Never let it be said that Porsche fails to commemorate an occasion. Nor can we really say that they don’t recognize their audience and try…
5 CommentsTag: 996
This will be a rare feature for us, but like with most 911s I’m always curious to see colors and color combinations that I don’t come across often. With the 996, because of their generally lower appreciation among 911 fans, coming across those diamonds in the rough proves more rewarding since it provides an opportunity for an interesting 911 – something that will stand apart from the crowd (and there are a lot of 996s out there) – while still paying relatively reasonable prices. The one we have here, a Dark Teal Metallic 2004 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet with just 22,700 miles on it, would rank as the top-of-the-line non-Turbo 911 of its day yet now commands an asking price just under $40K. Even if not the prettiest 911s around that’s still fantastic bang for the buck. Following the trend that began with the M491 package in the mid-80s, the 4S basically is a 996TT in body and suspension, but with the standard naturally-aspirated 3.6 liter flat-six. So you don’t get quite as much power as the Turbo, but the appearance, stopping power and cornering are all on par and with 320 horses on tap the straight-line performance is still plenty attention grabbing.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2004 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet at Encore Motors
5 Comments
I’ve been looking at the 996 GT3 a lot lately. Last summer I featured this Speed Yellow GT3, which I loved and which I thought seemed like it might be a reasonable value at the time given that GT3s have appeared to be on the rise. It got me thinking and recently I began looking at them again. Let’s say the GT3 has become my aspiration. Given that I currently own a car I almost never drive, and that I would not park a GT3 on the street, it’s more of a long term aspiration. That said, since I’m not likely the only one with such aspirations, and for those who might have a more current time frame for acquiring one, it seemed worthwhile to look at what I’ve been seeing and what’s currently available on the market.
The GT3 can be very hard to find. There aren’t a lot of them since they were only imported near the end of 996 production. Also, as track-focused machines many have been modified and/or driven hard. So the crop is limited, but here we have three currently available. We’ll begin with this Arctic Silver Metallic GT3, located in New York, with 15,329 miles on it.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2004 Porsche 911 GT3 on Hemmings Motor News
2 Comments
I’m becoming consistently divergent in my features of the 996 Turbo as this post marks the third straight (I think?) example that centers more upon potential long-term value than on performance value. Not that these aren’t still a really nice performance value, but you get the idea. Here we have an Arctic Silver Metallic 2005 Porsche 911 Turbo S Coupe, located in California, with only 12,545 miles on it and the very desirable 6-speed manual transmission. This car makes for a pretty interesting comparison with the very low mileage 2003 X50-equipped 911 Turbo we featured in October. Seemingly identical colors and condition and both with quite low mileage. This Turbo S comes in at a slightly higher price so the question, naturally, is whether the particular rarity of the S makes those extra dollars worthwhile. I suspect it will, but we’ll have to see.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2005 Porsche 911 Turbo S Coupe on Hemmings Motor News
1 Comment
So, I thought I was done with green cars for a while, but there are a couple more that simply are too good to pass by. In truth, this Signal Green 2005 Porsche 911 Turbo S is the car that began my foray into the classifieds and lead me to most of the other green Porsches I featured last week. Andrew had seen a post on Instagram suggesting that this car would be put up for sale. It took a while to pop up, and in the meantime the various others came to my attention. But here it is indeed for sale. A couple weeks back I featured a X50-equipped 996TT with only 4K miles on it and wondered about the collector value and potential of these cars. The premium being asked for that very low mileage seemed reasonable, but of course it’s only reasonable if it continues to command such a premium. This Turbo S takes all of the collector factors to the next level; I’m not sure if any other 996TT (assuming we ignore the subjectivities surrounding exterior color) possesses a better combination of attributes to help it stand out as this one.