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I don't like the wheels on the 86. If it's an 86 it needs fuchs. That said it's not like it's hard to find phone dials cheap.
The 86 951's are the lightest. They also have a different ECU and wiring than the later 951's. Along with the different front spindles I believe.
If you would go the modding route (which, with a 951, is a no brainer) then an 86 951 isn't a bad car to start with.
If you can talk the 944 owner down to 5K (which is reasonable, but he probably won't go lower) then that means it's still 2200 more than the 951. That 951 plus 2200 can be reliable, and a bit of a screamer compare to your current car.
So at that point I would pick based on the condition of the body and interior.
Records on either car are potentially meaningless to me as they should be to you- you have your other Porsche as a daily driver and so no reason not to do all the work on the new car yourself, downtime regardless. As long as theres no major troubles with the K26 on the 86, which I would doubt.
Also, I've told myself that I won't ever own an early car (84) as a street car again, as I'm pretty tired of the 1970's dash and buttons. However from a race car point of view, the earlier the better due to weight, except in two areas: the fuel tank (late plastic is better) and the wheel offset/hubs (the later is better IMO.). The early steel control arms are better for racing due to their failure mode and low cost. Unfortunately the early steel rear trailing arms (did 84's have these? Maybe that was only 82/83's...) suck as far as structure and stiffness goes. The later 951 cast aluminum ones are much better.
This all leads to why I still think the 924S is the best N/A racing platform of the bunch- it combines the good parts from the late cars with the lightweight, good parts from the old cars. Early steel control arms, late 951 trailing arms, late offset hubs, rebuildable strut housings, lighter dash, simpler electronics, etc etc etc.
Anyways... back to your choices... If the 951 isn't a s*** pile and you have extra budget on top that asking price to do some preventative maintenance on it (~2K), I'd go that route.
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