When Our 911s Were Young ...

[1982911SCTarga]

I've always been curious what the Porsche new-car buying experience would have been like for say, my '82, or for other 911s purchased new (from a VW-Porsche-Audi dealer?) in the 1970s or early '80s.

It's easy enough to see what our cars' MSRPs were. However, was the MSRP the actual price paid? Or was it lower or higher? Did you order and wait, or buy what the dealer offered? Were certain colors or option-packages discounted? Did sales reps try to move you up from a T to an E or S? Was there a "best" time of year/model year to get a good deal? Was there much "selling" on the part of the dealership sales reps?

Let's set the wayback machine and hear some tales from guys who bought new 911s back in the day ...

Brian

[jhladousa]

My dad bought my 911 new on Christmas Eve 1974 right off the showroom floor. It’s a Silver Anniversary Targa and I even have the black and silver banner that was over the car proclaiming its “special model” status!

From the sales slip and original window sticker that I still have, it appears that he negotiated the price down slightly but added the dealer installed air conditioning (which, incidentally I finally completed removal on yesterday!!).

It was his only car for the first couple years he had it and he drove it through all 4 seasons in Wisconsin. I was pretty apprehensive when I started restoring it last year that I would find a pile of hidden rust but luckily it was relatively isolated and still in good shape!

[1982911SCTarga]

Jesse, that must have made for a very happy holiday season! It's great, too, that the Targa is still a part of your family.

Brian

[jhladousa]

I know how excited I was when I picked it up from the body shop this Spring after the complete restoration so I can only imagine my dad's excitement when picking it up brand new.

Come to think of it, my bill this spring was about the same as the invoice when he picked it up!!!!!

[kach22i]

The 1977 911s I have was originaly a lease car. Had to of been a new or rare thing, meaning the price was stiff even back then.

There was a boom in the 1980's which changed the scope of drivers from serious drivers to coke snifing posers. Not sure how that figures into an "out the door price".

[daleflesburg]

I bought a 914 2.0 new in 1974 after drooling over them for 3 or 4 years. Had to save my money because it had to be a "cash deal" per my better half.

It was $6500 and represented about 25% of a years wages at the time, a lot less than a new Porsche would be today. By the way, new 911 coupes in 1974 were on the lot for $9,000 to $11,000 depending on options. The only thing I have ever had second thoughts about was a "new" 73 911 S coupe w/o sunroof they still had on the lot. I could have bought it for $9,000 (Since then I have been a "used Porsche" buyer.) I wish a new Cayman S represented 25% of my current income, but, oh well.

I bought it from Carousel P/A in ??(west of Minneapolis) MN, and as I recall they were very friendly at the time of sale (but would not negotiate much on price) and were very helpful with some warranty work I had to have done. (exhaust valve guides at about 12500 miles which was the warranty period.

[jhladousa]

daleflesburg - my Targa came from Metropolitan Porsche+Audi on the East side of Minneapolis (now Maplewood Imports)!

[lagrassa]

daleflesburg: 4 X $6500 = $26,000. A very handsome salary in 1974.

[stv951]

Posters from back then...

[GothingNC]

Did some research on my 82 Targa

Base price $30,400
Metallic Paint $655
Leather Interior $1,905
Recaro Seats $250
16" Fuchs $1,580
Fog Lights $150
Bilstein Sport Shocks $180
Factory Alarm $200

Total $35,520 Plus Shipping/Tax

In 2005, $35,250.00 from 1982 is worth:
$71,355.29 using the Consumer Price Index
$63,352.22 using the GDP deflator
$73,023.01 using the unskilled wage
$105,569.99 using the nominal GDP per capita
$134,890.00 using the relative share of GDP

http://eh.net/hmit/compare/

[jwill911]

And a five years later:
MY 1987 Porsche 911 Coupe 38500.00
Espresso Brown Metallic Paint 715.00
Lthr/Lthtte Belt-Mahogony 1412.00
Steering Wheel with raised hub 52.00
Radio Reno 133.00
Limited Slip Differential 687.00
Central Locking System 309.00
16-Inch Forged Alloy Wheels 624.00
Automatic Heating Control 503.00
Full Power Seat Left 390.00
Full Power Seat Right 507.00
Front and Rear Spoilers 1489.00
Sport Shock Absorbers 247.00
Lumbar Support Right Seat 422.00
Lumbar Support Left Seat 422.00
Electric Sunroof 1092.00

Factory installed options & Acc 47869.00
Vehicle Prep. 245.00
Destination Charge 578.00
Total 48692.00

Mine was bought at Motor Werks of Barrington, IL
Window sticker states City 18 MPG and 25 Highway. That is pretty right on for what I get still 20 years later.

jw

[javadog]

Brian,

I ordered a 1983 SC in the summer of 1982 and took delivery at the factory in September of that year. Back then, the importer was VWOA, and they were less than friendly. I knew the dealer, who had been in business in a fairly small town for years. Better than that, I had a good friend who was pretty tight with the dealer and, while not employed there as a saleman, was probably responsible for 20 or more sales each year, just out of his enthusiasm for the cars.

I had an '80 targa at the time, so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. Porsche sales were pretty healthy then, in spite of the drastic price increases that had occurred yearly since the SC came out in the fall of 1977. The tourist delivery program (delivery at the factory) had different pricing than the normal MSRP. In round numbers, the prices were about 10% less. Even so, there was still a fair bit of dealer markup built in, so a better deal could be negotiated. The hardest part was figuring out some of the options and making sure what you wanted was what you got. There were a zillion different ways of optioning the interior and not much idea of what some of the choices really meant. There were no pictures or descriptions of some of the differences and help from VWOA wasn't coming. I probably spent 6 months hanging out at every dealer I could, in an attempt to spot a car that came in with an option or color I was curious about. The way some of the options were listed really pointed out that Germans think, and talk, very different from Americans. Eventually an order was placed, a deposit paid and then we waited.

One day, we were given a delivery date and we planned the trip. There were a total of five couples going, each picking up a car. The cars had to be paid for in full, a certain number of days prior to the delivery. A trip to the local AAA office was made to get an international driver's license, which really wasn't a license per se. It was more a booklet that enabled people of other nationalities to figure out your pertinent info in their own language.

We flew to Frankfurt on a 747, through JFK. It was a night flight and was more like a frat party than anything. There were endless wandering kids, in flight movies and nobody seemed to want to sleep. I sat in the middle section and gave up my seat to those next to me, in exchange for their share of the floor. I attempted to sleep on the floor with a pillow on my head to drown out the racket.

It was early in the morning when we got to Frankfurt and we caught a train to Stuttgart. Back in those days, the factory wasn't yet completely modernised and the tourist delivery cars were lined up in front of a small building. I have to say it was pretty neat to see your car waiting for you when you arrived. We did a little paperwork in the office, made sure we had insurance and then took the factory tour. In those days, it took around 17 days to assemble a 911 from start to finish and it was mostly done by hand. Sometimes, by feet. Some tasks were apparently best done by having the worker lay on their back in the car and push something into place with their feet, so that's what they did. The cars were pushed from one assembly point to another by hand, as they were mounted on little 4 wheel trolleys. The last task was to fill them with gas and oil and conduct the road test. At the factory exit, they had installed alternating speed humps and some rough pavement to settle the suspensions as the car left. When they started the cars, they hauled ass out of the building across these bumps and went on a 20 or 30 mile loop. I can just about guarantee you that every 911 engine saw the redline on that trip. The engines had already been on the dyno and these guys weren't bashful.

Once we had enough pictures, we hit the factory cafeteria for lunch and then hit the museum. About 4:00 we were finished and we set off to try and find the hotel. We had studied the international road signs and markings prior to the trip, which helped. It was still a little stressful, trying to get 5 cars to a hotel none of us knew how to get to, in what amounted to rush hour traffic.

You were limited to 4000 rpm for the first 600 miles or so, which worked out to about 100 mph in fifth. A service was due at 1,000 or 1,200 miles, so you tried to plan the trip to be near a dealer at the right time. Driving was fun, as the stoplights went from red to amber to green, so everybody at the light knew when the green was coming. You'd think the Germans invented drag racing, after watching them blast away from the lights. You definitely didn't worry about gas mileage. It was more of a concern to keep Hans from punting you up the backside when the light went green. Because we were in Porsches, it was assumed that they'd have to work real hard to keep up with us, so they were ready to go.

The autobahns were interesting. The right lane was full of trucks, wafting along at around 55 mph and the left lane was wide open, at least outside the big cities. You quickly learned to spend as much time looking in the mirror as looking out front. People in the fast lane assumed you would find a way to be out of their way before they hit you in the rear. They did not want their progress impeded so they left it up to you. This was a problem when you wanted to go fast. If you were tooling along at 120 mph and somebody came up behind you at 150, you had to find a way to get down to 55 and find a hole in the line of trucks before he reached you. Sometimes this was not easily done. At night, the trucks had to go away and park, so the slow lane ran around 80 mph. When it rained, nobody slowed down at all. This wasn't much fun, as we'd start hydroplaning around 55 or 60. Rain at night sucked. I did learn that a 911 rear window will stay completely dry in the rain, if you go fast enough.

Road rules were enforced without fail and everybody drove well. After a few days, you felt really safe and the speeds didn't bother you. If you made a mistake, the police were not so friendly. In Austria, I crossed over a single solid white line on a two lane road, to turn into a parking lot. A nearby cop whistled at me, wrote me a ticket and made me pay the fine on the spot, if I didn't want to visit the local jail. You'd think I slept with his wife, as pissed as he was. It was a good thing he didn't see our little caravan 10 minutes later, as we ended up on a narrow, one-way street that dumped us out in the middle of an outdoor restaurant in a plaza. It was pretty strange weaving five cars in between the tables to get to a place where we could hop the curb back into a street and get the Hell out of Dodge. This also taught me that if you get enough 911s in a confined space, there are some really neat acoustic effects from the engines harmonizing, if the engine speeds are close.

At the end of the trip, we turned the cars back in at the factory, where they were purged of leaded gas, had their catalytic converters installed, and got cleaned for shipping. There were other places we could have dropped off the cars, as all of the major seaports ahd facilities to process the cars. It took about 6 weeks for the cars to get to the US and, again, we had a choice of where to pick them up. We elected to collect ours in Houston, where we then got to fight with US Customs over the value. The duty was 2.8% of the current value, which was less than the original price, as the cars were now used, not new. Customs slapped a value on them that was higher than what we originally paid, which pissed us off to no end. In the end, they won because we wanted the cars and they didn't give a damn.

One twelve hour drive later and we were home. We spent the next few days servicing the cars again, in my friend's garage, as he wouldn't let the dealer mechanics anywhere near them. He was an ex-mechanic and did get to fix all of the cars that the dealer couldn't, so he sort of did what he wanted, with the support of the guy that owned the dealership.

Things have changed a lot since those days but everybody really needs to do this trip at least once. We have been thinking lately that a couple of new turbos might be a good thing in two or three years, before we get too old to drive them. I think we still have one more trip in us.

JR

[speedracer]

Great write up JR thanks for taking the time.

[jdm61]

Originally posted by jwill911
And a five years later:
MY 1987 Porsche 911 Coupe 38500.00
Espresso Brown Metallic Paint 715.00
Lthr/Lthtte Belt-Mahogony 1412.00
Steering Wheel with raised hub 52.00
Radio Reno 133.00
Limited Slip Differential 687.00
Central Locking System 309.00
16-Inch Forged Alloy Wheels 624.00
Automatic Heating Control 503.00
Full Power Seat Left 390.00
Full Power Seat Right 507.00
Front and Rear Spoilers 1489.00
Sport Shock Absorbers 247.00
Lumbar Support Right Seat 422.00
Lumbar Support Left Seat 422.00
Electric Sunroof 1092.00

Factory installed options & Acc 47869.00
Vehicle Prep. 245.00
Destination Charge 578.00
Total 48692.00

Mine was bought at Motor Werks of Barrington, IL
Window sticker states City 18 MPG and 25 Highway. That is pretty right on for what I get still 20 years later.

jw

WOW!! That means mine would have cost at least $55k in 1985!!! Turbo look was at least a $10k option early on and $14K by the G50 era.

[stv951]

JR, amazing story. Thanks

[1982911SCTarga]

JR, what a great experience!

Brian

[911 in SC]

Great story JR! So do have any idea where that '83 SC is now?

[JohnKo]

Originally posted by daleflesburg
I bought a 914 2.0 new in 1974 ... I bought it from Carousel P/A in ??(west of Minneapolis) MN, and as I recall they were very friendly at the time of sale (but would not negotiate much on price)...

That would be St. Louis Park, the suburb just to the west of Mpls. I grew up about a mile away, Carousel was VW and Porsche at the time, and it was a frequent bicycle destination for drooling teenagers!

According to the daughter of the original owner, from whom I bought the car, her father purchased my '70 E from his dealer pal near the end of the model year, as a sort of leftover. Perhaps we can assume that a low-option car in Pastel Blue didn't exactly fly off the lot in 1970 and that he got a good deal.

I'm still a huge fan of some of the oddball colors, but it's interesting to think about who was ordering some of those '70s and '80s colors that tend to be disliked today, and what they were thinking (I won't mention any personal 'favorites')!

Cheers, all.

[1982911SCTarga]

Aside from the browns and golds, I'm a fan of the oddball or rarer colors, too, such as the lime greens, gulf and other light blues, and, of course, aubergine.

Great stories, guys. From my own experience, in 1982 I was just out of college and had joined PCA after my dad and I had slowly worked my garage-sale '63 356 T-6 coupe back to decent driver status.

I was one of the few in our local group that still had a bathtub. Most everyone else had moved on to 911s and the SCs were the top of the line. It took me many years to catch up and get my own SC.

Brian

[javadog]

Originally posted by 911 in SC
Great story JR! So do have any idea where that '83 SC is now?

For a while it stayed in my area, then I lost track of the it. I've kept an eye open whenever I hear of a red/black '83 SC for sale. If you run across chassis number WPO...299, let me know.

JR