I have one of the oldest S4s I know of in the US (#142) WITH the folding wing and presumably the oil squirters, and it's THE oldest I've found so far with manual transmission. As of this coming Wednesday I'll have had it for 9 years, and there have been a couple frustrations serious enough that if I were ever going to get rid of the car I would have already done it.

I might trade it for a GT or GTS, but if I just wait a few years I can probably justify getting myself one of them AND keep the one I've got. Besides, the price for S4s with manual transmissions seems like it might actually be going up these days - or at least it looked like it this past spring.

So while I know there's a price I'd sell at, I'm not sure what it is. I used to kid that I'd sell it for $25k, but these days I don't think I would.

 

I have had to think about all this recently when selling my '89 S4 a/t. Because it was my plan to switch over to a 5 speed and sell the a/t, it wasn't hard to part with (and the a/t was a GREAT car). It felt like sending your kid away to live with a relative (the buyer was a 928er and part of the "group"), and I had put no effort into advertizing the car(secret plan to never sell?).
Owning any 928 is a committment of time, parts and responsibility, and to cut down to one was a relief in some way. I totally love these cars and wouldn't want to be 928-less.
My '87 for sale? definitely not with all the work that's been put in to it. I do not have GT or GTS upgrade envy and think I'm all set for a long time.

 

My oldest kid will be getting his driving permit in a year and a half... depending on what the insurance company decides, I may have to sell at that time...

Until then, I'm going to drive the p**s out of my car and nobody else can have it. I have too much sweat and blood put into it and I want to enjoy it.

 

Everything is for sale at the right price. I would take $65k for the GTS. I know I would never get offered it but what else can I replace it with that looks as good and drives as nice for under that price that isn't another 928? Not even sure there is much out there at that price that could equal it.

 

Bigs
Maybe the driving experience of your GTS is what brought back the emotion to write songs?

 

Heyyyy! Why didn't I think of that?!

Can't very well sell off my source of inspiration!

 

Hey Bigs. Have you written anything that we may have heard. What type of songs are you into writing? Country, pop etc...

 

stolen from bigs's computer last night:

I wanna sell my 928, that won't appreciate,
forget all the fine rhymes, that my shark finds -
are for naught, cause I got caught
doing 110 on the 10 at night....

so now I'm gonna ditch her,
cause I wanna be a composer,
but when I get my bimmer out of park,
I'll be missing my old lazy shark....

um ok bigs, nice lyrics, but I recommend you stick to the day job and keep the shark!!! hehehehehe....

 

I write country. I write substantive, traditional-to-mainstream-country. Can't stand fluffy cotton-candy "pop" country. So I don't write ditties.

You probably haven't known it if you've heard any of my songs. To this point, I've only made it as far as having my songs (my actual demo masters, in fact) used as background music on TV. But, hey, at least it's network TV. (But then you guys probably don't watch The Young And The Restless!)

Even that kind of song placement will make a writer roughly $3K. Not bad, but still looking for the BIG payday.

If you want to hear some of my stuff, click on CD Baby and search for Melissa Jones. I wrote 7 of the 11 cuts on her album, and you can listen to samples of some of my material.

 

Bigs
Shoot your gonna make the big time her pretty quick & can quit your day job & increase your shark collection all at the same time!

 

One fairly common thread in this discussion seems to be "I won't sell becaue of all the work I have in to her..." That may also be one of the most common 'hidden' reasons for selling. My car is ultra-reliable, but not in the same universe as a new Toyota. It's a comfortable ride for the driver, but it's tough on the passenger, tougher on the other 'passengers'. Not in the same universe as a Lexus, for instance. An attorney I know said the other day that he covets my car, and he's thinking of moving up from his big Lexus sedan. I talked him out of it, mostly because he doesn't have the time to put into 'proper' 928 ownership as we all know it.

So it really comes down to what we see as the 'ownership experience', and how that can be transferred with the car. I bought mine as another chapter in a history of interesting cars, and planned onspending the extra time and $$ needed to keep it happy. We all warn new/potential buyers that they should budget heavily for first-year expenses, then wonder why the market is so soft. I know my car is 'nice' but it is not 'perfect' or 'mint' as some think of their cars. Other owners looking at my car would instantly come up with a list of things that they think would need first-year attention to bring it up to whatever their standard is. The same applies to your car when you offer it for sale-- potential buyers come up with their lists, whether it be from a third-party PPI or just the instant look-around, add in a correction factor for what they know they will find later, and that's where the prices come from.

Anybody here have a 'perfect' example? If so, prorate the mileage against an exponential curve of remaining-miles vs cost to fix, and subtract that from the original sales price of the car. Costs of money vs inflation is near a wash for the life of most of these cars, so you quickly find that the sale prices do in fact follow a predictable pattern. It doesn't, unfortunately, include the 'love' factor for the stuff we've done ourselves. Buyers aren't wiling to pay extra for that, as you probably remember from when you bought yours. One favorite example is the custom-car guys who hang "valued at" numbers on their show displays. Out-of-pockets plus some reasonable per-hour value for the time invested? Maybe. But the cars trade for cash at small percentages of the "valued at" numbers. Nobody wants to pay for the 'love' that went into the car. Our situation may actually be worse, since most 'love' is put into maintenance and restoration tasks, rather than into improvements. Even when there are 'improvements', jury goes either way on whether a specific 'improvement' actually enhances the value of the car. A good SC install --might-- help, but not enough to recover even the cost of the kit. An 'average' install is a wash or worse, at least to me, because it's another unknown that will only be verified if the work is redone.

Anyway, I'm rambling. The reason the car is still in the garage is because the fun outweighs the longer-term costs of keeping it in reasonable driving condition. When that's no longer true, it will be on the block.


------

I drove over to Burbank this morning to witness a Rose Parade float test, ripped the 30mph ramp pretty effortlessly at 65. I'm sure the guy in the SUV in the inside lane of the ramp was happy to see me cruise by him. That capability is what makes the time and $$ seem worthwhile.

 

Bob, you're not trying to attach logic to the notion of keeping or not wanting to sell a shark, are you?

 

Stay with the song writing. You can always get another ride, but you can't get back lost time.

$13K and my shark (86 Euro) is swimming away!

 

Bigs-

Your question has challenged us to put a value on our passion, and not surprisingly, most have responded with a sky high number. The values are tempered with a certain amount of reality as to the resale prices of our 928's.
A fully restored 87 5 speed with an all leather interior and a lot of upgrades? I can't even guess what it is worth to someone else. $20K???? $30K??? I have spent more than that on it.
Lets just say that it is not for sale at any price, because it means too much to me, because I would be taking a financial loss, because I don't have to.
I took all three kids to school with it this week, twice with a cello in the hatchback as well as backpacks. I have pictures of my daughter learning how to ride a bike w/o training wheels, in the background is the 928. I have the factory crossbars so that I can haul my mountain bike to Moab and ride slickrock. There is new track down in the valley, perhaps someday I will find time to get involved with that. Sell it? Hell, I intend it to be a part of my life, and that is more important than money.
Knock on my door in 40 years, I hope I can show you my toybox filled with my Porsche 928, my first Titus titanium full suspension mountain bike, the Titus I upgraded to this year, all the Atomics, Volkls, backcountry setups, the gear I used in my lifetime. Then maybe we can take it for a spin, and talk about how much it is worth if I don't will it to one of my kids

 

I have thought recently of selling my Weissach..still has less than 41,000 miles on it...but it would not take less than 14,000 for it..just had the full front service work done by the pros too..water pump, belts, etc.I'm not tired of it just would rather have something I could drive around without worry about someone dinging a door on it...has had less than 1400 miles on it in the past two years!

Michael Mason