ddsiu

First of all, I have to say that I have learnt a tremendous amount of information on the 993's by lurking in this forum for the past month. I have been techically glued to this site during work and might possibly lose my job before I can make my first payment!

To all of you who have answered my inquiries...I cannot thank you enough. I have been semi active on other car forums (Audi and rice rockets) and this is by far the most helpful and mature car platform I have came across.

Since the start of my search, I have looked at roughly 12 vehicles and personally test drove around 5. I have never driven a P-Car in the past but have always admired its classic beauty (especially the 993 and 964). When I took my first test drive in it...my first reaction was "wow"! Once I entered the cockpit, you deifinitly know you are in a sports car. The raw feel of the cockpit and the roar of the engine is like music to my ears...I already knew the 993 is a must have.

I have driven and owned several modified rice rockets in my younger/wilder days as well as moving on up to the VW/Audi thing...but the test drive on that bone stock 993 gave me far more of an adrenilene rush than all the suped up vehicles I drove before. Unfortunately for the seller, I had to turn down that one as the interior was in below average condition and the history was a bit shady for the price he was asking.

Anyways, back to my search experience. My search criterior is simple...serivce history, color and number of previous owners...thats it. Until today, I have not found a perfect choice yet...either the car had a nice history but wrong color or nice color too many hands etc, etc. I am suprised at how many P-Cars here have no service history what so ever and the comment from the dealer is always "Its such an old car, ppl usually just dont keep the records." When I hear this, I usually just walk away with a nice thank you. I personally would want to keep all service records if I ever want to resell..or is this not the norm here is HK?

However today, I think I just found the right one! It is a 95 C2 tip with only 2 previous owners. It is in guard's red, which is my preferred color after white. The interior was in excellent shape and color and as far as I can tell, engine sounds pretty sweet. Although, it has no papers, the dealer told me that all the work was done at RAT before, so I can call them up and get the history if I wish. If all things check out, I will ask for a test drive next week. Dealer had already promised me that a deposit is not necessary for a test drive. Which is another thing that I find very absurd in other HK dealerships.

Now my question is this. Although the car is in its original color, I suspect that it had been resprayed as the paint condition looks way too new for its age. All the stickers are in place to prove that color had not been changed, but if it was indeed resprayed in its original color, how much should it affect the sale price. With a respray, I am actually more concerned if it had been crashed before.

So if this car was indeed in an serious accident, is the PPI foolproof? What are the chances of a good PPI not catching it?

By the way, its asking for $360k
any comments? Mileage is not too low, around 70,000KM. To Rennlisters here in HK, is this mileage way too high for HK?

My second choice will be a 1 owner perfect condition black 96' TIP with full history/low mileage...but the asking price is a whopping $470K! Black is forth on my list. will update on this some other time.

Also...if anyone is also looking for a 993 here in HK, PM me and I will try to share some experiences with you.

-Matt

HJK

Matt, wish you luck in the hunt for THE car! On the respray thing, I don't really know how big a deal it is, mine is 11 years now, has some bad chips and could do with a full respray. Will that lower the value? Honestly, I think it will enhance my pleasure of the car so i dont really care. History is a bit of another thing, but if it's maintained at Porsche they will be able to run off the whole history of the car from their system, at least here in Thailand they do.... Again, wishing you luck and hope you find the right one...
Henk

TargaTango

ddsiu, HK is a very different market to the rest of the world. Resprays are not so frowned upon provided they were not because of an accident and service history is usually patchy. If money is no problem to you you may wish to go for the black. The black also has the "advantage" of being a 96 with varioram (if properly functioning its big advantage is more lower rpm torque and better resale, particularly in HK, and a modified rear suspension over the '95). Otherwise I would take the arena red to someone you can trust to do a good inspection (I personally have used Jebsen and Gembella) and I think they should pick up whether the car has been involved in any significant accident. Other Rennlisters would be more knowledgeable on this point than I. On the mileage, it is difficult to say. It depends how it was made. If it involved plenty of longish trips, then it could be preferable to a car with much lower mileage which did a lot of very short trips. If the car is in good condition, I would not let that 70,000km mileage put you off.

Good luck,

forest

matt

if the inspection and test drive came out ok, maybe no need to be too concerned with resprays, afterall it's a 13 year old car. i find the asking price a little stiff -the same car would have gone for less than that 5 years ago. but seems things have really changed. good luck!

cartoon blue

Hi Matt, great to here that! I agree with what the others comment about respray, as long as it is not related to crash then it's ok. One thing that I would like to remind, you cannot tell whether a car is resprayed or repainted by the stickers, coz in HK they will cover the stickers before repaint, so all stickers will remain there. You can tell whether it is resprayed by felling if the level of the paint is above or under the sticker, of course if it is repainted, the paint would be at a higher level than the sticker. Feel free to give me a call ( you have my no. I guess) if you want me to go take a look with you.

As for the KM, I think 70,000 is acceptable given the car is a 95. But of course I would prefer something with lower mileage, something under 50,000 is my preference. BTW, fyi 95 car is not necessary without variocam, Porsche change the production year in Sep, so some 95 car has varioram as well, Porsche call it 95 manufacturing year, 96 Model Year. If you are referring to the red 993 at Exclusive Cars, then I can tell you that it is a non Varioram engine.

Good Luck!

p993enthusiast

Matt,

Service history is key and I agree with your approach of stepping away from those without. Any attentive owner would certain keep up with maintenance and would keep the service record.

As for the Guards Red 993 you are talking about - do definitely call R&T and ask about the history. As for the mileage, 70k km is fair enough for a 95 car in HK - it's coming up to 13 years old and these cars are meant to be driven (FYI, my MY96 has just passed 64k km, so it's averaging roughly the same p.a.)

In terms of the price, HK$360k is what one expects from a dealer. It has been hovering around that mark for a couple of years now. You use to be able to pick one up for closer to HK$300k back in 03/04 but from the classifieds, I havent really seen many sub-HK$300k 993s other than the early 94s. Of course I dont know what these cars are eventually sold for.

Anyway, best of luck and hope you find "The One" soon.

Alan