Andrew.M.Cox

I'm going to ask a question that this group will say... duh, 928. But here I go. I'm hanging up my fire suit and still want a fun Porsche to work on and drive. I'm great mechanically, decent with electronics and rewiring, but don't want to touch body work. I can pull an engine and do rod bearings but don't want to touch a full rebuild. The 928 seems like an awesome car for a mild restoration or at least an ongoing project car. But I'm also tempted by the easier path of something like a newer 996 or 986. My budget is about $25k for entry, with an obvious allowance for burning piles of extra cash as required. I'm not in a hurry and can't really make any purchase before this Fall.

928 - To me, the ultimate unique and cool, great power, and with Pasha fabric, it doesn't get any more interesting.
914 - Still has the classic vibe, what is that thing? And much simpler than a 928.
996 - A 911, an icon, if though it's water cooled. I couldn't afford an air cooled model with my budget.
986 - Not yet cool, but maybe the 2004 Spyder Special edition could start appreciating someday, values appear flat for the moment.

Do you all have any guidance here? Thanks in advance.

Jim M.

To me it looks like you answered your own question with your quote: "928 - To me, the ultimate unique and cool, great power, and with Pasha fabric, it doesn't get any more interesting."
There are a ton of people on here who can help with all the technical questions. The 928 is starting to appreciate in value and it's beginning to be recognized by various collectors.
The 914 is difficult to find without corrosion problems (body work).

husker boxster

If electrical issues are up your alley, a 928 is a perfect candidate. Many of the common problems are electrical related. That and being able to change a timing belt / water pump. A nice car with some issues should run you $9-12K and you could spend $7-10K to make it perfect. All w/in your budget. Then watch it appreciate while you enjoy it.

My 1st Porsche was a CPO 2001 Boxster S with 15K mi. One of the most unreliable cars I ever owned. Lots of things you wouldn't expect to be issues - front bushings, a rear wheel bearing, power steering pump, window regulator, etc. Kind of surprised I stayed with Porsche but they came out with the orange Limited Edition Box S in 2008 and it bit me. I still have her and she's been one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned. Porsche made huge gains in quality from the 986 to the 987.

Andrew.M.Cox

So for Boxsters, you like the 987 for reliability. Those limited orange cars look amazing. Maybe I should add that to my list!

husker boxster

Same is true with 996 - 997 reliability. The latter is better.
However, you may have missed the boat on the 987 & 997. Covid has driven the prices way up. 987 S prices are up $5K. 06 C2s are selling for mid-$30s & up. 2 yrs ago they were mid-$20s. Will Covid pricing last / become the new norm or will the bubble burst? Only time will tell. Covid hasn't affected the 928 market. It's doing its own rise up but not at the Covid pace.

My 08 S LE is #5 of 250. My Cayman S Sport is 614 of 700.

928 DesMoines

Have you considered the 951? Its like a go-kart for grown ups. Super fun once sorted. Parts are still cheap.

Andrew.M.Cox

Cool idea. I've owned (3) 944 spec racers and know them very well, converted one from street to race-ready. If I looked at a 951, I'd just keep it stock and pretty.

karl ruiter

Cannot speak to 996, but very well versed on 928, 914, and 944. Key considerations:
1) Where and how you want to drive. I used to drive my 914s all over. Up to 5 from LA to Oregon? No problem. But the posted limit was 55, and folks mostly drove between that and 75. These days on the 5 folks are going from 75 to 100. Not ok in a 914, but right where a 928 lives. Mostly just gadding around town? 928 feels heavy there where a 914 is fun. 944 kinda somewhere in between. More zip than a 914 but not the BWAAAAA of a 928.
2) Vendor support. In 928 land we have fantastic vendors. In 914 land there was nobody really specializing besides Automotive Atlanta, and service was spotty with them. 944 has some dedicated vendors, but I'm not as impressed by them as my 928 vendors.
3) Community support. 928 has unparalleled community support, I think. There is a 944 community, but, to me, they feel more combative, less supportive, and less knowledgeable. My 914 days were from before the internet, so I don't really know. Not much on rennlist, but maybe elsewhere. Overall I think there is something about the 928 that mostly attracts knowledgeable, senior, humble folks. Mostly not too much flaming or flexing, but lots of experience and helpfulness.

GregBBRD

I'm not sure why, but as I've gotten older, every year I fit less and less in my 914.
When I was 25, it wasn't an issue....and I haven't gotten any taller or heavier.
I just don't think I'm as flexible as I once was....

At any rate, you should go "try one on" and see if you fit.

GregBBRD

Great cars! Lots of bang for the buck....when they were new.
We finished restoring the complete engine and drivetrain on an '88 951S, a few months ago. While I was impressed that Porsche had almost every single piece, I did not find the parts to be even remotely "cheap".

Additionally, the Konis in the M030 cars are a bit abusive/noisy for pure street use and need to be tamed down/replaced with something that has some "smoother edges". (Look like a football on the dyno print out, instead of a rectangle.)

ddire333

Well I'm in the middle of 914 restoration currently and compared to the work I had to do on the 928 it is so much easier when it comes to mechanicals, electronics and just bolting stuff on and off. The big but is any project 914 so going to need rust repairs and most likely lots of them, was as you can get loads of 928s which are still rust free enough not to need to start cutting. Parts cost also big difference, I'm rebuilding the whole 914 2.0 (4) engine with new cam, pistons bearings, oil pump etc and parts are going to be about 2k. Really looking forward to having the lightness and simplicity of the 914 to drive vs the 928 sureness and power on tap.

Shawn Stanford

I've owned a 951, two 986s, and three 928s. They're VERY different cars...

I loved my 951. It was very well sorted and set up for street and track. It was beautiful and fun to drive, but it was so nice that I eventually worried about driving it regularly, and it wasn't every really comfortable enough for long trips (3+ hours). I can't speak to DIYing it because I had so few problems that I never had to wrench on it. These are climbing in price very quickly. I sold mine on for low teens three years ago, but I could probably get twice that with very little effort now.

The Boxster is a BRILLIANT car. Absolutely gorgeous, dead reliable, cheap to buy, and easy to DIY. Comfortable enough for long trips, holds a surprising amount of crap. If I had to pick only one Porsche for the rest of my life, it would be a 986 Boxster.

The 928... I can't imagine not having a 928 in my garage. A fabulous GT car with and amazing visual impact and history. Absolutely incredible when they run. However, they're old cars and, as you can see from this forum, keeping them running can be a challenge - both parts and DIY-wise.

I can't speak to the 914, but I've been interested in them for a long time. I know that they're mechanically pretty simple, but they're rust buckets. The good ones are escalating in price VERY quickly.

It comes down to: How much time and money do you want to spend under the car, and what do you want to do with the car?

Petza914

I have 2 928s, 2 997s, and a 914. The 924 sees the least use of all of them, but was my first Porsche and the first one I took completely apart and rebuilt due to rust (moved all the good stiff from one rusty 914 to a solid 914 tub I bought).

It's a great blast around town on a nice day sort of car and nothing feels more "analog" or go-kart like. It has never been a particularly comfortable car for longer trips but 30 years ago I used to do VA to NY trips in it while in college and it did a couple VA to FL spring break trips too. It's very easy to work on is quite a simple car. Mine has carbs now to support the engine mods. There is huge support of the 914 on 914World, but very little here. I have et had to do any repair work to my 914 in probably a decade, just oil changes, spark plugs, and a valve adjustment. It sees about 2,000 miles/year.






The 997s are super reliable - I would guess the 987s are the same, but have never owned one. My wife DDed her 997 for years. We bought it with 40k miles in 2013 and it now has 108k on it and is her pleasure car, but she has peobably only out 10k on it in the last 3 years, so from 2013 to 2018 is was seeing 10k miles per year. My 997 is a RUF supercharged one and sees less use, but still about 5,000 miles per year. It's my favorite of all my Porsches as it has been heavily modified everywhere and does everything flawlessly with almost 500 HP and a full racing suspension, but is very streetable. The big risk with the 987 and 997 is failure od the IMS bearing and bore scoring. Either will take your $45k car and make it require a $30k engine rebuild.

Wife's pink pearl 997




My silver RUF car










On to the 928s. My first 928 I bought in 2015. I found a freshly repainted black convertible conversion. Always wanted a 928 and something about this car spoke to me. It ran but had no interior installed in it and I could envision exactly what I wanted it to be. Never even brought it home and shipped it straight to 928MS for a Stage 2 supercharger, new GTS brakes, and a 6 speed conversion.

I spent 6 months doing the interior, properly refitting the top and adding a bunch of other upgrades. It's a very fun and unique car. Though it's a 79 it has updated look bumpers and lights and about 350 HP now. It's similar to the 914 in that it offers an open roof driving experience, but that's really where the similarities end. It is a very comfortable high speed, long distance cruiser, but still fun in the mountains. With the Corvette transmission, It runs 85 mph on the highway at 2k rpm. I out a new (used) motor into it a couple years ago after messing up and blowing the head gasket. The 928s are very reliable, but also old and fairly complex. There is usually something that doesn't work on it, but nothing major. Currently it's all the interior lights and the a/c. The lights issue I think is a bad ignition switch, the a/c I haven't dug into yet - I just out the top down instead. It's not a particularly difficult car to work on mechanically and the help available on this forum is superb. You can find my "Blown / Damaged Head Gasket?" thread to see the type of help that's available here to someone who doesn't know all that much about the 928.















I liked the 928 Spyder so much, a couple months ago I picked up an 81 928 Euro S 5 speed car I had an opportunity to buy and have been working on that one now. Thought it would be an interior replacement and a couple other things, but there's something to work on in every area I touch, so this one is kind of an ongoing project car. You can see what I've been doing in my "Added an '81 Euro 5-speed" thread if you're interested. So far, I've replaced the suspension, installed new upper A-arms, rebuilt the rear stub axles and cv joints, refurbed the rear of the interior, fixed the front spoiker mount and intske grill, and some other stuff. The clutch is sometimes hanging a bit in the 2nd and 3rd gear shifts so planning to drop the clutch pak today, replace the guide tube, lube the splines shaft, and replace the shift arm ball cup to see if that helps. It has the 300 HP Euro motor and runs very well - drove it to the airport for my trip this week (100 mile round trip) and drove it to Atlanta a couple weeks ago (200 mile round trip). So it runs well and is drivable whole I work on the rest of what it needs over time. Soon I'll be pulling the front of the interior to redo the door panels, center console, pod, etc and at that oijt it will be odd the road for a while until I get it back together.









I think in your case, you might really enjoy a 928. They're great cars, there's usually a project to work on, but they do many things very well. If your plans are for some distance drives, I'd skip the 914. If yiu want something that feels more modern and tougher, then a 987 or 997 is not a bad choice, but there is engine failure risk that the 928 doesn't really have.

Good luck with your decision.

Andrew.M.Cox

Thanks so much for the added comments. Petza, particular thanks for all those pictures and a very detailed and wide perspective. The underside of your 914 is so clean, at least from other examples I've seen. And your 928 interior project reminds of when I started to race prep a 986 and ripped everything out, including all bout about 8 wires for core essentials. As of now, I feel very conflicted and could be swayed in any direction, but given that my timeline is probably a few months to a year, I should have time to sort out my motivations.

The question of how much time do I want to spend driving or wrenching is a good one that I'm still wrestling with. I like the idea of having a project car and an excuse to be in the garage. But I also like the idea of just maintaining a car that's already well sorted, which might be a well sorted 928 or 951. But on the other hand a modern 986 is also very appealing. Or given that I know 944s inside and out, the 951 or S2 seems like a nice choice too for a piece of history. I still have belt tensioning and OPRV alignment tools.

I'll have to get involved with the Porsche club again now that I'm done racing with SCCA, talk to some folks out there.

Shawn Stanford

Sounds like you need a Boxster and a 928.

It's really the only choice that makes any sense.