Alright, NOW How Much Would You Pay?

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Someday, in that distant future, when I finally get around to publishing my book, there is a strong chance I’m going to open it with a list of all the ways in which I have abused my 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera. Not in the modern douchebag-showoff sense of driving a Huracan in the snow or driving an Aventador in the snow or driving any other Lamborghini in the snow for a YouTube video only to have the thing fastidiously concours-detailed the minute the GoPros stop rolling. More like in the sense of just using it as a regular car for 60,000 or so miles. Driving it in the rain, the hail, the 100-degree Midwestern summer heat. Leaving it outside random girls’ houses in every kind of neighborhood imaginable, overnight. Using it to carry tires and oil drain pans and children. I’ve watched my son ride his bicycle directly into the thing and shrugged it off. I’ve dropped the clutch at 5,000 rpm, hundreds of times.

My 993 has been a part of my life for more than a decade and a half now. It doesn’t get around much anymore, but that’s more because I’ve been out of town more than I’ve been home this year. Meanwhile, the most amazing transformation has occurred in the car. When I got it, my 993 was a “new-ish Porsche.” Five years later, it was a “used Porsche,” something that a top-ranking Porsche PR person was quite scathing about on Facebook when he referred to me as “a used-Porsche buyer who doesn’t affect anything we do.” Five years after that, it was a “classic Porsche.” And now it’s a “liquid asset.” I could sell it tomorrow and buy a new Corvette Grand Sport. I probably should do that.

But if my car is oh-so-valuable even after it’s been misused for a thousand dumpster runs and autocross entries and late-night make-out sessions, what would a car that hasn’t been through all that be worth? Put aside the “Nice Price Or Crack Pipe” thing. I’m talking about a main dealer here, one with an admirable record of pricing and valuing cars. Care to guess?

The hierarchy of 993 values goes like this, from cheapest to most expensive:

  • Any Tiptronic car. These are selling at a $15,000-20,000 discount now. It’s now absolutely a sound financial move to do your own G50/6 conversions.
  • Carrera 4 Cabriolet.
  • Carrera 2 Cabriolet.
  • Carrera 4.
  • Carrera 4S.
  • Carrera 2. You’ll occasionally find somebody who says the 4S is worth more than the C2. Those people are idiots, C4S sellers, or (usually) both.
  • Targa. They were sales poison when they were new. Now? A good one will leave you no change from a $75,000 bill.
  • Carrera 2S. This one puzzles me. These cars are wide-ass understeer machines with pedestrian running gear. But they’ve always fetched good money.
  • Turbo.
  • Turbo S.

There are rarer 993s out there in the Euro market, but they are sufficiently rare as to each have a negotiated value based on provenance and Special-Wish specs.

A few years ago, I spoke with the owner of an exotic-car dealership in Cleveland who had two 993 Turbo S units in stock. Both with under 1,000 miles. At the time, he wanted $249,999 for one or $399,999 for both. I thought he was crazy. Turns out he was just looking into the future.

Champion Porsche has a 993 Turbo S in decent shape, with 25,000 miles. Before you click the link, take a guess at what they’re asking.

Okay, go click.

What did I tell you?

$499,900. It’s a well-equipped car, but it’s in no way unique or unusual for a Turbo S. I’ll be watching this one to see if it sells.

Should you, the TTAC Millionaire Next Door, pull the trigger? Hell no. You’d have to be an idiot to buy that car. For $250,000, literally half the money, you could buy:

  • A brand-new Viper ACR 1 of 1, which will also be valuable in the long run but in the short run is as much faster than this 993 Turbo around a track as the aforementioned Turbo is faster than a Toyota Camry V6;
  • A 993 Carrera 2 for the aircooled lulz;
  • A Kawasaki H2 motorcycle. which is faster in a straight line than EVERYTHING;
  • A beat-up Cessna 152, which can actually fly.

That’s my opinion as a driver and Porsche owner. From an investment perspective? I really couldn’t say. It seems unlikely that this will ever be a million-dollar car. But if you’d asked me ten years ago, I would have told you that this Turbo S would never even make it to $100,000. And I’d have traded you my 993 even-up for a used C6 Z06. So what do I know?

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • ToddAtlasF1 ToddAtlasF1 on May 31, 2016

    What happens to your property tax bill when your $20K second car becomes the fetish item of risk arbitrage douche bags? Extrapolating from what I pay for my current fun car, I'd be looking at over $9,000 a year in property taxes were it assessed at half a million dollars. Even if I couldn't think of anything I'd rather have for five hundred large, that would grate.

    • SunnyvaleCA SunnyvaleCA on May 31, 2016

      That might be the one single area in which California doesn't have the highest taxes in the land. When you buy your car (or bring it into the state) you set the price for the tax part of yearly registration. I think you pay 1% of that price plus fixed fee (of $45?) in the first year. Then in the second year you pay 90% of that 1% amount plus the fixed fee. Then 80%, 70%, 60%, etc. By year 11 and thereafter you just pay the fixed fee. As for other kinds of tax... buy a 1500 square foot shack in my area right now and your yearly tax will start at $16k and go up 2% each year. Don't forget the 9.3% state income tax and 9%+ sales tax (also charged on used cars and also not given credit for a car trade in).

  • Derek Kreindler Derek Kreindler on May 31, 2016

    Flashback to 2008. Visiting friends at college. One of them sells me about a guy who paid $20k for a mint 911SC. We all laughed at what an exorbitant sum that was for an undesirable 911. Guess who got the last laugh?

    • ToddAtlasF1 ToddAtlasF1 on May 31, 2016

      I almost got a 911T Targa for about $4,500. The only rust I could find was in the pan under the spare tire and it was a daily driver with right around 100K miles. The best thing I can say is that the seller backed out of the deal, so it wasn't on me for not buying it. Oh well. I'd have demolished it at the time anyway.

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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