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Tag: flat 6

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Motorsports Monday: 2009 Porsche Cayman S Interseries

Porsche history has always been intrinsically linked with racing since before they were even a company. From Mercedes-Benz to Auto Union and later Cisitalia, Porsche offered world-beating designs prior to establishment of its own independent racing heritage. Since the 1950s, they’ve never looked back, and every successive generation has their own legends that were born. For my father, it was the 908 and 917, while I grew up with the turbocharged whistle of the 956 and 962 dominating race tracks. To capitalize on this nostalgia, coupled with more gentleman drivers heading to the track every weekend than there ever have been, Porsche’s lineup has increasingly focused on track-biased cars. But that hasn’t stopped some from going a few steps further, and Napelton Porsche launched an interesting idea just before the turn of the decade.

Why not create a race series of equal cars, slap historic liveries on them, and hit the track? The Interseries was just that, with door to door action pitting the iconic color combinations of Porsche history at the hands of mere mortals. From the Salzburg 917 that first took Porsche to the Le Mans title to the unmistakable Rothmans colors, each of these cars wore a bit of what made the marque a legend for so many people. Everyone has their favorite design, so this series offered Porschephiles a veritable cornucopia of visual pleasure. Today, one of these cars has come up for sale:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2009 Porsche Cayman S Interseries on eBay

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Theseus’ Flat-six: 1974 Porsche 911S

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

The best part of 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plutarch questioned at what point an object began to lose its “originality”. You’ve heard the story many times, probably as the hyperbolic ‘Washington’s Axe’ parable. But though it’s been two millennia since Athenian thought led the world, the question remains applicable today.

Take this Porsche 911S, for example.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1974 Porsche 911S on eBay

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Motorsports Monday: 1971 Porsche 911E

Valuing a Porsche 911E isn’t really that hard, in the grand scheme. The middle child of the 911 lineup, a quick check of Hagerty’s valuation tool has the average value around $78,000 right now, with a high of $144,000 and a low of $52,500 for a “fair” example. While the 911 market has flattened or cooled slightly, they’re still quite valuable cars. Valuing historic race cars can be more difficult, but as vintage racing is currently in vogue right now, they’re many times more expensive than their road-going counterparts if they are properly sorted factory cars. Figures close to a million dollars aren’t unheard of for the right racer. But the most difficult to value are the non-original, modified racers run by privateers. Sometimes they have a very interesting history, such as this ’71 E does:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1971 Porsche 911E on eBay

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Tuner Tuesday: 1987 Porsche 930 Coupe

Modified 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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Motorsports Monday: 1986 Porsche 930

It’s hard to fathom any Porsche 930 as “reasonably priced” these days, but after the $500,000 SLS AMG GT3 from earlier this 1986 Porsche 930 seems positively a cheap way to consider track time. What interests me about this car is something the seller mentions in the listing; this is an original Turbo, and still retains the original motor casing and transmission to prove it. Rob’s recent modified 1984 911 “Turbo” model and Nate’s odd M30 turbo M5 from yesterday prove that turbocharged motors popping up in unexpected packages isn’t particularly uncommon, but original 930s rarely turn up in race car form:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Porsche 930 on eBay

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