Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
The Grey 1990 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Coupe we featured in early July has come back up for auction. This time the starting bid has been lowered from $49,500 to $39,500, but it is up as a reserve auction rather than with no reserve. The seller probably will not have budged much on price, but hopefully we’ll at least see some bids this time around. Whether it will meet the seller’s reserve, we will have to see.
The Porsche 964 RS America is one of those cars you see from time to time in the marketplace, more often than not having led a pampered life with very few miles accumulated on its odometer. These lightweight 911s are highly collectable nowadays so it’s rare to see one with high mileage, let alone one having covered over 200,000 miles. This RS America for sale in California is the highest mileage example we’ve seen, but appears as if it might have covered only a quarter of the miles. This particular car is one of the first 100 made and has had a rebuilt engine
during its life.
There is a 964 I frequently see around my neighborhood and each time I come across it I come to appreciate the design more and more. They are rarely seen cars around these parts so this is one of the few I have the opportunity to see on the road. The 964 has a presence about it that I do not feel from other 911s. The classic 911 that preceded it, and I should be clear that I love the classic 911, shows its age to a certain degree and its slightly less muscular form doesn’t captivate the senses quite as well. On the other side, the 993 almost is too elegant. When you see one it looks expensive even today. There was a point where I considered the 964 to be neither here nor there; it had moved on from the classic design, but it had not yet taken on the sleek and curvy nature of the 993. I still see the 964 as existing in that intermediate space, but I have now begun to appreciate the way in which it strikes a balance between the earlier and later designs. What once I saw as flaws, now appear as significant features. The 964 we see here, a Grey 1990 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Coupe located in Florida with 86,500 miles on it, reflects that sense of presence very well.
The 1992 Porsche 911 Carrera Cup we featured back in May is on offer again, with a price reduction of a little over $10,000. It’s still not pocket change, but with air-cooled prices on the move, this rare, competition focused 964 is sure to be a top prize in the vintage Porsche portfolio years on.
I’ll admit the market for a 964 3.3 Turbo perplexes me. At times they seem somewhat undervalued relative to the 930 that they replaced considering they feature nearly the same running gear, though with a redesigned body, and overall there are fewer of them given the much shorter model run. Much of this comparison only applies to the ’89 930 and the difference in value between an ’89 930 and a 964 3.3 Turbo comes down to the collector status of the ’89 as it’s the only year the 930 came equipped with a 5-speed manual. Yet, these 964 Turbos can be had for far less money than a comparable 993, which lately appear to have been catapulted into the stratosphere. I have long wondered how the relative markets of the 993 and 964 would play out. The 993 is the last of the air-cooled Turbos, yes, but the 964 is considered by many to be the last of the brawny, diabolical, Turbos since it remained purely in single-turbocharged rear-drive form while the 993 smoothed so many of the Turbo’s rough edges with its more sophisticated twin-turbocharging and all-wheel drive. Maybe it is only the 964 3.6 Turbo and Turbo S that will see enhanced values from these features, but overall it seems, at least for now, that the 964 3.3 Turbos might be flying a little under the radar.
