Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
The very beautiful low-mileage Cassis Red 1987 Porsche 930 we featured back in August is back up for another sale. They have lopped $10K off of the asking price, now at $99,888.00, and while that still isn’t very cheap it’s starting to look like a much more attractive value for what is surely a pretty rare color on the 930. Will it finally sell?
In my write-up of the previous Turbo Targa we featured I mentioned that the only way to further the collector desirability of that car was if it were a 1989MY 930. Lo and behold, we have just such a machine here. To be fair, the previous Turbo Targa was very low mileage, while this one is nearing six-figures, so a market comparison cannot be made directly between the two, but as the only year the 930 came equipped with a 5-speed transmission the ’89 models have garnered a significant premium over earlier years. Stylistically the Turbo Targa is a reflection of the ’80s with wild lines and prodigious power. They are rarely the prettiest 911s as the tea-tray spoiler juts away from the Targa’s expansive rear greenhouse, but they still possess the ferocity of the 930 Coupe while providing a measure of open-top freedom. The example we see here is a Guards Red over Black 1989 Porsche 930 Targa, located in Texas, with 92,352 miles on it.
We’ve shown quite a few Targas lately, but all of those have been of the regular variety, which we come across pretty frequently even if there has been an apparent uptick in auctions for them of late. However, we haven’t featured one of these in quite a while, one of the rarest Targa variants around: a 1988 Porsche 930 Targa. For much of its life the 930 existed only in Coupe form, but in 1987 Porsche chose to make available both of its open-top 911 configurations, the Cabriolet and Targa, for its flagship turbocharged 911. Like with the standard 911 the Turbo Cabriolet was very popular, while the Targa found appeal as well if on a much smaller scale. With Targa production by far the lowest of the three models, and the model only available for three years, the Turbo Targa remains an extremely rare sight and I would suspect they would be highly prized by those with a preference for the design. The example we have featured here has a scant 9,777 miles making it not only a rare model, but one of the lowest-mileage 930s we’ve come across, regardless of which variant it might be. This would only be eclipsed by a 1989MY example for collector rarity and desirability.
The 930 Slantnose we featured back in July is back on offer. Even though it originally failed to sale it has been relisted with a slightly higher price of $99,990.00, a peculiarity that makes some sense given the market for these cars over the past few months, though it’s still somewhat strange.
Just as AMG is synonymous with early tuned Mercedes-Benz models, Ruf seems to be inseparable from the Porsche 930. It’s almost cliche to upgrade the 911 Turbo to Ruf specs; but they’re the go-to tuner for all things air-cooled. But for every Yellowbird that an enthusiast wishes they had created, there are many more pretenders that bolt on some Ruf parts and claim they’re Ruf-converted cars. Does that make them more valuable? Probably not, in general – faster, yes, but as we saw with last week’s 1979 930, although well executed more people are looking for either real Ruf cars or all-original examples. Today I have another two “Ruf” cars to face off – which wears the mods better and which is a better deal?