, tea tray — I love them all. I also love that Porsche continues on with them despite probably not really needing them. Today, we have one of those with this 2013 911 Carrera 4S coupe up for sale in Michigan.
I’m not here to say “I told you so”, but when I told you three years ago to snag these while they were still cheap, I wasn’t kidding. Just $28,500 for this example back in February 2020 (right before the world fell apart) seems like highway robbery as that car is probably going to sell for at least $10,000 more today. Today’s example, a 2004 up for sale in New York, has the beautiful Carrara White with just over 44,000 miles. Still grab one while you can? Maybe not at this price.
It seems that Porsche wasn’t afraid of turquoise judging by the 930 Turbo I looked at a few weeks ago. As you can see by today’s car, they certainly weren’t scared of it on the outside of their cars either. This 1996 911 Carrera 4S is a desirable car in any shade, but in paint-to-sample Dragonfly Turquoise Metallic? Oh boy. Rumor has it that this was a press and demo car for Porsche AG in Germany and then changed hands to an employee who owned the car from 1998 to 2007. That certainly explains I’ve never seen one in this color and it has the extra touches on the interior. The price? I guess we’ll be guessing on this one.
Sometimes there is more to the story than we know. Perhaps it is some funny business behind the scenes, a sale that really didn’t happen, or just some straight-up fraud. Today’s car, a 2002 Porsche 911 Carrera 4s, might not be any of those things, but something isn’t adding up here.
I thought I recognized this car and turns out I did as it was recently sold at Gooding & Co. Amelia Island auction back in early March as part of the late-Rudy “Mr. 993” Mancinas collection. It was a fairly nice 996 C4S, but had a good number of miles on it at nearly 86,000. What is an early C4S with that many miles worth? Usually in that $40,000-50,000 range for a nicer color and cool options like this. Even Gooding estimated $40,000 – $60,000. Totally reasonable. What did end up selling for? $72,800. Yikes. That is 996 Turbo money easily. Now, a month later, the car is back up for sale in Charlotte, North Carolina for the price of $70,820. Huh?
The Porsche 911 Targa is one of those true ‘have your cake and eat it too’ cars that has been carrying on for a few decades now. After all, it was created to answer the rumor that the US was going to ban the sale of convertible cars due to safety reasons, but Porsche, and most importantly their customers, still wanted open-air motoring. What started as a simple removable roof panel transformed into a piece of sliding glass over generations, and now we have an extremely complex folding roof mechanism that you pray never has a fault with it. Still, when it works, it is amazing. So what do you say – are you a Targa fan or not?
