Stuttgart loves a special edition and another Macan has just joined the list: the Turbo Exclusive Performance Edition. The styling reminds me of a Volkswagen Polo ‘Beats’ Edition, but that is not a bad thing: everyone knows the VW Polo is one of the best cars in the world. Even Alois Ruf agrees with me on that.
Based on the current Macan Turbo with Performance Package, the 3.6-litre Turbo produces 440 horsepower. Porsche sticks a lot of extras on the standard model and carries the changes out at the ‘Exclusive Manufactur’ department in Leipzig, so the base price corresponds to that: £86k including VAT in the UK. Adding colour-to-sample paint and the other options could quickly take it to over £100k – a ton of cash for a mid size SUV.
Standard equipment includes 21-inch 911 Turbo Design wheels with lateral spokes painted in Black (high-gloss), LED headlights and tinted LED rear lights. The front seats, rear seating and steering wheel are heated as standard.
Custom Exclusive parts created specifically for this Macan include aero add-ons on the front spoiler, rear apron and side blades painted in Carmine Red. The Macan Turbo model designation on the tailgate is also painted in Carmine Red underneath PORSCHE lettering in high-gloss black.
Inside, there are more black and red accents through the black leather interior with Alcantara elements. The Garnet Red bolsters for the front seats are bespoke for this car. The colour is used also for the contrasting stitching, embroidered Turbo script on the headrests, seat belts, Sport Chrono stopwatch bezel and the vehicle key wallet.
The aluminium PDK gear selector is finished with Garnet Red leather in Garnet Red, and a “Macan Turbo Exclusive Performance Edition” logo has been added to the customised door entry trim strips and the dashboard trim. Well done Leipzig for fitting that into one plaque.
Porsche Macan Used Prices UK
A £90k soft-roader is obviously never going to have a place in my life but the colour to sample in Voodoo Blue looks pretty cool. I keep looking at Macans and wondering when they will get affordable as secondhand buys – not sure that day is coming any time soon. Of the 310 Macans on Pistonheads, the cheapest is a fairly boring 2014 2-litre PDK model with 15k miles up for £37k. Next cheapest car is an 82k-mile diesel for the same money.
Official Porsche Centres offer decent spec TDI PDKs with metallic paint, sensible mileage and the worth-having used Porsche warranty from £41k and that might be the best place to start looking. An independent petrol offering at £38k struggles to compete with that package.
I value a few high mileage 3.2 Carreras for Porsche agreed insurance valuation purposes, but none of them come close to the mileage amassed by this beautiful 3.2 with Freisinger restoration which has covered an incredible 680,000 kilometres from new.
I have to say I was a little disappointed by this, as it is not quite enough to go to the moon and back and not quite the million kilometres first believed when it arrived in the workshop for an engine and gearbox refresh. It is still incredible, of course, but a few more weeks clocking up mega miles would have made it really amazing. I’m no 3.2 fan but this car has really fired up my romantic streak – I just love it as a real piece of ownership history. So I was a good choice to write the sales text.
The lion’s share of this mileage was logged by its first owner: a German industrialist who had businesses throughout southern Europe. In 1986, the owner walked into his local Porsche dealership, specced up a Cassis Red coupe with sunroof delete and factory aircon (no point having a sunroof when you clock up hundreds of thousands of Autobahn kms at top speed). Once the car was delivered, he proceeded to run his businesses from the driver’s seat of the Carrera, putting 10-15k kms on the car every four to six weeks, with a full dealer service every couple of months.
As the miles wound on, the Carrera wrapped itself into shape around the driver. Like all great 911s, driving was almost no effort, so more than six hundred thousand kilometres were put on the Porsche before the decision was taken to change it – not to mention the rise of the fax machine and invention of the Internet making big miles slightly irrelevant.
Nowadays, the notion that someone would buy a car and drive 422,000 miles in it is simply unthinkable. Those days have well and truly disappeared. Notwithstanding the months it would take to accomplish this feat in an age of time poverty, the cost in fuel and maintenance would be hundreds of thousands of pounds. But cars like this prove just how the original Porsche sports cars were designed to last. Built by craftsmen from the best parts proven through several evolutions of one bodystyle, it was not unusual for cars to clock up fabulous mileages, helping their owners build empires. Having been under many newer Porsches with reasonable mileages, I’m not so sure that a modern Porsche would make it this far quite so easily.
Anyway, the Carrera’s mileage continued to increase, until one day, the car was replaced by a newer one. At that stage, the owner turned to childhood friend and rare Porsche parts guru, Manfred Freisinger, for some advice on restoration. And that’s where this car’s story gets really interesting.
Just as there are many types of car, there are many types of car restorations. At the lowest end is a quick blow-over in a back-street bodyshop and some folks believe that a factory restoration is the creme de la creme. But the finest attention to restoration detail is guaranteed by using knowledgable specialists like Freisinger or the legends at Ruf. You need deep pockets to send your cars to these boys: I hear a Freisinger restoration starts at €150k for a standard G-model 911 like this and Marcel Ruf told me that any serious SWB Ruf restoration project starts at €300k.
Previous restorations carried out at Freisinger list like a Porsche who’s who: 904s, 906s, 908s and 917s galore with a sprinkling of 962s in there, too. Countless 2.7 Carrera RS Tourings and Lightweights, 934s and four-cam 356s and one high mileage Cassis Red 3.2. When it comes to road car restoration, Freisinger does not take off, make good and refit: the team simply replaces everything with brand new parts. On this car, the list included brand new Fuchs wheels and brand new pinstripe sports trim from a 3.2 Club Sport, a complete set of suspension and brakes and many more bits and pieces.
The entire restoration was documented in a detailed photographic record. Freisinger also converted the car to 3.4-litres using a factory cylinder kit. The engine and transmission were recently rebuilt and both are now in as-new condition. The car has completed 300 running-in miles with 700 more to go and it is a wonderful example of how good classic Porsche can be.
Proper high-mileage Porsches rarely come to market. Cherished by their devoted custodians and handed down as heirlooms, they tend to stay in the family. This rare piece of Porsche motoring history has been fully rebuilt at great expense and is well worth a look. Priced at €79,000, perhaps it only makes sense if you’re a romantic like me – being part of this story would be an experience.
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Words fail me today as I have just learned of the death of Chris Drummond: a friend and Porsche enthusiast, who I first encountered back in 2008. After a long-term love affair with the Porsche marque, Chris had finally found his way to the impact-bumper 911s, ended up at my forum at impactbumpers.com and started to understand how modifying Porsche 911s brought the best out of them.
Chris Drummond – Apprentice Porsche Outlaw
Up to that point, Chris had owned two 944s, a 968, a 964, a 993, three 996s including a Turbo S, which he had at the time that we first got together. He went on to add a Cayenne S to his history, but of course it was his G50 Carrera which outlasted the rest. Once he found IB, he enjoyed a few runs in various modified impact bumper member cars and loved the loud and lightweight ethos. He soon set about dumping weight from the 3.2 coupe and making the car sharper.
Various Chris D threads began to appear on the board, including “how do I upgrade my brakes?”, “what big end shells do I need?” and “who do I talk to to refurbish my Fuchs?”. Chris embraced the modifying big-time and loved to tinker at home. We got together to talk about lots of stuff, including maybe doing some work together, and spent an afternoon discussing how to use social media to promote his HR business. All the time we were talking shop, I knew Chris just wanted to talk about Porsche and of course that never changed.
Once I went solo freelance in 2010, I went off to work flat out on other stuff and only bumped into Chris here and there. He was always smiling, always friendly and always had plenty of questions! The IB crew around Chris’s house stayed busy with him and no doubt he made some great friends with his car.
The years ticked on, we caught up every once in a while when he needed an updated insurance valuation. The last time was in May 2015, and all went quiet until the following year, when he emailed me out of the blue to tell me his news. It was absolutely shocking.
In June 2016, Chris Drummond sailed out of New York as part of a crew on the final leg of the Clipper Round the World yacht race. Five days into the voyage and 200 miles out to sea, he suddenly developed serious chest pains – they thought a heart attack. Medics on board stabilised his condition and called on the Canadian air force to airlift him to urgent medical care in Halifax. Here’s what happened next in Chris’s own words:
After two weeks hospitalisation in Halifax, Nova Scotia I was told my heart was OK, however following tests and scans they identified that I had advanced secondary cancer of the liver. The medical team in Halifax, who were absolutely brilliant, arranged for me to have further tests and biopsies when I returned to the UK to find out where the primary cancer was located.
Following scans and biopsies in mid-August (2016), my oncology consultant told me the primary cancer was in the oesophagus, that there was no cure for my condition and that any treatment would be about prolonging life. The prognosis was that I had between 12 and 18 months at best, depending on how I responded to chemotherapy treatment which I started in early September.
January 2017: I’ve now completed the six-cycle regime of chemo and will have a scan at the end of this month to find out whether the chemo has arrested the cancer or not. The mid-term review after 3 cycles of chemo was pretty positive so fingers crossed.
Chris Drummond’s Race Against Time for Stand Up to Cancer
Chris was a man who always saw opportunity, and he quickly realised his time was limited in making the most of this one. Once he had told his family what was going on, he set about launching a public campaign to bring awareness to the early diagnosis of this disease, noting that he had experienced symptoms of esophageal cancer for nine months before doing anything about it. By the time he saw a doctor, it was too late.
The story resonated heavily with me, as a similar thing happened to my brother-in-law, David, who had lived with pain for months before talking to someone. The end came swiftly for David and also for Chris. After posting his final blog in April, Chris finally passed away last week.
When Chris emailed me to share his news about cancer, he asked for ideas to help with fundraising. He had a few things going with PCGB and Cancer Research, involving using the Porsche to draw attention to the message, but all input would be greatly received. The journalist in me focused on the deadline of 18 months away, so I considered that there was some time to get this organised. Chris was not urgent, so neither was I! I had a few thoughts, but was busy on so much other stuff that I didn’t really get my first ideas going until a month or so ago.
Today I went looking for JustGiving links to finish the thing before emailing Chris, and found out he had recently passed. I am shocked at the speed of his exit and angry with myself that I didn’t move faster – he deserved a good morning’s fun with an IB crew that held him in high regard. I will miss him but that is no good to his cause, so the energy now is in how to support what he hoped to achieve.
Organisations including Porsche, PCGB, Autofarm, Driver’s Collective and more picked up on his campaign and publicised the fundraising, but the total is currently less than £8k with a target of £30k. Here’s how his supporters say that you can help to increase this total.
We can’t stress enough how much it would mean to the family and everyone who’s supported Chris’s campaign, if we could reach his charity target of £30k. If you haven’t donated already, then please text RATP88 £10 to 70070 and together we could achieve Chris’s wish. Please continue to share and show your support.
Chris’s car will be auctioned for Stand Up to Cancer later this year, we will crack on with some fundraising events and find more ways to contribute towards his target. The Race Against Time JustGiving page is here: please give whatever you feel is appropriate to express solidarity. He was a good guy and any one of us could be there but for the roll of a dice in an incredibly random universe.
More thoughts on this in due course – RIP Chris and all my love to his wonderful family. My heart goes out to anyone also experiencing this pain: I know there are a few people suffering. Do not waste time in going to help ❤️
This Porsche 911 HLS Design Study was one of the more memorable encounters on our recent visit to Techno Classica Essen. These days, it seems any Fred-in-a-shed can stick big wheels, tartan seats and throttle bodies on an old Porsche and market it as reimagined, but, if one really wants to get ‘reimaginative’ with an old 911, then this quirky machine laid down the entry requirements, half a century ago.
Occupying pride of place on the Early 911S stand, amongst the meticulously curated 911 collectables brought to Essen every year by the Dutch specialists, the HLS Designstudie seemed rather ungainly compared to the car its designer destroyed to create it. That said, judging a fifty year-old bespoke GT with hindsight and a modern aesthetic is never going to go well. Car culture has an ingrained affection for better known prototypes of a similar vintage, many of which are nowadays accepted as the most beautiful cars ever made.
Even forgetting that Gandini’s 1965 Miura and early LP400 Countach or the 250 GT Lusso ever existed, this car’s looks are a challenge. While the styling curves of the great GTs flow serenely from one to the next, the awkward shapes of the HLS trip over one another like lumpy shopping. It is vaguely reminiscent of one of those Matchbox fantasy cars which I never wanted to receive as a kid and, in some ways, that’s just what it is.
Taking styling models created by the University of Aachen’s automotive design programme, coachbuilder Hans-Leo Senden (hence HLS) built full-size versions. The work explored the organic and commutable nature of sports cars and created something unique from what, at the time, was regarded as a rather plain-jane production machine. It is not sweet and sexy like a Lambo GT or a Jaguar E-Type, but we can probably all get with the motives behind its creation.
As a Porsche valuations person, I can’t look at any old Porsche without thinking of price, so what is the value of this? Well, it’s rare, built on 1965 Porsche 911 underpinnings and is a proper period piece. Only a handful of these things were ever created. There are better-looking ones on Google images, but what really matters for valuation purposes is whether it was commissioned by Stuttgart or not – and I do not know the answer. Either way it has value, but, if the wheels were set in motion by Stuttgart, then the desirability is greatly increased.
Assuming it was not a Porsche-commissioned creation (and perhaps it was not, as surely it would have gone back to Stuttgart by now), then I guess if you were serious, already had a good 911 collection and were keen to pick up one or two curve balls for interest, one might pay more for this HLS Studie than the price of a nice ’65 911, assuming there was some competition to own it, but that depends on lots of factors including what the rest of it looks like underneath and how much history it has. Or maybe I am greatly underestimating its desirability.
Perhaps what matters is that this spyder-style study on an early 911 still exists, to offer a window into how design students and coachbuilders approached their work fifty years ago. It would make an interesting talking point in an already substantial Porsche 911 collection, but, as a strictly small-scale collector and someone who drives their cars, I’d rather own a standard 911 of the era. Or an LP400.
So I’ve done a couple of blogs on the new 991 GT3 up to now. That car is an interesting piece of news for 911 fans, but you know I’m not big into new stuff. Air-cooled is my thing, specifically 3-litre 911s and, more specifically, LHD 3-litres where possible. But, when my friend Simon invited me to come get his sweet RHD 1979 Porsche 911 SC for a day and help him move it up country, what kind of snob would say no to that? I was booking a train ticket faster than you can say “pedal offset”.
The destination was Tower Porsche: south of the river off Tower Bridge Road. I’d not been south of the river for a couple of months and I do miss my old stomping ground after a while, so I caught an early train, got to London at 7 and walked along the Thames for an hour or so, stopping to get some breakfast en route. All those people heading for work in the City and me heading for a day in a 911 SC – what a joy it is to be alive.
My quarry was parked just inside the workshop doors. I had a good chat with John the boss, sharing experiences from our recent trip to Techno Classica Essen, but eventually made a move to let him get on with things as they’re not short of work down in that there London. The SC sprang into life first turn of the key and we headed off into the morning traffic.
LHD vs RHD: Classic Porsche
My first 911 was LHD by choice and I have never looked back. The brake and clutch pedals in the RHD cars are offset well to the left of the column, and that 915 shift is a bit of a pain on the 1-2 plane when sitting on the wrong-hand side of the car. If you’ve never driven a LHD SC/impact bumper and only ever driven righties, you won’t give the RHD setup a second thought, but all my SCs and my current C3 have steered from the left. To me it is how they should be, and it is no great hardship to use here in England. That said, one soon adjusts to new surroundings and attention is drawn toward other issues.
One of the most common complaints with pre-G50 impact bumper cars is the weight of the clutch when in traffic. Later 3.2 Carrera G50s bring the hydraulic clutch and it’s obviously a nice thing to have, but when it has to be paired with a 3.2 engine, I think I’ll stick with the weight and the shorter stroke 3-litre, thanks. No problem with 3.2 Carreras, the 3-litre is just my personal preference.
Simon’s SC has comfort seats trimmed in cool Black Watch Tartan and that makes the cabin a nice place to be. Sunroof open and windows down a touch, the SC’s reduced ventilation compared to post-’86 3.2s is less of an issue – on a dry day, at least – and the Arrow Blue paint turns heads almost better than Orange. This is a very pretty car with no shortage of period details, including the chrome brightwork, cookie cutter forged wheels and periscope headlight washers.
Classic Porsche 911 SC Daily Driver
Lots of us once used our SCs as daily drivers, and the niggles had to be worked around, including those weedy wipers and eccentric heating controls. Not much else grates on the nerves: these are great cars to use every day. The lack of power steering was never an issue and remains a delight. I don’t use the radio in any of my cars (apart from the Cayenne since I stuck in a DAB radio), so the noise in the cabin has always suited me fine. The floor-mounted pedals are proper, the super-plasticky column levers for wipers and indicators/turn signals maybe less so, but they feel right nevertheless.
“We used to think that 3.0 and 3.2s were quick,” laughed John as I prepared to set off. “Now you go on track in one of these alongside GT3s and they just disappear into the distance.” Not much point mentioning a little group of IB hot rods that regularly push the GT3 boys along and I suppose the hot rods are kind of cheating anyway. But as outright lap times are not my priority, SC speed suits me just fine.
These light little cars with their superb traction and torque pull away beautifully, whatever the speed. Third gear in a 915 ‘box is such a flexible ratio: perfect for town or on the highway. This SC had the familiar issue of a sticky fuel tank sender due to lack of use for a while and could have done with the front end tracking sorting, but, all in all, it was a joy to drive. I averaged 25 mpg through London, around the M25 and up to the A5 and beyond. Everything in the car worked, without exception.
Towards the end of my day with the SC, I was parked outside my youngest daughter’s school, waiting for her to emerge. A chap in his 50s walked past, turned around, walked onto the road along my side and gave me a big thumbs-up, saying “love it mate, rock on.” Having spent a few hours in the driver’s seat, I was happy to share his enthusiasm. Perhaps SC fans are all in their fifties these days, but it doesn’t bother me much: youth is wasted on the young, as they say. I’m content to be older now, with kids all growing up, a few good friends to relax with and a few quid to spend on old stuff like this. The SC has also settled nicely into seniority, so we made a good pair on the day.
Old 1970s 911 SCs may not be the newest, fastest or prettiest Porsches (albeit they have long been the prettiest to my eyes) but, as solid all-rounders, nothing comes close. I have a big soft spot for the LHD 964RS, but would otherwise take an SC every time, if a certain stripped-out C3 was not available. This SC is now off to a new home: I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.
The new Porsche 991 GT3 was launched today at Geneva in a supersized Internet love-in. If you like massive sportscars weighing 1500 kilos then you are probably all over it: I hope you will pardon the rest of us for a certain lack of euphoria. It is nothing personal.
The new GT3 looks almost exactly the same as the old one, with the one big change of manual transmission. It is a small but very satisfying detail. When the 991 GT3 was first launched with PDK only, there was uproar online, but it didn’t hurt the showroom one bit. Despite the early cars catching fire when con rod bolts snapped, causing boiling oil to pour onto hot exhausts and send the cars up in smoke, Porsche sold every single 991 GT3 it could build.
And Stuttgart built lots of them: estimates suggest more than 6k cars, which is far more than any previous 911 GT3. Magazines were rinsed and repeated in PR about how PDK was the gold standard in race cars and how it was faster around the blah blah blah etc, and they all lapped it up. Driving a Gen I Porsche 911 GT3 around a car park was enough to put me off and visiting a PDK repair shop just confirmed the position. Anyone with an ounce of 911 soul might have seen the writing on the wall for the PDK-only plan, as the cars were not that nice to drive ‘normally’.
Despite the PDK-only thing and a non-stop production line, used GT3s soon hit 50% over list. Many 991 GT3ers cashed out, switching back to the Gen II 997 GT3 and RS with manual transmission and sending prices for those cars through the roof. The switch did not escape Stuttgart’s product chiefs, who then announced a limited edition 911R with manual shift, allowing them to test latent demand. When that model was oversubscribed several times over (the eternal new-Porsche battle of drivers vs sellers), it was obvious that 911R development was not money wasted. All the PDK spiel was deleted from memory and the stick shift was on its way back to GT3 land.
Now the Gen II 991 GT3 with manual transmission has been announced and I have already had calls from price-conscious insurance valuation customers, asking what various GT Porsches might be worth in part exchange: a topic for another time. More interesting is what a 911R is now worth.
We have all seen 911Rs listed anything up to £500k. The most recent car sold in public was the Slate Grey McQueen one in Paris, which went for £451,000 ($553,000) including premium. However, if you’ve spent enough money with your local Porsche dealer in the last few months, you can now order a 490bhp/197mph 911 GT3 with manual transmission for prices starting at £112k: essentially what a nice-spec used LHD Gen 1 991 GT3 example costs in the UK .
No doubt 911R is still a major collectable, but the £400k prices may have just left the building. As for 997.2 GT3 RS and 4-litre RS, we will see what happens. Maybe nothing – probably not very much.
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