Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
When it comes to the argument of which Porsche 911 is the king of the hill, you won’t see me dismiss the 997 GT3 RS 4.0. Porsche and the GT team basically did everything they could to crank 500 horsepower out of a flat-six squeezed in the back of the 997. At the time, this was supposed to be the last GT car with a true six-speed manual. So when these dropped, all 600 were jumped on like wild dogs on meat. Now ten years later, double the MSRP and you can take one home. Fair deal?
One of the more interesting special editions to come out of Porsche in the last 20 years was the 2006 911 Carrera S Club Coupe. As a thank you to PCA members, or maybe a way to milk some more money (probably both), Porsche produced 50 Club Coupes only available to PCA members though a random drawing of everyone who put their name in the hat. If they were chosen, of course they still had to pay $105,000 for a Carrera S painted in exclusive Azzurro California and with a bunch of options. For comparison, a 2007 911 Turbo was around a $120,000 at the time, so this was not a cheap C2S. Seems like a bad deal, right? Well, not if you held on to it for all these years.
The 997.1 Porsche 911 is probably my favorite “budget” 911. I wish I could put “budget” in size 82 font quotation marks given we are talking Porsche here, but in the grand scheme of things where a new base 992 C2 is $100,000, your buck doesn’t go very far these days. Now you are probably saying, “What about the 996?” And yes, you are right. But given the very small price difference between the 996 and 997.1, I think it is the perfect sweet spot of having a modern 911 without spending over $50,000 just to get a seat at the table. Today’s 997 has my favorite Lobster Fork wheels and isn’t a boring color. There’s only one problem though – the transmission.
Some days I really like yellow cars. Other days I do not. This might be one of those days I don’t like it. What we are looking at today is a 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo obviously finished in Speed Yellow, but to me it just feels a little too light. I looked at a 2004 GT2 last month that was also in finished in Speed Yellow, but comparing those two cars, they feel totally different to me. Maybe it is just the 996 vs 997 thing, but this Turbo just seems like a real let down to me when it comes to wowing me with the color. Your thoughts?
I had a dream that one day I’ll own a Porsche. Well, to be fair, I have dreams that I’ll own a lot of cars. But a Porsche is definitely on the short list of “top 1,000 potential cars”, anyway. It probably won’t come as any surprise that I’d like to own something not quite like what everyone else owns. And that brings me to today’s car.
The 997 Turbo was introduced in 2006 and, once again, redefined and raised the benchmark for performance in its category. With the best part of 475 horsepower on tap, it produced nearly 10% more power out of the box than the X50 package had only the prior generation. Porsche being Porsche, that was not enough; in 2009, the car was redesigned and the lighter engine was now up to 493 horsepower. And in 2010, Porsche kicked it up another notch with the introduction of the Turbo S.
The Turbo S had all of Porsche’s cutting-edge technology. Carbon-ceramic brakes, the PDK transmission, torque vectoring; if you could name it, it was on the Turbo S. These cars had 520 plus horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque; pound for pound, these cars were quicker than the supercar Carrera GT had been just a few years earlier. Today, pricing has come down as they’re not the biggest and brightest star anymore, but they still seem pretty special – and this one is just plain gorgeous to me:
