Next time buy a 996. They’ve gone up...
(Turbos at least)

My observation from watching the 993 market since 2012 is that there was a big run up from 2013 - 2015. Since then it leveled and has even come down.

I think it is simply demand has gone down and supply continues to be strong. There are always c2, c4, cabs, turbos etc available all over North America. Various colors and mileage.
There are usually one or two on BAT at any given time.

the 996 market is something that would make me very nervous

Nervous? If you buy a nice driver quality 996 and pay low $20's what's there to be nervous about? You're not going to wake up one day anytime soon and find out its a $10k car. If you paid something like $23k for one and in a year or two its a $20k or $19k car sure you're experiencing some depreciation but nothing like you would on a newer 911 or newer car for that matter, and its still a pretty fun car to have.

I'm with you, other than the Mezger engine cars. Heard way too many horror stories about the M96.

Exactly. I feel that way about 986,987,&996. I paid $8500 for my 987 with a dropped valve. I kind of use that as a guideline of where you can dump one if you need to. I figure $7500-10,000 for a car with an IMs failure engine. If I’m in for $20-25k. And it pops after a couple of years? Meh. Dump it and move on.

I spent about $10k rebuild my engine. That’s a wholesale price. More like $15k if you are paying. Not worth it most of the time imo.

well a turbo was mentioned and those aren't low $20s

50s for one you’d want now.
A 10% drop is still less than my truck depreciated when I started it up -before- I drove it off the lot :)

I never bought my 85 Carrera to make money. I bought it to drive . It’s nice but not restored. I will never restore it. But I did just spend money making it run nice. If I need to sell it in 8 years for $20k I’m
Good with that. Cost me 12k in 2010. I have put in 11k. And I have had 500k of fun!!

Hagerty valuation for 2001 turbo in "good" condition is $40K.

Why isn't that one you would want now ? As a driver.

Well..this sold fast:

https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-cars-sale/1038465-fs-96-993-coupe-roller.html

Find a coupe with a stick at that price that doesn’t have a ton of miles.
Even as a driver I don’t want a tip or a rag top.

my DD is worth about $5000 tops and there are a lot of aircooled projects that i would want to spend that $40 on instead. Maybe just me

I hope that was sarcasm?

The boot maker and the shoes.

collector cars
 

i think 3 reasons that most collector cars are dropping.

1. when overall interest rates where even lower than today a lot of cash went into collector cars, the increase in rates has eroded some of that investment money.
2. the second reason is that the older guys are gettign out of the game and dumping their cars as they are down sizing.
3. third reason is that the younger crowd is not as interested in working or owning what is essentilall old technology and will not spend their money on them.

Will they go up again? the pristine garage queens should hold value, and perhaps increase a bit, but for the most part our cars are dead in the water as investments and unless the younger group decides to get into old cars which i highly doubt, you can expect you car to slowly depreciate every year probably based on an actuarial table as the geezer group fades into the sunset.
If you do not want to see the value drop every year then sell it now as it will never go back to where it was unless it is perfect.

lol yep 100%

I would add one thing with regards to the yuuutes. They don't know how to drive a stick. So even though today autos are looked down upon by the Porsche nerds, in the long run those will probably hold up better than the manuals.

Overall though this is what happens with old cars. They get hot when the generation that lusted after them as kids enters peak earning years. As that generation heads off into the sunset, the next generation has their own iconic cars and doesn't want dad's or grandad's iconic car. Right now 70s and 80s air cooled Porsches are owned, for the most part by guys in their 50s and 60s. They will in the not too near future get too old to drive them (hard to get in and out of one with a bad hip or knee, or what have you). So who will buy them at $40 or $50K? Certainly not a millenial whose dream car was an original NSX or a E39 M5 or other iconic cars of their youth.

That's not say values will drop to $0. There will always be a market for older cool cars. But the long term trend is nowhere but down. Demographics is destiny.

As one of the numerous "older guys" here, I have no idea what you are talking about !

Old stuff is always interesting. I say the classic 911 has a good chance of holding its long term allure as long as they don't ban ICE.

With 1 exception, every owner of an air cooled I spoke to when looking to buy one was and "older guy" who was getting rid of it because he a) didn't drive it anymore, b) was too old for it and/or health reasons or c) was downsizing and selling all his garage "stuff" before moving into a condo.

Remember "here" is not representative of the world at large.

Except for the last category, those are the "older guys" cashing in on 2-3x their original cost.

There are plenty of new "older guys" reaching peak earnings who can easily buy these as a hobby. What's $40K these days, a nice depreciating family sedan to those who worry about costs, not even counting those who don't at this level of spending ?

It’s not just Porkers. I have a different - older - marque in addition to the 911. Actually I’ve had a bunch, but I digress.

At just the right side of 50 I’m one of the youngest owners. Every year there’s an annual gathering and a few more owners have aged out or shuffled off the mortal coil. It’s something we talk about every year and it gets more pertinent every year.

There’s a model T club near me in NY. I remember going to a show a few years ago where there were 15 of them in a row. All beautiful - immaculate - and all practically worthless. The median age of the owners had to be 85. That’s the specter that looms over all of us...

Perhaps I should go buy a VR4 while I still can :D

Typically people who have enough money to not blink at $40K, are also the people who don't squander $40K on things without thinking about it.

I read an interesting article a few years ago about the inverse correlation between one's income and the price one pays for cars. Putting aside the gazilioniares who buy $1M Bugattis and things like that, and excluding the ultra cheap $2000 junkers, basically the more income you have the cheaper the car you buy. All those people driving $60K new BMWs, are buying them on credit and are really stretching. On the other hand, people who could write a $60K check for that BMW, drive a $30K Camry. Remember $30K millionaires? They never really went away, they just became $60K millionaires with inflation :)

Rich people don't typically get rich by making stupid financial decisions like paying a lot of money for an instantly depreciating asset. Poor people stay poor because all they do is make stupid financial decisions.

You're missing the picture.

Discounting the flipper types, the new "older guys" buying these are not making a financial decision. As one of them, I wasn't.

Of course, if their hobby cars double or triple in value, many of these "older guys" will sell them as the ones in your categories 1) and 2) did.

I can’t believe Max is arguing that middle aged is older. Hurricanes in Alabama I tell you.

I read Vaive as a "young" dude.

Sometimes things are not as they seem. The book The Millionaire Next Door, talks about this. It's a great read with some interesting data.

Kinda funny. That book is over 20 years old. Back when a million dollars was worth something.


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To people with real money $40k is a new watch or a shopping spree for the wife.

You nailed it, with the exception poor people tend to blame their financial situation on everybody else's actions, not their own!

Agreed but you mentioned just a plain old 996..

There is a bit more risk in the tt but not a whole lot more and the principle remains intact on those cars assuming one didn't grossly over pay. They're not going to be $30k cars anytime soon IMO.

https://i.imgflip.com/39vsa7.jpg

Young-ish :cool:

My very first impression of the 996 when I first drove one back in 2010, was how much it felt like my wife's Honda Accord. I kid you not.

Drive the GT3, it is no Honda. There’s a reason that even the hard core air cooled guys are adding them.

I've owned an Accord. And I've owned a 996. And I think you have to be kidding. I get that in order to sit at the Porsche cool kid table, you have to hate the 996. But come on.

You must not have known too many poor people - I have and the majority do no such thing.

You’re basically right, I get it. I don’t think it helped that my first ride was in a tiptronic. But I shouldn’t bag on the 996. It’ll take my 993 on the track every day of the week.

It reminded me of my dad's Mitsubishi 3000, it made noise, the gauges moved accordingly, but it felt very refined and sterile. I looked at one and drove it before I got the 993, and I was very underwhelmed. It was a sports car, but it didn't feel like a Porsche, not enough feel I guess. I'm sure you could mod one out and get it to feel like you wanted, but in stock form I was not sold, and didn't buy the car.

There needs to be a certain element of fear when driving a true sports car, somewhere in back of your mind that this might get away from me, with the 996 there was no fear.

---Adam

My opinion on this is gong to be controversial but its an interesting take.

When the 993 came out it was an awesome space ship of modern design (for an air cooled 911) and those wide hips were to die for.

Now that a wide hipped 997 is relatively easy to obtain, just based on sex appeal, the 993 now has pretty significant competition visually. Yes there are differences but they are in the same ballpark superficially.

Then there is the interior.
The 993 was pure luxury. Finally a porche that was the kind of Porche the doctors and lawyers thought they were buying when they bought a Porsche, as opposed to the earlier years with interiors more focused on being a raw sportscar. In my opinion Porsche attempted to make interiors very nice before that but the 930 was the first one to bring the car into the new era of luxury.

I feel the 996 Camry interior was a step back, but the 997 again does a great job in that area.

AIR COOLED
This is what all the 993 fuss is about, and while you can get as good or better suspension in the 997, you can't get air cooled.

So if we just focus on air cooldness and more classic 911 design, there are more classic 911 shapes further back in the lineage.

I'm seeing 993 owners moving to 997s or newer for all of the conveniences and comfort that the newer cars offer, and collecting a long hood or GT3 rather than sticking with the 993. Especially in the slightly younger market that wasn't there to appreciate a 993 in the showroom when it was new.

The overall 911 market got subdivided by the recognition that a long hood was a different era, and the later era was subdivided between the 993 versus everything that came before it, (and you could argue that a 964 was a half step in that direction but the poor stepsister of the 993 so really doesn't count if you can find a 993 instead,)

Here is my thought on that 993 era:
A 997 covers the modern conveniences
a long hood covers collectability

Time and options have left the 993 with a lot more competition than it had when the 996 was the newest alternative ( I'd have picked the 993 any day over a 996)
...and a GT3 has been well accepted as a car in that combined space despite its water cooling. For me the decision to get a GT3 or a turbo 997 over the 993 would be a no brainer and there are a lot of us out there thinking this now.

So the primary appeal of the 993 is that it was the last one and therefore the best of the air cooled.For that reason it will always be special, but, there used to be a lot more reasons to want a 993