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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?
Here we have another 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S. The final climax of the air-cooled 911 and quite rare. This one is not a ridiculously low-mileage garage queen like the last Turbo S I featured. While it’s hard to call any twenty-year-old 911 reasonably priced at almost $300K that’s pretty much exactly what we have with this one. Of course, there are reasons for that reasonableness. In this case, a touch over 80K miles and an engine rebuild account for the discount. Even so, is it worth it? It’s still around $100K more expensive than a low-mileage non-S 993TT and you likely could buy 2 of those if you allowed for comparable mileage and condition. Such is the cost of rarity.
Oh my lord this is everything. Here we have an Arctic Silver Metallic 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S, located in New York, with Boxster Red interior and a mere 2,544 miles on it. Do I wish the exterior were something other than silver? Maybe, yes. However, Arctic Silver is a pretty nice variant of the color and the contrast it presents with the Boxster Red interior works so incredibly well that I almost don’t mind it’s a silver car. On the 993 Turbo S the color works quite well anyway.
There were only 345 examples of the Turbo S built in total and they provide the best combination Porsche could offer at the time in terms of performance and luxury. 430 hp was propelled to all four wheels through a 6-speed manual transmission. Larger disc brakes with the now well known yellow calipers provided restraint for those extra horses and the revised Aerokit helped keep the wheels planted. They are exquisite looking cars and, of course, the last of the air-cooled 911 Turbos. Naturally, that makes them quite highly sought after.
I think this 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo comes under the heading of “never judge a book by its cover” because while it’s a very lovely car from the outside it is really all about the interior. That’s the part of this one that will have appeal relative to all of the other 993TTs on the market. It’s quite clearly special order. I’ll also be quite upfront and state that I don’t like the way it has all come together. However, I’m very happy that it exists. It shows us the type of things that Porsche has made possible over the years for its more intrepid customers so even if it isn’t what I would do it might give you some ideas. I also think it’s only a couple minor tweaks from looking quite good. Let’s take a look:
Let’s see if we can figure out what we’ve got here. Despite its appearance this is not a 993 Turbo S. The rear vents in the quarter panels, the quad exhaust tips, and the yellow brake calipers all make it look the part, but it isn’t. It is an Ocean Blue Metallic 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo with a Black leather interior and 23K kilometers on it. It also just so happens to have been fitted with a number of Turbo S pieces. As noted, the mileage is given in kilometers and the speedometer shows km/h so this clearly was not originally a U.S. market 911. In which market did it originate? We aren’t told. It’s also not quite clear why the original buyer would order a standard Turbo and then effectively convert it to a Turbo S. Porsche doesn’t typically make it less expensive to “build your own” so to speak. Perhaps a Turbo S was not available or perhaps the owner just wanted something more unique because given that this one is claimed to be 1 of only 2 such Turbos to exist it’s quite a bit more rare than the already very rare and very desirable Turbo S.
