RM Sotheby’s end-of-year London sale takes place this Thursday at Olympia in Kensington. Fifteen Porsche cars are amongst the lots on offer and half of those cars are being sold without reserve. Here’s a look at three of the no-reserve Porsches that caught my eye.
1965 Porsche 356C LHD Coupe – estimate £50-60k
Chassis number 221132 is a Porsche 356 C 1600 Coupe. Finished in Light Ivory, Sotheby’s website doesn’t offer too many clues, but the car had previously sold at Goodwood Revival in 2008, so I dug out those details.
This ‘65 C Coupe began its life in California, where it was sold to a policeman from El Cerrito. In 1971, it passed from one policeman to another and stayed with him until it sold to the third owner in 1996. The third owner brought the car to the UK and kept it until 2008. It is offered for sale by the fourth owner.
The history includes an engine rebuild with 1700cc barrel and piston set at 112k miles, a transmission overhaul at 114k miles and a bare metal respray in its original colour, which was carried out in the UK. MOT history shows that the car has not been MOT’d since 2008, when it passed with a list of advisories including oil leaks and split CV boots. Interested parties should therefore proceed with caution, but a potentially solid 356C with sensible ownership since new and sold no reserve is worth a second look.
Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet – estimate £80-130k
Chassis number WP0ZZZ93ZJS020221 is a 1988 Porsche 930 Cabriolet with two owners from new. Presented in Diamond Blue Metallic with Cashmere Beige leather trim, the odometer shows 26k miles but, as Sotheby’s description doesn’t mention the mileage, assume it’s unwarranted.
I put this four-speed Turbo Cab on my watch list, not because it is a great example of the breed, but because 930 prices are an important benchmark for air-cooled 911s and the market has been a bit shaky.
The 930 had the highest cost new in period and open sale prices for these cars highlight real-time premiums for turbocharged vs normally aspirated 911s. The 930 market has been under pressure since the high water line of 2015, so this unrestored car in an elegant colour mix offered with no reserve will lay down a useful data point.
1992 LHD Porsche 968 Club Sport ex-factory press car – estimate £35-50k
The car I am most keen to follow is chassis number WP0ZZZ96ZPS815075: a left-hand drive 1992 Porsche 986 Club Sport in Speed Yellow. This 968 has a super interesting history that was recently shared in 911 & Porsche World magazine. The auction entry may have been encouraged by enthusiasm around the piece and that enthusiasm could be rewarded on Thursday.
Detective work by the current owner with assistance from the Porsche archive revealed that this 968 Club Sport was the factory press car used in several notable articles on the model. Walter Röhrl drove the car in a four-way road test printed in Auto Zeitung and called it ‘the best handling car that Porsche makes’. The history is very well documented and includes several Porsche factory service stamps, a top-end rebuild, clutch and flywheel at Parr and a huge list of work carried out by its current custodian over almost two decades.
I have a side interest in cars like this one that passed through the hands of well known racer and dealer, Nick Faure, as my early 944 Lux is one of those cars. Faure is a true devotee of the transaxle Porsches and those who love these cars tend to love them for life. I adore the 924, 944 and 968 models and there can’t be too many 968 Club Sports with such enjoyable provenance.
The light blue 930 has a fairly bullish estimate at £80-130k given the condition seen in the photos, while this apparently perfect 968 Club Sport at £35-50k feels relatively conservative in comparison. I suspect it may do slightly better: everything depends on who’s in the room when the cars come over the block in Kensington and whether there’s any hangover from the Type 64 debacle in Monterey. I would love to be there in person, but the dentist is calling…
Pics by Tom Gidden, Dirk de Jager and Adam Warner for RM Sotheby’s
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support this blog or to engage with me in other ways, you can:
Details have just arrived for a rare 1995 Porsche 993 Ruf BTR 2 that will be offered at Brooklands’ Historics auction sale on Saturday, November 23.
Ruf chassis number W09TB0367SPR06006 is one of five 420hp RHD BTR 2s produced. First delivered to Top Marques in Singapore and sold to a local businessman, that aspect of provenance could make it quite an attractive prospect for re-importation into a famously locked-down export destination where Porsches command serious prices.
The original car was finished in Aventura Green, but a later owner refinished the body in Guards Red. Personally, I love dark green cars but red is quite rare and suits the 993 shape. Somewhere down the line, the engine was also rebuilt by a New Zealand specialist. The original Ruf EKS automatic clutch system (think Sportomatic-ish) has been replaced by a more conventional arrangement.
The Guards Red 993 came to the UK in 2015 and sold to a retired engineer who took it to his place in France and maintained it in-house. It is now back in the UK. The sales description says it has been MOT’d but the MOT database says the last test expired in 2016, so crossed wires somewhere. The mileage is low at less than 30k from new.
Offered for sale with history including the original book pack, the auction’s pre-sale estimate is £68-84,000. We’ll have to see what the market is like at the end of November and how the changes to the Pfaffenhausen spec – including a colour change and non-Ruf engine rebuild – affect the car’s desirability.
A factory 993 Turbo with less than 30k miles would be pretty good news, even in the current slow market. What’s the price jump (up or down) from a Ruf BTR 2 to a factory Porsche 993 Turbo, and what’s the net effect on that number of diluting the original Rufness through later modifications to an already modified car? Will we be able to look at the eventual auction result and say ‘that’s the correct answer’?
The last RHD BTR 2 to come through a UK auction was a one-owner example with 68k miles that was offered in September 2018 but failed to find a home. The market has been on a bit of journey since then, so it will be interesting to see how this one gets on.
Porsche’s recent announcement of a collaboration with Boeing is part of a wider Boeing push for upbeat PR. In the aftermath of the tragic 737 Max air crashes that led to the death of more than 300 people, Boeing’s share price needs good-news stories to reverse recent losses and to remind its investors that the company is focused on the future.
Porsche investors also like a good news story. Stuttgart’s push towards defining electric vehicle mobility for the 1%, and the constant reminders that innovation is at the heart of ‘new Porsche’ made this year’s first flight of the electric aircraft under development by Boeing subsidiary, Aurora Flight Sciences, an ideal PR platform for both organisations.
Having signed a (non-binding) Memorandum of Understanding to develop a concept for a fully electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, the artist’s impressions of what a Porsche-Boeing flying car might look like is guaranteed to grab a few headlines, but there is a long way to go before we see flying cars. Both organisations have serious issues to resolve before high-flying Porsche buyers can reach for the skies.
Several hundred deceased 737 passengers and the row over Boeing engineers carrying out the US Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) safety approvals of the 737 MAX are not going to go away quickly.
Across the pond in Germany, the emissions cheating scandal continues to dog Volkswagen AG, with Brunswick public prosecutors recently bringing charges against Hans Dieter Pötsch (Porsche SE exec board chair), Dr. Herbert Diess (VW’s board of management chair) and the former Chairman of the VW Management Board, Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn.
With headlines like these dominating recent business pages, some flying car artwork will come as a blessed relief for the press departments. It will also lead to some people describing the idea as Porsche’s latest bid to keep tabs on Tesla’s challenge to become the high-end personal mobility brand of the future, but that is a whole other story.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Today’s activity at the Japanese Grand Prix is cancelled due to Typhoon Hagibis hitting Suzuka. Watching videos of the drivers making plans for their gift of free time, I feel like I’ve also been gifted some time and I’m spending that gift in the garage.
I’m currently waiting for the postman to deliver a steering head bearing for one of my BMW R1100R motorcycles and will get that pressed in when it arrives. I’m then going to ready the rest of the bike for an MOT test later this week. Youtube has no videos of R1100 steering head bearing replacement, so I might shoot something on that. Either way, I’m looking forward to doing the work.
Saturday is garage day for me and that time is closely guarded. When one is young and working Monday to Friday, free time can seem like a given. Time in general, but free time particularly. One of the great dangers of freelancing is taking on so much work that one works seven days a week. This is especially true of freelancers who work doing what they love.
I was very guilty of this when I first went full-time freelance back in 2010. Having handed the company Prius back to my motor trade publisher employers and gone solo a little ahead of time, the great fear was cashflow, so I took on everything that was offered. I was writing for two mainstream motoring magazines, several specialist Porsche magazines, many private PR clients and picking up other work, including bizarre jobs like writing a tourist brochure promoting adrenalin sports in Bedfordshire and oddball topics for in-flight magazines.
I rented an office in a village nearby and would go straight there after the school run. The working day started at 9:30am and frequently finished after midnight. No school at weekends meant I could start work at 7am and work through to the early hours of the following morning. Workaholic doesn’t begin to describe life at that time: if I wasn’t asleep for my usual four hours a night or running my three daughters to school, I was sitting in front of a Mac and trying to come up with the next big idea that would encourage clients not to drop me the following month.
The Freelance Fear
It took a long time to overcome the idea that every client phone call was the one that would end our relationship, and I was in good company. Derek Bell told me that he felt the same way when working for Ferrari. “Every time someone told me that Mr Ferrari wanted to see me, I was sure this would be the day he would tell me he’d finally figured out that I wasn’t that good and could I please leave the building.”
While freelancers all look at other freelancers and wish for their confidence, “freelance fear” is universal. Derek Bell eventually left Ferrari when he nearly burned to death in one of its cars and I had a similar epiphany in 2012. After two years of manic freelancing, I was making great money but putting on weight and becoming lethargic. The early years with my kids were drifting away at the expense of clients, most of whom would have left me to burn if my world caught fire and hired someone else in a heartbeat.
What was going on in my head was the same thing all of us face: mortality. Seneca’s letter “On the Shortness of Life’ expresses this perfectly. “You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!”
Seneca wrote this over two thousand years ago. The meaning of life, or “What should time be about?” is the question we’ve considered since the earliest days. As it is definitely not about selling your life to people who do not truly care about you, I started taking my time back.
Magazines were the first to go, as they never paid on time and were all pushing for more work for less money. I kept one magazine, as the editor is such a great friend and I have continued to work with him, mostly for free. My childhood ambition was to write for the car magazines I lost myself in from my earliest days and keeping that outlet is incredibly important to me: it honours a brave young man who got on a bus to London with his favourite music, £65 in his pocket and the desire to be published alongside his heroes.
As I retreated from jobs that any writer could do, I began to focus on the work that challenged me to keep learning and developing my marketing skills. I went back to college and studied photography. I teamed up with people starting new businesses: the classic Porsche risk takers. I made myself affordable for those guys, as their passion was infectious and our life stories often ran parallel. We understood each other without talking and breathed the same freelance air. Working with risk takers is always going to be at the centre of what I’m about.
Next year will be my tenth year as a full-time freelancer, and I look back on that decade with great fondness and respect. My kids are now starting to make their own lives and I know who they are: they are wonderful people and a great source of pride to their parents. Since taking more time for my health and wellbeing, I’ve lost thirty-five pounds and suffered no serious illnesses – touch wood. I’ve learned to cook quite a bit and enjoy time with Ted the Jack Russell and with my cars, bikes and friends. I continue to work with classic Porsche risk takers and they are a constant source of joy and inspiration.
Porsche as a centre of life
It’s hard to believe that Porsche as a brand sits at the centre of this most rewarding decade. Having always read voraciously, these cars are part of my story and bookmark chapters in my life much more than people or places. My earliest Porsche memory is as a young Irish boy sitting in a field, watching my first 911 pass by and sensing something important. Touching my first 911, driving my first one, buying my first: these are all moments when goals were achieved that reset my vision of life.
Less being more is a core Porsche philosophy, but Porsche did not invent the idea. The founders, designers and those who were attracted to the tribe connected with the importance of what was, and is, important. As we are all ultimately in search of the meaning of life, what better conduit to consider these questions than a classic Porsche? Simple, beautiful, highly emotional but humanly flawed. Every Porsche represents human imperfection.
We can read the daily press releases talking up the future – today it is Porsche’s new flying car partnership with Boeing – and get sucked into chasing what’s next, but the future is all about your time running out. Do not forget the importance of now. Learn from the great minds that have already passed: slow down and think of your time. One day it will be over, as this inscription on a Scottish gravestone so wisely reminds us.
“My glass has run Yours is running Be wise in time Your hour is coming”
Has your Porsche help you to put metaphysical life into context? Tell me about that: in comments or in confidence.
p.s.: As I pressed “publish” on this blog, the steering head bearing dropped through the letterbox. Flow is how life works when we embrace what is truly important. Enjoy your weekend.
To learn more about my work and commission my valuation expertise or content generation skills, you can:
Earlier this week, I was hired to complete a pre-purchase valuation for a Porsche Boxster S (987 S). Research turned up some interesting data. The car in question was a very high spec car finished in nice colours, but with higher than average mileage.
A look at the other cars on the market showed that, while the asking price was at the very top of the scale for cars being sold privately, the mileage was in the top 30% of all cars available. The seller had added a sizeable premium for spec items that the average Boxster buyer simply would not value as highly. My advice to the prospective buyer was to keep his powder dry and watch for bargains turning up towards the back end of the year.
Porsche Market Trends 2019
Anyone selling their car at the minute must remember that the car market has been hard work through 2019. Current new car registration figures show a very small lift in September over last year, but the month is down over 27% versus the peak in 2016. The market is not at full speed, reflecting the wider economic picture. The prevailing lack of consumer confidence has a knock-on effect on the used car market.
Sports cars are non-essential purchases and their prices are more subject to external market forces than most other sectors. While 4x4s can get a bit of a lift in winter regardless of the economic picture, and vans get a bit of a lift around Christmas when deliveries are at their peak, sports cars peak when the weather is good and are a fairly low priority for most people through the rest of the year. Not everyone, just most people.
Sell your used Porsche Boxster
My client on this valuation had just sold his previous Boxster: a 2007 2.7 987 with 105k miles. “I sold my 2.7 for £7500: full asking price. I made it stand out, though: painted the bumper, put new tyres on, cleaned it properly. It was a 245hp manual model with a few nice extras, OPC and specialist history. I had it for 5 years and put 30k on it. Paid £10k when I bought it. Possibly the best value sports car ever!”
While all this sounds great, the devil is in the detail. The sale was not easy, as the buyer was the only person who actually came to view the car. The seller had loads of timewasters and dreamers, offering £4-5k or to pay the car off monthly.
A quick look on Autotrader for 2007 Porsche Boxsters with circa 100k miles shows 32 cars with prices running from £7,500 to £17,000. The highest price is an outlier with 11k miles, with the next lowest at just under £15k. The spread of private sales runs from £7.5k for a 99k-mile Tip to just under £12k for a 42k-mile manual.
Retail asking prices for 2007 Porsche Boxster 987 2.7 manuals with 40-44k miles hover around the £11,850 mark, so assuming condition is more or less identical, how likely is a savvy buyer to pay the same price for a private car as a dealer is asking for a car with finance available and a warranty included? When condition is identical, the chances are slim.
The Porsche and BMW classifieds are full of private sellers asking strong money for average cars with the assertion that “if it doesn’t sell, I will keep it over winter and sell it next year” or words to that effect. In this market, with book drops every month and very little likelihood of a bounce over winter, people need to take their first profit.
Many private sellers are going to have to try harder if they want their cars to sell. If they are really not bothered about selling, take their ‘meh’ cars off the market. Low supply of good examples is the best way to help the price of their car over time. If you do want to sell, get with the programme!
(Values correct at October 2019)
To learn more about my work or commission an insurance, pre-sale or pre-purchase valuation, you can:
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