Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
It’s amazing how one little piece of bodywork can change the look of the car. On Porsche 911s, its all about what is out back. Ducktail, duckbill, whale tail, tea tray — I love them all. I also love that Porsche continues on with them despite probably not really needing them. Today, we have one of those with this 2013 911 Carrera 4S coupe up for sale in Michigan.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you are looking for bang for your buck, Porsche is not your brand. You are paying for much more than power, at least that want Porsche wants you to think and how we justify buying them, but it is true to a large extent. Everything just seems “right” despite not having the biggest numbers on paper and that is what keeps people lined up around the block to buy them.
Today’s car, a 2013 Boxster up for sale in Cleveland, Ohio, actually has a fair amount of value for what you are paying for it and brings a little flare with it as well. You see that red leather cabin.
For a while, if you were a diesel and wagon fan, you had some options; Volkswagen graced us with a manual TDi Jetta and Golf five-door, Mercedes-Benz floated the E-Class over here, and last but not least was BMW. The F31 launched in 2012, replacing the E91 we just looked at:
It was larger in pretty much every way, but also took on a more aggressive stance. It looked lower and meaner than the E91, especially when outfitted with M equipment. Gone were the manual and six-cylinder options, but you did get the option of selecting even more trim lines and a diesel, to boot. That’s exactly what we have here; a well-optioned 2017 328d xDrive, representing the end of F31 production. As the G21 hasn’t yet arrived and there’s currently no wagon available from BMW, nor are there plans to bring the diesel over yet, this really represents a unique opportunity:
Speaking of new(er) cars we don’t cover much on these pages, how about the Panamera? By my reckoning, we’ve never covered one here. They seem quite new, but in reality they’re now over a decade old in the market place, and a funny (and quite predictable) thing happened – they’re now very, very inexpensive. Of course, this is a relative scale, but we’ll get there in a minute.
The Panamera S grabbed the 4.8 V8 from the Cayenne, which was good for 400 horsepower, and stuck it into Porsche’s first attempt at a four-door sedan. Yeah, I’m discounting their involvement in the W124 500E, the RS2, and the Volvo 850, because those were not sold in their dealerships. So we got a hatchback design that sorta looked like a 911 imagined as an ex-collegiate swimmer, and you could have it in typical Porsche style – a ton of configurations and with multiple engine choices. Bottom of the barrel was the V6, top-tier was the twin-turbo V8, with all-wheel drive optional between. Dynamically, these were regarded as good driving cars if not great to look at. And Porsche-quick they were – 0-60 for the S was 4.8 seconds, and the quarter mile was disposed of in 13.3 seconds. Of course you got tons of tech, and in also typical for Porsche-style optional equipment would push the S’s $91,000 base price up towards six-figure territory quickly. But today? Not so much:
Coming across a low mile, “time capsule”-esque Porsche isn’t a particularly rare thing. While it’s hard to conceive of a time when they were considered cars rather than investments, even when new the high entry price and exclusivity of buying a top-tier German car meant that quite a few were treated more as prized possessions to be preserved rather than as transportation. Though less frequent, the same goes for Mercedes-Benz models, as we roll across quite a few pristine and original low mile SLs, S-Class and even less expensive models. Certainly, it is less common among BMWs and downright atypical to find a low mile, original and unmolested Audi, though one wonders if recent market trends have inspired a generation with disposable income now to buy and squirrel away brand new RS, M and AMG cars in cocoons to emerge in a few decades as a retirement fund. It’s all a bit nuts if I’m honest.
But a Volkswagen? Low mileage, original time pieces are beyond atypical. When they do surface, they’re not always the most desirable model, either – Grandpa’s 1979 Rabbit in all-brown, for example. Sure, it’s got only 11,000 miles on the clock but it’s like donning a polyester suit and slapping on a fake mustache to go to a Halloween party as Ron Burgundy. No, no, I’m sure you do the best Will Ferrell impersonation in the world, but the situation is a bit worse than the plotline to Anchorman 2. But once in a while something comes along that is truly special AND cool:
