Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Sometimes less is more. Just because you can throw everything on the car, doesn’t mean you should. At a point, there are too many designs and too many colors to even take in and it becomes a jumbled mess. Today’s car, a 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet, might be one of those. It starts off great with a wonderful shade of Ocean Jade Metallic and then goes all downhill from there. You’ll see what I mean.
Though it was instantly recognizable as an Audi, the all-new-for-’92 C4 bore little resemblance to the boxy C3 it replaced. Fluid lines and curves dominated the design, while new running gear and motors made a splash in performance. The C4 continued to stress Audi’s pioneering aerodynamic tradition, but the result this time was a car which seemed far less top-heavy than the chassis it replaced. It looked more trim even if it was a bit bigger than the outgoing model.
On the fly, the 100’s new motivation was a revelation. The 2.8 liter V6 replaced the 2.3 liter inline-5, and though horsepower was only 172 and torque 184, both figures represented a nearly 30% gain over the 5-pot. New, too, was a 4-speed automatic transmission. And while the inside looked little different from the last of the C3, only switchgear was shared and the C4 brought a host of new safety and convenience features to the large-chassis Audi.
Strange, though, was the re-appearance of Audi’s earlier naming convention in the US. Back in the early days of the 5000, Audi had used the “S” and “CS” monikers to denote turbo and quattro models at times (but, again being Audi, inconsistently). Well, the S and CS were back after a four-year hiatus. Base model 100 came with steel wheels, while the “S” model stepped you up in options and gave you alloys. But outside of the 20V turbo S4 model, the 100 to get was still the 100CS, which was the most loaded and gave you the option for Audi’s quattro drivetrain. Fully loaded, they were around $35,000 – not cheap, but also not the most expensive in class, and were still pretty unique in offering all-wheel drive. But like the C3, the front-drive 100/100S/100CS outsold the quattro model by a fair margin and are more common to find still kicking today. Audi claims they traded just 2,230 of the new 100CS quattro in 1992, only portion of which were wagons, so let’s take a peek at this Avant:
This C4 is listed as sold for $12,950 on November 20, 2021.
Back in January (and, again in July!) I took a look at this European-specification 1995 Audi S6 Avant. So why is it back? Well, in July it moved to a different seller, has different photos, and is now a no reserve auction. Strangely, the new photos also appear to be taken in Europe, but the car is claimed to be in Stamford, Connecticut – and the July auction was also supposed to be no reserve, but here’s the car again – and, again, with a slightly different description with some contact information. Each time a bit of new information is disclosed. Scam? Perhaps, but if you’re interested maybe it’s worth a call.
Original text from January 2021:
It used to be a bit unusual to see 90s-era European-specification cars come this way. But with the advent of the internet and 25-year-old cars being relatively cheap in other areas of the world, coupled with a current soaring market in the US and nostalgia for easier (they weren’t, but it’s okay to think they were) times, it’s less unusual to see Euro-only models for sale stateside. That’s not the case today; this S6 Avant was available here in nearly identical spec. However, there are a few things interesting on this one and it’s worth taking a look:
Defying the odds and most aspects of common sense, a group of fans out there still loves, maintains, and drives Audis from the 1980s and 1990s. Why is this so outrageous? Well, first off, there just aren’t many left. Audi never really broke many sales records here in the US. When we look at this car’s model year, Audi sold about 18,000 cars in total – helped in no small margin by the early launch of the A4. Between 1991 and 1994, Audi averaged only about 13,000 cars per a year. To give us some perspective on that, let’s look at Ford’s F-Series trucks. Even in the midst of pandemics, global parts and labor shortages, and inflation, Ford has managed to move between 45,000 and 84,000 F-Series trucks from showrooms each month of 2021. But that’s the Ford truck, you say, not a luxury car. Fair enough. Let’s look at the least popular Volkswagen on offer – the Passat sedan. Volkswagen is on track to sell more of those here this year than Audi sold total cars in 1995, and they’ve already outsold the ’91-94 years by a safe margin with two months to go.
The secondary part of the problem is Audi’s insistence that we don’t need parts for our 25+ year old cars. It’s not that Audi doesn’t make said parts – they do, and sell them through Audi Tradition. And judging by their recent partnership with Ken Block, Audi’s interested in showing off its historical cars here in America. But they refuse to sell you parts to fix them.
This means, of course, that enthusiasts are left to fend for themselves, creating groups of faithful fans that buy, trade, and sell parts amongst themselves, tricks and tips, and…of course…really good examples for sale that pop up. So let’s dive in to this late-production Magnolia S6 Avant:
One thing that doesn’t make sense to me is the Porsche 993 market. A handful of years ago they had a sudden rise and seemed to settled at prices are were somewhat understandable. The Turbo was the king of the hill, then you had the C2S and C4S, followed by the regular C2 and C4, and bringing up the rear was any Cabriolet or Tiptronic gearbox car. Now in 2021, things have reached insanity levels. Any 993 Turbo is going to start at minimum $150,000 and have to potential to go well over $200,000, while the C2S and C4S are starting at $100,000 and making their way towards that $150,000 mark. The rest of the lineup? Thankfully, they’re not drafting to closely. Maybe a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats?
