Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
We’ve featured our fair share of Porsche 928s over the past few days, so it’s time to turn our attention back to that other favorite front-engined transaxle, the 944. This 944 Turbo for sale in Ohio has seen just 55,000 miles, painted in classic Guards Red with those famous phone dial alloy wheels. With the dawn of a new turbocharged four-cylinder Porsche upon us in the form of the 718 Boxster, the time is ripe to analyze another four cylinder Porsche from 30 years ago.
In my continued efforts to keep an eye on the market for the 3.2 Carrera I present another low-mileage example that appears in exceptional condition. But, if I’m totally truthful, this one is more than that for me and my choice of it to feature isn’t just because it’s a potentially high-dollar Carrera. The 911 we see here is a Black 1985 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe, located in Los Angeles, with Tan interior and 22,900 miles on it. It is outfitted pretty much exactly as I would have chosen. Black and Tan isn’t necessarily an exciting combination and both the black exterior and tan interior will have their detractors. But it’s my favorite combination for a car I plan to spend time driving. There are more exciting colors I’d love to have in the garage, but those are to look at. Add in the black Fuchs, sport seats, and the whale tail (with complementary front spoiler) and this is precisely what I would be looking for in a Carrera Coupe. As we’ll discuss below it’s priced well above what I’d desire from a 911 I wanted to drive, but in all other regards I absolutely love it!
I haven’t featured a Porsche 911 Speedster in a little while. Like other rare 911 models that we see up for auction fairly frequently many of them seem more or less the same so without some aspect that makes it stand apart I tend to pass them by. They come in few colors and many sit with very low mileage and in very good condition. Many were bought by collectors and have remained with collectors. The 911 Speedster we see here does stand apart for its unique color combination so it caught my eye, even if we could do with some better pictures to help showcase the car. Those colors are Linen Grey over Mahogany. The former I’ve seen a few times and it’s always somewhat of an interesting choice as it kind of makes for an inside-out Carrera – Linen being a very popular interior color on 911s of this vintage. It isn’t an exciting color though. The latter color I can’t recall coming across at all. Mahogany is in the vein of brown or chocolate that Porsche offered as an interior color in the late-70s and early-80s, but this might be the first late-model 3.2 Carrera I’ve seen with a brown interior. A brown interior isn’t always to everyone’s taste, but I think the fact that Mahogany appears to be a lighter shade of brown will give it wider appeal. Either way, it’s certainly rare and that’s the key here.
Do you ever have those moments where you look back 5-10 years and think of the cars you could have bought so much more cheaply than they appear on the market today? I think back to cars like a few I mentioned this morning – the M3 and Quattro – that could be had in great condition for under $10,000 only a decade ago. Then there are cars on the cusp of taking off – cars like the 190E 2.3-16 and 944 Turbo – that are currently still attainable, but one wonders for how long. Moving up a few leagues from the minors in the majors, though, and it wasn’t very long ago that Porsche 911s weren’t astronomically expensive. Think the E30 M3 is bad? Let’s talk about cars like the 930. In May, 2013 Hagerty valued an absolute top condition 1986 Turbo around $60,000. Today, the same estimate is $315,000 – amazingly, down slightly from last fall when $325,000 was the top number. If you pardon the poor pun, the 930 has simply outpaced the stock market many times over, proving it has supercar staying power.
The same can be said of the car that replaced it, the 964 Turbo. Even a standard 3.3 went from a top value of $50,000 in September, 2014 to a pretty steady $275,000 today. Are these numbers always being realized? Perhaps not, but it certainly gives us a value trend. And that leads us to the 996 turbo model. The 996 has been demonized left, right and center for being watercooled, ugly and even fragile, though at least the latter doesn’t necessarily apply to the turbo model. The result of that is it is, without a doubt, the most performance you can buy on a reasonable budget with a Porsche badge attached to it. There’s another school of thought, though – and that is that the 996 won’t remain a budget forever. It’s impossible to predict if there will be a similar bubble to these cars, but the rumor mill seems to be swirling that people in the know are picking up excellent examples in the anticipation that it just could take off:
For all intents and purposes, 1969 marked the end of the 912 as Porsche’s entry-level automobile. With the introduction of the 911T, the 912 didn’t really make much sense anymore and Porsche was soon to debut the 914 as a new model that was not only entry-level in itself, but also quite different. Sure, the 912 would be back as a one year filler in 1976, complete with impact bumpers, but really it was with those earlier examples that it would make its name. It even served as a German police car. Part of the 912’s appeal was that it appeared so similar to its bigger brother the 911. In fact, the differences between the two came down almost entirely to the 912’s use of a four-cylinder engine rather than the 911’s flat-six. From the outside a quick glance would reveal little difference between the two and the 912 was even reputed to showcase better handling given its better weight distribution. Over the years many have disappeared through use but now and again we come across very nice examples, like this Polo Red 1969 Porsche 912 Targa located in California.
