79' 911SC price

[chris.lovell]

To All,

I am hoping to get some input on what I should sell my car for. It is a 79' 911 SC, the car had a complete bare metal restoration about 6 years ago that was done by the previous owner. He was meticulous and believed in only using OE parts. At the time of the restoration it was a clean never rusted or damaged sunroof coupe with about 80,000 miles and he did a very thorough mechanical and cosmetic restoration to euro spec with all the appropriate upgrades. He finished the car in Guards red with a complete tan leather interior. Below are the options and upgrades, although I am sure I will forget a few;

Factory Carrera tail
Rubber chin spoiler
Upgraded air conditioning
Cruise control
Rear defrost
Power windows
Power mirrors
Headlight washers
Bilstiens all around
Oil fed tensioners
Perma tune
Pop-off valve
Stainless exh. manifolds with heater boxes for dual inlet muffler

Since I bought the car I did the following;

Changed front panel under the bumper with later style that recesses the fog lights
Built a custom dual muffler exhaust with center outlet and replaced the lower rear panel with a modified panel to fit the exhaust properly
Built special adapters to allow fitment of modern wheel sizes and offsets
Added Enkei 17" wheels with Porsche centers and Nitto tires
Upgraded the brakes including ducting the fronts

The car has a little over 20,000 miles since the restoration and is in excellent shape with the only damage being a few stone chips. It has never been on a race track and runs and drives beautifully.

I am having a difficult time determining a value for the car as I plan to sell it and was hoping for input on what I should sell it for.

Thanks,
Chris

[GothingNC]

Could be anywhere from 8K to 15K

Was it repainted in the orignal color?

Can you post some pictures?

How fast you need to sell and location can impact your selling price.

[racer]

How's the health of the engine? Head studs pulled? Recent compression/leakdown results? Sounds like a pretty car, tastefully updated.

Any upgrades to suspension other than shocks? Still working with 30 y/o bushings for example? Glass out repaint? How much metal work was done? Any photos/chronicle of the previous owner work?

Not sure what "your" receipts added up to.. but they are likely worth about $.25 on the dollar.
To sell the car "fast" you will loose money. To sell the car at what it might be worth (lets assume it really is a great car) than its a $15-18K car?

[chris.lovell]

I have not done a compression or leakdown yet, the engine runs very strong and without any issues or leaks, I expect it to pass these tests with no surprises.
The restoration was a complete disassembly then the shell was soda blasted. From there every peice was rebuilt or replaced. There was no metal work required other then the typical aligning and blocking and the paint is beautiful (other then a few stone chips).
Unfortunately I do not have real good documentation on the restoration, although I am working on collecting what I can.
As I have completed many restorations myself, it is obvious to me that the restoration was easily 50K to complete. I think the value is probably in the high teens, but I don't understand things about this market, such as ridiculous engine values and part prices. It looks to me that the range for nice 911 SCs is low teens to 20k, yet I see non-updated original cars that people feel are worth 20k+ and I am guessing these sellers are misguided. I also can't figure out if meticulosly restored cars are worth more then clean originals. My opinion is that since they are not rare I would certainly pay more for a thoroughly restored quality car.

Some of what I see doesn't add up and this is why I asked for input.


Any additional input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

[chris.lovell]

I will post some pictures this week in hopes of more input.
I am not in need of selling the car in a rush, although now that I have made up my mind to sell it I want to get it done.
I have reached a point where I own a number of nice cars and between maintaining them and having a young family I feel like they are often more of a burden then a pleasure. So I am going to sell most of them and keep it to a couple.
The other reason I want to sell it is because I started to consider increasing the power and quickly found out that I would be better to sell this car and buy a 930, which I will do once I make some room in the garage.

I am curious as to where the best place to list the car is?

Thanks,
Chris

[SandyI]

I'd list it here, on Hemmings, PML, PCA Panorama magazine, and on the PCA website.

[trader220]

its not clear whether the mechanicals were done too? Has the motor and trans been rebuilt?

[chris.lovell]

Originally Posted by trader220

its not clear whether the mechanicals were done too? Has the motor and trans been rebuilt?

Yes, this was a complete restoration that includes the engine, trans, steering, brakes, suspension, etc...

[racer]

Another way to look at it is, what did you pay for it 6 years ago? The market has been pretty steady for this era car. Start there?

[racer]

Originally Posted by trader220

110k mile SC with a turbo look added in very nice condition with documented proper cosmetic and mechanical rehab sounds like a high teens car with some patience.

I would bet its not any sort of factory special wishes car and its not a 491, non the less done right with factory parts.

Wrong thread

[trader220]

Originally Posted by racer

Wrong thread

sorry !!!

[Jay H]

My first question would be why the previous owner would spend $50k on restoring a '79 SC at that relatively lower mileage. 6 years ago, a '79 SC was not all that desireable as far as a collector car. The age of the car prohibits these models from being collectable at this point in time (and even more so 6 years ago) and realizing the associated bump in value that collectible cars can have in order to re-coup some of that restoration cost.

Anyway, the restoration work that has been done would make someone like me question why it was done if the car indeed needed no metal work... At that point in time, Porsche was building extremely high quality cars with high quality paints, extremely durable interior materials and near bulletproof mechanicals. 80,000 miles on a 911 is just getting past the break in period.

I'd guess if the car was not a color change and it's still a very well presented example, pricing could be in the mid teens. "Dumping it quick" might require pricing in the low teens ($11 or $12k), but from your descriptions, it doesn't seem to be a car that needs to get that low in pricing to move. If you have time, price it high and see what happens. You can always lower the price.

If the car would be a fully original car with it's original paint, interior and mechanicals in very nice shape, it may bring more. At this point, I would value an original SC at a higher price than a redone one if the condition of said cars were very similar. No one can question a truly original car since it's still being presented as the factory built it. Hence the increased value (IMO) of an original car verses a restored car.

If this car that you have is tight and the restoration was well done, you may not lose too much, if any, from what you paid if you bought the car right. You won't get much for the mod's that you have done.

Also, I would suspect that a majority of the buyers would prefer 16 inch Fuchs over the 17" set up.

Good Luck!
Jay
84 911
90 911
08 987

[chris.lovell]

What he did was restore 2 of these one as a modified track car and mine as a stock type restoration, although the paint and interior colors are not original. He did this for the project and sold mine shortly after completion, it certainly isn't a project that makes financial sense.

As to what he started out with, I have restored many cars and if you start out with a clean complete car you save a lot of money. Also with the low values of these cars there is no reason to restore a rusty, damaged car. When I think about the time and money that was invested, I would have assumed that the car would have had some tremedous emotional value, which it did not.

I am not in a hurry to sell the car, in fact I have 2 people wanting to buy it. I just need to make sure I want to part with it and decide on a fair price. I have been offered upper teens for the car.
I don't consider the modifications as something to increase the price, but to the right buyer they seem to make the car more appealing and I don't understand people putting a higher value on an unrestored car that is not a very collectable car. A properly restored car is always superior and there is no collector value in these cars, so unrestored doesn't add value like an old musclecar.
Anyhow I appreciate the input.

Chris