Several people have told me car's worth more than I paid. What do you think?

[LeeH]

What's this car worth? Here's the details:

Car is a solid '72 with rebuilt '82 3.0L and 915 tranny. Title is salvage due to theft. No evidence of body damage on this car. Here's some more detail:

Fiberglass early turbo tail, Cibie H4s, polished 15x6 & 15x7s, Toyo Proxes T1-s tire, stereo delete, RS door panels, rear seat delete, Autopower roll bar, Momo steering wheel, Dino shift knob, Welstmeister short shift kit. rear sway bar, S aluminum front calipers, stainless steel brake lines, recent motor mounts, recent injectors, recent clutch, oil fed tensioners, replaced fuel lines. Corbeau Carrera seats.

Engine was reringed, had head/valves reworked, and had Web-Cam (#20/21) installed. Test pipe. All exhaust componenets Jet-Hot coated.

Super red paint job has a few minor flaws - a little cracking in the rain gutter, a few chips on the door edges.

I paid $12K...

[aigel]

Lee,

Nice buy! Why are you worried about the value of a car you just bought? Are you planning on re-selling?

I don't think you are off much with what you paid, as the salvage title reduces the value quite a bit, regardless of the fact that nothing is visible on the body. Also, there are no high dollar modifications (wheels, seats, roll bar, brakes, shift kit, etc. are all not the top of the line upgrades you could go for). I also believe that some of the update bodywork will work against value in today's time where people want the early car look and even convert newer cars to that! Don't get me wrong, this looks like a fun car, especially with the newer engine, but to resell it, you would probaby have a hard time to get mid teens.

I also notice a drip pan under the engine. There is only one reason to do that!

Modified cars are always hard to estimate. Maybe I am off, but that's my two cents. Let's see what others have to say.

Cheers, George

[umfan866]

You got a good deal.

Nevertheless, someone who might have paid even more wouldn't be a Pelican-ite but some rich dude who saw the paint job and was just impressed and doesn't know the difference between the model years (ie is otherwise clueless).

There are those who would say you should try to re-convert the car back to original, for example get rid of the whale tail, get those rings around the lights back to silver, lets get those bumpers back to chrome etc but given the salvage title that may not matter much anymore anyway, because those "ultra-original" people will balk at the salvage title.

The car looks very clean with new paint, newly rebuilt engine and despite the mods it is a long-nose 72 (smog free in california also)
so enjoy and I don't think you can lose!

[tfmcmahon]

Hey Lee,With your luck,maybe it has an original hood badge and you can sell it like the last one and pay for the whole thing ! Tom

[LeeH]

Originally posted by tfmcmahon
Hey Lee,With your luck,maybe it has an original hood badge and you can sell it like the last one and pay for the whole thing ! Tom

No such luck with this one. It's got a reproduction badge. I do have to admit I am enjoying having a car that's so far from original that I don't feel like I need to keep it stock.

The down side to this car is that it has to have an oil cooler installed and it's going to run me just under $2000. I'm going to be in this car for $15K in a heartbeat. I probably could have sold it for a bit more than I paid, but I can't resist playing around with it for a bit. Autocross this Sunday, DE in November! This will probably be the fist Porsche I've owned that I don't break even or come out ahead when I sell.

[tfmcmahon]

All kidding aside,I think you got a deal if it fires up and runs well.Some one spent some time and money albeit not in the right direction in some places,but I hope it is as much fun as it looks.Too bad about the badge! have fun DE`ing it.Hope to see you at Flight 29! Tom

[racer]

As you are realizing, you might have overpaid, depending on how you will use the car. The more cars I see sold and the follow up stories of what needed to be fixed/replaced, still leads me to believe that most 911's are $20k.. just depends where you want to start! That's not to say it won't be enjoyable. Have fun

[carreraplanes]

Looks like the market in the US is still soft. I have sold a couple of 911s here in the UK recently. Over here people love RS replicas with later 3.0 -3.2 engines. With correct interior and exterior detailing £2-3k ($4-6k) that would pass up as one of those. The bottom of the RS replica market in UK is £19,000 ($37,000 approx). Salvage car would only result in a large discount if the car had been in a heavy shunt especially if priced at the bottom of the market anyway and apparently this is straight. I realize a lot of this discrepancy is down to £/$ exchange though.

Funny thing is though real RS prices are about equal US/UK at the mo' despite exchange rates. Perhaps the market for these is more international due to higher value.