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?
Tag: aircooled
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?
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Tiptronic on eBay
Comments closedModified cars from the 1980s enjoy are and interesting exercise in dichotomy. Take AMG, for example – add the flares, wide wheels, hunkered down suspension and turned up engine to a W126 and the asking price increases from a standard model by a factor of ten. What is strange about the AMG model, though, is that enthusiasts of the Affalterbach company accept licensed installers as proper original builds. Such is not the case when it comes to tuners like Alpina, Hartge and Ruf; generally speaking, in those cases the only “true” original examples came from the manufacturer’s facilities in Germany. In these cases, examples that are properly sorted and original can be worth double, triple or even quadruple what an identically modified car from a licensed installer in the U.S. would be worth. On top of that, AMG continues to be a bit of an aberration in the tuner realm since most other period modified examples of Porsches, BMWs, and Audis are worth less than a pristine stock example. It’s a bit of a head scratcher, since generally speaking, companies such as Alpina and Ruf put out equally good looking products when compared to AMG, and properly modified were just as luxurious and just as fast. Nevertheless, a tastefully modified example like this period Ruf-modified 1987 Porsche 930 just doesn’t seem to draw the same attention as a AMG 560SEC Widebody 6.0 would, for example. Let’s take a look at what a reported $75,000 in mods got you in the late 1980s:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 Porsche 930 on eBay
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Custom conversions can either go really well, or really poorly. Most of the time it is really poorly. But not today. What started life as a Volkswagen Type 2 factory single cab dropside pick-up is now a flatbed hauler with an extra axle thrown on there for good measure. Now before you get excited about that extra axle, it’s only along for the ride as it looks like only the second axle is functional. Once I started digging into the (sparse) information on this T2,  it was built and used to be a working car hauler — save for one big problem. So let’s check out this once Californian T2 that now resides in the Netherlands.
CLICK FOR DETAILS:Â 1972 Volkswagen T2 Tandem Axle Flatbed on Classic Trader
1 CommentThis past weekend was the Goodwood Festival of Speed; if you missed it once again, or have no idea what I’m talking about but are reading this, it’s something you desperately need to examine in your motoring life. There are historic races held around the world, and there are motoring events held around the world, so one more held on some rich dude’s driveway shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Wrong, it’s perhaps the single most unique and impressive automotive event in the world. The FoS reunites classic race cars often with their original drivers, driven in anger up the 1 mile hill of Lord March’s drive. It’s tougher than it would seem to be, and since it’s inception it’s attracted every major automobile manufacturer and gathered some of the most impressive machines ever made. From the first race cars to modern Formula One racers, the Festival of Speed is a celebration of all things automotive. For example, this past weekend, Mazda was the featured marque – but they also had gathered 7 of the 8 Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs ever built, and had Sir Stirling Moss, Hans Herrmann, Jochen Mass, Sir Jackie Stewart, and many other notable champions driving four of them up the hill. That was one of many priceless convoys parading by motorsports enthusiasts; it’s simply the largest collection of the most significant race cars ever made in the world coupled with the historic champions that drove them. Why talk about this in this tribute listing? Well, look closely at the lower portion of the door, and you’ll see that the builder of this 1972 Porsche 911 – which tribute’s Hurley Haywood’s Brumos-sponsored 1973 Sebring RSR – went so far as to include the Goodwood FoS number sticker from when the car appeared: