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I’m not always the best person to write about the 911 Turbo when it comes to performance value. In part that is because I live in a city and drive a car with only 142 hp (though it is pretty light) and can’t even remember the last time I used a gear past third. And even third gear is only used for dawdling. So, power is never an issue and having three times as much horsepower almost seems confusing. That said, for most people this is not their typical experience and even I have driven much quicker cars and fully understand the allure of that extra power. While not necessarily what I would prioritize I do understand it, or in the words of Frasier Crane, “if less is more, just think how much more more will be!” Let’s get to the car here, which comes from our consistent favorite when searching for that elusive combination of supercar performance and reasonable cost: the Porsche 996TT. As the first of the water-cooled Turbos and with styling that most feel is a departure from the 911’s iconic design, the 996TT has long been a bargain and mainstay for those in search of the most bang for their buck. But that is starting to change, even if slowly. As prices for air-cooled Turbos create an ever widening gap between their values and those of their water-cooled successors, buyers appear to be increasingly turning their attention to these unloved models. We are even beginning to see collectors take notice, though for the most part that seems to be restricted to the GT2 and GT3 for now. Could it be that even the 996TT will soon see a sharp rise in value and value-conscious buyers again will have to search for the next alternative? The example we see here may shed some light on that question: an Artic Silver Metallic 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe, located in North Carolina, with 16,430 miles on it.
Enough with high-dollar air-cooled Turbos and other rare 911s. They are wonderful machines, but let’s dip our toes back in the performance value end of the pool with this Rainforest Green Metallic 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo with Savannah Beige interior and 31,040 miles on it. In all of my time perusing the Porsche classifieds I cannot ever recall coming across a 996, let along a 996TT, in this color – or frankly in most any shade of green. We’ve remarked before how Green seems to be a persistently underappreciated color. That is especially true of any brighter shade of green; the closer the shade looks to black the more popular it tends to be. Rainforest Green appears to fall into a middle ground. It’s brighter than Forest Green and other similar dark examples, but obviously a far cry from some of Porsche’s pastel greens such as Viper Green or Lime Green. So we will have to see what sort of appeal this garners, but with its Savannah Beige interior it definitely has a feel of the forest about it. It is extremely earthy. For my tastes the exterior is very nice as I have no aversion to a green exterior. I would prefer one of the darker tan colors for the interior, but as I have said previously I think any of the tan interior choices complements a green exterior particularly well. While this one is not perfect, it would suit me better than many other applications.
Supercar performance without the supercar price. That long has been the hallmark of the 911 Turbo and is especially the case for the 996TT where values have remained suppressed for some time now. The question is whether they will always remain so. It’s certainly the case that these water-cooled 911s will struggle to garner the same demand as their air-cooled predecessors, but as prices continue to significantly rise for the 993TT the bargain that is the 996TT becomes ever more apparent. It’s impossible for that fact to escape the notice of buyers for too long. What I think will remain the case for the foreseeable future is the value of any 996TT with a reasonable degree of mileage, which is exactly the place where we find the car we see here: a Seal Grey 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo, located in New Jersey, with the optional X50 power package and 58,750 miles on it.
As popular as they may be, silver cars are rarely exciting. Transform the shade, darkening it just slightly, from silver to one of the various grays on the market and suddenly you have something that can be far more interesting. We still wouldn’t call it exciting, but it becomes much easier to appreciate. Wrap that color around a 415 hp twin-turbocharged 911 and you have yourself a bit of a sleeper, or at least as close to a sleeper as an iconic sports car can be. The 996 may never be a much loved 911, but in turbocharged form it’s undeniably a fantastic performer and that lack of love simply means that they can be had for a much lower price than their comparable brethren. Here we have a 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe, located in Oklahoma, with 51,000 miles on it.
We don’t come across very many examples of the 996TT with extremely low mileage. While few we see are ever high mileage most show at least 30K miles or have been significantly modified. I assume the low-mileage examples are being held by speculators planning to wait a bit longer to see if the 996 market shows an uptick, but here we have a seller who has decided the time is right to try to sell. With just 5,700 miles this Guards Red 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe, located in Florida, appears to have led a low-stress and pampered life and should provide an opportunity to own a 996TT that is almost like new.
