Wow. That is all I can say about this one. This of course being a 1995 Porsche 911 Turbo finished in Violet Blue Metallic over a Florence Gray leather interior. It is bold both inside and out as you can see, and for some, an ultimate 911. The 993 Turbo has held steady around the $100,000 for the nice examples with some miles, but this one up in Belgium has just under 27,000 miles. Needless to say, this car is not around $100,000. Not even close.
Don’t get too excited, but it looks like prices of Porsche 964 and 993 models have started to cool off. When I say “cool off,” that means going from red hot to still hot enough to burn you. It seems the giant run up of everything aircooled Porsche from about five years ago has started to wane a little, with the the non-special cars that are in just average condition being the first ones to fall. That means all the C2 examples with over 100,000 miles on them and some cosmetic flaws, along with the boring colors. I don’t think this has anything to do the world’s current situation as the collector market is still very stable, but rather an increased focus on the rare cars and ones with very low miles. Today, a 1995 C4 up for sale in Nevada certainly seems like a decent price for what it is.
What if I told you, in the year 2020, that you could buy a 1995 Porsche 911 for just $33,000? Yes, a black over tan leather example with just over 100,000 miles. It isn’t one of the bait and switch listings where the one angle looks fine but when you click on it and scroll through the photos you see the other side was hit by a runaway garbage truck at 55 mph. Nope, this one run and drives just fine, and even has Cup wheels. Even better, it is a 6-speed! After my recent run of automatic 911s, it is finally time get to get back a true manual gearbox. So what is the catch? Well, there is always a catch.
I don’t know about you, but I love white cars. Not cream, not pearl, but as white as the giant glaciers in the Swiss alps. Well wouldn’t you know, I just happened to stumble across a 1997 Porsche 911 CS2 painted in none other than Glacier White. It has everything has everything to that made the 993 so great and then some. Widebody rear end, 18″ Turbo Twists, painted hardback sport seats, matching white gauges, and more. Even better, this example has just 58,000 miles. Everything is perfect then, right? To a lot of people, not so much. Let me explain.
The end is near for 2019 and the decade as a whole, so I figured we might as well go out with one last bang. Only this bang comes in some wild shades of green and ironically requires enough green to buy that would knock your house down. This 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S is finished in Wimbledon Green Metallic over a Nephrite Green leather interior and needless to say, is one wild 911. I took a look at another 993 Turbo S a few months ago, from the same dealer no less, that was finished in Glacier White and had just 7,600 miles on it and was left wowed by that. This car? Almost certainly a 1 of 1 example given the colors. The miles? How does 532 sound? Total.
A few weeks ago I took a look at a 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S that had one of the more severe cases of “sticker shock” I’ve ever seen. Nearly $600,000 is what you needed to pony up to drive home with that car and as crazy as that price sounds, and it is crazy, that is still without a doubt a car that is worth hundreds of thousands. Just probably not $600,000. That got me thinking, what could you get for a faction of the price but not the fraction of the experience? Well, I think you know where I’m going with this.
This is a 1995 Carrera 2 is also finished in white, although Pearl White, not Glacier White. It has the Turbo Twist wheels that everyone loves and just 52,000 miles. Is it a Turbo S? Of course not. Could you still have a ton of fun in it and save $526,000? I think I could manage that.
To many, there is no higher predator on the Porsche 911 food chain than the 1997 Turbo S. It was everything all packed into a single car. Only 182 examples made it to the US and they were all very expensive as you might of guessed. Most had a sticker price of over $150,000 in 1997, which in 2019 money is north of $240,000. After your tax and all that good stuff, you are out the door at nearly a quarter of a million dollars. That was more than a Ferrari F355 Berlinetta at the time, but its apples and oranges and you can see where values for both of these cars are at today. This example up for sale in Ohio is finished in Glacier White over Cashmere Beige leather interior and has just 7,700 miles on the odometer. The price? This or a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Upper East Side?
You can file this one under the “strange but true” category. This 1997 Porsche 911 C4S is finished in paint-to-sample yellow. However, this isn’t just any yellow. This is literally Ferrari yellow. It says “Ferrari” right on the door jam sticker. Ferrari’s name for the color is Giallo Modena because they are Italians, but Porsche calls this Ferrari-Gelb. (Literally Ferrari-Yellow) I would of loved to have heard the conversation in Stuttgart when the buyer asked for a paint to sample in a car literally from a competing brand. My guess is this was a very important person who spent a lot of money with Porsche over the years because Porsche doesn’t exactly bend over backwards for anyone off the street and they certainly don’t do it for less than those giant bags with ‘$‘ on the side of them. Given the paint to sample, you would be correct to guess this one also has some other cool little touches.
While for some the Turbo S and GT2s are the pinnacle of 993 performance and desirability for understandable reasons, for me it’s the Supercup cars that really excite. Building on the 964 Cup design, the 993 received a special version of the Carrera RS’s 3.8 liter M64/20. Dubbed the M64/70, a plastic intake, hotter cams, no cats and a unique non-MAF Motronic computer yielded 315 horsepower. Then, just as they had with the 964, Porsche upped the ante again with the 3.8 RSR. The RSR had an even more unique motor – the M65/75 – which went to a aluminum resonance manifold and individual throttle bodies and hot cams to produce 349 horsepower. You could opt for three different specifications for sprint or endurance, and two different transmission options (one with additional cooling). Outside, in addition to the Cup splitter and giant rear spoiler, the RSR featured GT2-esque tacked on flares covering massive 18″ BBS center-lock magnesium race wheels. It was, in all, a very special package and a claimed 45 were produced.
The thing is, this isn’t one of them. Well, sorta…
A little over a month ago I checked out a 964 Porsche 911 C2 in a great spec until you noticed it was equipped with the Tiptronic transmission. Nothing really wrong with that, but I felt like it shouldn’t be priced on the same level as the 5-speed cars given the what recent 964s are selling for. Would I kick it out of my garage? Of course not. Would it be my choice all dollars being equal? Of course not.
Building on that, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the next generation 911 with the old slushbox, the 993. The transmission was exactly the same, a ZF box with four forward gears, as opposed to the standard 6-speed you get with the manual cars. Even worse, the Tiptronic was 55 pounds heavier. Even worse than that, it sucked up the power big time. A 0-60 time in a C2 with the 6-speed was around 5.3 seconds while the same car with the Tiptronic box was 6.2 seconds. Yes, not great. However, this 1996 C2 painted in the lovely Guards Red could be cheap enough for you to consider it, right?
