JC in NY

For what it's worth, the original poster sold a 1998 model year 993 targa which is *extremely* rare. So, there was a collectability factor there that may not exist for a run of the mill 993.

88911coupe

I've been toying with getting a 993 and consequently have been checking many sources. I'd have to say I'm seeing great things from the perspective of a potential buyer. While not cheap by any means I am seeing more and more 993's in the very reasonable range. This isn't necessarily good since after I get one I'd like values to stabilize but there's no question I can get a 993 for less now than a year ago. I got lucky on my '87 cab which I bought for 29.9 k and sold 2 years and 15-20k miles for later for 29k (sight unseen) but I think those days are over.

DJF1

Its all relative. It's model specific for sure and the pricing reflects the desirability and production. Just take a look at the 928 GTS models. They are actually appreciating...I took a look at one where the owner wanted 27K... the car was mildly put very very tired...There is absolutely no way I would pay the asking money, as a matter of fact my offer on it stood at half the asking price... However I heard the car is sold at the asking price...
Moral of the story is that our cars are not Honda's produced in the tens of thousands. Great 993's will always command top dollar as they are desirable, they do not make them anymore and as we speak another 993 is meeting the friendly folks of a junk yard somewhere around the world...
So the blue book and all the other paraphernalia in my book are tools for car dealers to buy them at a killer price and sell them for top dollar. I do not pay attention to them.. By the way not even a month ago I turned down a 45K offer on my cabrio... The interested party only saw my Rennlist pics and made the offer... It goes to show you right?

24FPS

funny... had an older gent offer me more than i paid for my cab the other day @ the merc. dealership... cash deal (he said)... even though i'm not sellin'... it made me feel good. fwiw.
funny, peeps w/ money have no prob. payin' for something if it's what they want---> hell what's an extra 10-15k if it saves you some time. i know when i was makin' serious bank... i had less 'sense' when it came to some things...

cheers

smshirk

The difference of opinion in this thread must be the reason pricing 993s from private sellers is so frustrating right now. Prices are all over the board. I set out to buy a 993 in feb 04. I drove somewhere every weekend to check one or more out. I finally gave up in June and bought a 996. I still intend to buy a 993 when I find the right car, so I've been watching them closely. Prices are all over the place and appear to have more to do with perception than reality.

I did let one get away right here in Atlanta (C4S for 40K). The guy needed the money fast I suppose. I had a first AM meeting I had to go to on Monday morning. It was 1pm before I was able to get a cashiers check and some guy in CO had wire transferred the money to him an hour before. That was the one that made me go buy a 996. I tried to give him a check on Sunday with a promise to have the bank check Monday, but he wouldn't agree. He told me when I left that the first one to hand him the money would buy the car.

Incidentally, he had listed that car at 45 for weeks with no takers. He dropped the price to 40 on saturday before the monday in question. He had it on cacars though instead of autotrader. Not sure how much traffic that site gets. I might have gone 45 on it, or maybe 43, but didn't see it until he had dropped the price. The best one I know of right now the guy won't budge from 50 and someone will probably buy it at his price eventually. The other interesting car mentioned in this thread 928GTS is the same way. Prices are everywhere and there are a ton of super low mileage examples that are tempting, but way too high, and probably wrought with issues for having set up so much.

mnmblu

Hmmm, been reading this thread and was thinking about the rarity issue. Let me pose this question:

What would rarity of color do for the value of a car?

We all know that certain colors are better for resale inasmuch as most people like the rather mundane colors. Human nature, I guess, for people to conform and not step outside the perceived standards of normality, but I digress. Back to the point... I am of the the target audience Porsche had in mind when they decided to come out with those brightly colored cars reminiscent of IROC days in the 70's, i.e. Riviera Blue, Speed Yellow, Rhasberry (Remember the jelly bean commercial?). IMHO, I think that Porsches should be brightly colored sports cars that say fun! Now given this train of thought, wouldn't it stand to reason that rare color combinations should also be valuable to the right audience? These bright colors may not appeal to the masses but when the right buyer comes along, who is like minded... You see this was the reason I bought my car. I had a very cherry SC that I just loved and was just casually looking at 993's. When I saw the Riv cab with the grey interior, BAM had to have it and the price was secondary. Sure, I wanted a good deal but the color combo is what I knew I could not find again and is what I had to have.
Now, given these circumstances, and rarity issue, shouldn't a car like mine be worth more to the right buyer? Go find a Riv blue with light grey and black accent interior... I don't think you will see too many examples for sale. I am not sure they even made that many of them.

Now bear in mind... most of you will automatically be thinking I couldn't or wouldn't buy a car like that... trust me there are people who do. So... I guess my point is that if you have a rare combination, you just wait for the right buyer. Most people wouldn't be interested but if you find one that is...it's not cause of the mileage or price or whatever, it's because of the preference for color... rarity.

So anyway, you can see that I am rambling on an on... so whataya think?

FisterD

It's all about personal preference. I wanted a Polar Silver car from the beginning. I think Polar Silver is an awesome color and was my first choice. If you think it is a "mundane color", well thats your opinion, but I absolutely love it. If you put two cars exactly the same, side-by-side, one Riviera Blue, and one Polar Silver, I would chose Polar Silver. That is my personal choice.
I love Riviera Blue, it is a beautiful color, but not my preference.
If someone was looking for that color,though, it might be worth more to them.

So, I think a car is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Personal preference, as well as the size of their bank account, IMHO will be deciding factors.

Howdy993

MandM-

People buy cars (sports cars in particular) for all kinds of emotional reasons and color is just as good as another.

Gotta love the Ebay commercial of the guy looking for the lime green hatchback

I was approached by a gentleman at this years Parade Concours who explained that 996s were the car to have (and thus would retain their value) because the shape of the rear window.

Sometimes I think we get hung up on money value - which IMO pales in comparision to the value / joy our cars bring every time we drive them.

Riviera Blue and Grey is definately a nice combination.

Best wishes

TheOtherEric

Alan, can't you assume that EVERY color is highly valued? I.e. people who buy silver 993's are not just settling for silver even though they wanted something else. They very likely LOVE silver cars and are willing to pay for it. There are a lot of 993 colors and a lot of opinions on color, so it's reasonable to assume that we all pay a "premium" to get the color we want. Of course, this means that there is no color premium at all.

Secondly, just because something is RARE doesn't automatically mean that it's valuable. It only has added value if the demand exceeds the rarity. Since anyone could buy a new 993 in any color they wanted back in the day, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the supply of colors roughly equals the demand for those colors? If that's the case, then there's no color premium. A color premium would occur if Porsche was ignoring its customers' color preferences or if showroom buyers somehow have preferences different from used-car buyers. Am I making sense?

TheOtherEric

Maybe that was confusing; let me put it this way:

(No. of people who want a Riviera Blue 993) = (No. of Riviera Blue 993's)

If that's the case, then there's no added value to the color. Is there any basis for suggesting otherwise?

tlark

OK, it appears that concensus has been reached that low mile models may hold better value, although all cars depreciate at differing levels. At that point I do believe certain cars do level off unless a beater w/high mileage ofcourse.

So what do you think.... what US/street 993 models will retain the best values ?

I don't know enough yet, but looking at the past year I say the S turbo's and regular turbo's may lead the list, so what other N/A cars would you guys think.

Should I start a new thread w/this ?

Pzkw993

Two theories of mine:

1) People buy what they can see. Look at any tract housing community and see how disproportionately the model type is represented. My shirtmaker tells me that when he travels, he takes 250 samples with him and people still always buy whatever fabric is on their test fit shirt. Back in 1995, when I was selling Fords, our dealership ordered 40 Windstar minivans, 20 of them in the "willow green" which was very popular at the time and the rest in silver, beige, and red. I convinced the dealer principal to order one pink one and one bright blue one - and he let me know my job was on the line if I couldn't sell them. The vans were delivered over the course of a week. The first van from the batch to sell was the electric blue one, which I sold the day it arrived. The pink one went five days later. And we had 19 willow green vans left. There's no way a customer would have ever ordered a pink or electric blue minivan, but with the iron on the ground I had no trouble moving them. The DP's opinion was that I was "lucky" and we never got any more. But people buy what they can see and dealers are conservative people, so they buy conservative cars. But given the chance, they will buy something fun. Of course, we can't forget that Porsche charges a lot of money for colors beyond the basic ones, and perhaps even people who spend $75,000 on a car are averse to spending $2000 on a paint color.

2) The folks out there buying 20-year-old cars will also buy something fun. If you were buying an old M3, wouldn't it be fun to have a bright blue one? Sure it would. So who are the conservative buyers? Why, it's the nearly-new crowd, the people who buy 2002 Boxsters with the intention of holding the m for 24 months and selling them on to the next guy. Those people are fiscally conservative and it leads to them being color-conservative.

With the two theories above, Eric's idea of color equivalency absolutely holds true because, with the exception of a conservative bump in the mid-life of a car, people buy what they want and want what they see.

But then you have the idea of fads in color. What's the most reviled 993 color out there? Why, it's the Grand Prix White of my own cherished Panzer! What kind of idiot bought a new white Porsche, unless they had Martini stripes ready and waiting in the garage? But wait! The new Top Gear says white is coming back, and I've already seen two new GP White 997s! So it's possible that people who would not have bought a white car in 2002 would buy one in 2006. And, pursuant to my theory #1, the more white cars they can see, the more they will want, right up to the saturation point (see Boxster, Silver 1999 and WRX, Blue, All Years for examples of that)

Anybody who has ever sold cars will talk your ear off about color. Everybody has a different approach to it and many of those approaches border on the mentally ill. Speaking personally, I love buying a new black car but won't buy a used black one, because of all the monkeys out there who rub brushes on their cars. My GP White car is swirled but you need to look close. As a kid, I really wanted a red Porsche and couldn't understand all those lamers who bought "old people" colors like burgundy and gold. Today, I rather like the idea of a burgundy or gold 911, so much so that I would probably order a 997 in burgundy with a tan interior if I could.

Some cars have iconic colors - BRG for Jags, white and blue for Cobras, and silver for antique and modern Porsches (but not the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties cars)

There's so much to type and so little interest any of you could have about it, so I will conclude by saying that in the large, Eric's idea holds true. If there was a fellow who wanted a Magenta Puke 911C4S Cab in 1998, there's somebody who wants it today.

24FPS

first & foremost... i buy the shape of the supermodel 1st... color is secondary... & @ times i've been colorblinded by a wonderful shape... just like a beautiful woman.

cool thing though, is that the types 911 & 993's (like great design in general) will always attract peeps w/ taste & mulla . --btw: i really believe 'great' examples are always an exception to the 'norm' of the market.

btw: did i mention that i already feel like i've gotten my $'s woth outta' my 993... & it's just 2yrs new to me? (just got back from a quick lil' run )

David in LA

If I could find a Viola Metallic 993TT I would buy it in a heartbeat!

Greg Bell

Intersting thread. I bought my car in the UK and shipped it back to Australia when I returned last year. Before I bought my car I subscribed to 911 & Porsche World to get an idea of prices and to help me find my dream car. I still have my subscription and every month when the magazine arrives I check the personal classifieds as well as the dealer advertisements and three years later I can see very little downward movement in the asking prices and in fact some of the prices have moved upwards. Maybe it's different in America but the UK prices appear to be holding. Here in Australia it's a different story. We have what is known as the 'Red Book' which dealers use as a guide to used car prices. While the values in the Red Book are falling, albeit slowly, it's a different story with the actual prices being asked which are consistantly higher. Just ask anyone here in Australia who is looking for a 993. It's a seller's market.