I recently sold my 981 GT4 since I had picked up a 718 GT4 RS and bought a Ferrari 458 as my 2nd car to pair with the 4RS. I quickly discovered the 458 wasn't the experience I was looking for and sold it after 4-6 months of owning it and luckily selling it for what I had bought it for. I have a Spyder RS allocation(potential replacement for the 4RS) but it doesn't arrive until November which made me itchy for another car to fill the second garage spot. I've always had a 997 GT or RS on my bucket list and I love colorful Porsche's so a 997.1 3RS pumpkin is very high on that list. I saw this pumpkin pop up at Porsche Vancouver in Canada and this is how the process started:

I saw how great the car looked with the GT2 buckets, PCCBs, orange stitching and painted interior. Literally my perfect spec and not sure I would change anything except getting some bumper plugs for the unfortunately drilled front plate.






I called a sales guy I saw mentioned here on Rennlist that helped another Rennlister out when buying from Porsche Vancouver and he picked up right away. My first question was does he have a DME report and does the car have a clean carfax/any paint work? He sent me the below DME report which is one of the cleanest DME's I've seen along with a dropbox of him paint metering every panel and letting me know the whole car is PPFed and reads consistently throughout which indicates no paint work along with a no accident carfax.











Unfortunately here is where some delays happened. The deal I struck with Vancouver was that the car must have a full inspection prior to my purchase and have everything replaced/done so that I could drive the car back from WA if I wanted too/the car meets Porsche safety standards. They notified me that they saw the water pump "weeping" as part of the inspection and were going to stay true to their word and have that fixed on their own dime but the part has to come from Germany and it was on backorder. Here is what the dealer serviced on the car after the inspection as part of our deal:

-Brand new OEM water pump from Germany.
-Brand new Cup 2's(old cup 2's were fairly new but old date codes that wouldn't meet inspection).
-Battery replaced as it did not pass inspection
-Alignment, Oil Change, Filters, Brake Fluid. Basically full service due for 2024.

In the end I'm going to assume it was over $5,000 they spent to get this car CPO ready on their dime. Some mentioned the PCCB's looked worn and I asked them to inspect it which they measured and came back with 70% life in the front and 60% in the rear. I think it was the angle/lighting in some of the pics and you can see below the PCCB's look much better. I also was relieved to hear the coolant lines have been pinned(another 5k+ savings for me).











I started the import process which included receiving a compliance letter from Porsche and adding this car to my Porsche account which to my surprise showed that the car was CPOed in 2013 + 2015 and then I asked my sales guy to pull internal Porsche maintenance information which showed that this car was regularly serviced at Porsche and was CPOed again in 2017/2019 before the age limit was hit. With the car showing 2013,2015,2017,2019 CPO my sales guy believes some of the owners would just keep bringing the car in and repurchasing/leasing it to keep CPO going. The internal database also showed that there was a major service in 2022 which included spark plugs, coils and belt service done at Porsche Vancouver.




Now here is where I hit some more road blocks regarding the car. Unfortunately Porsche Vancouver has a corporate policy where they are unwilling to accept an international wire or any kind of currency that is not CAD. Their policy is also to charge Canadian tax for any car purchase unless you are a licensed importer buying the car with a sworn statement saying you will be exporting it. This meant I cannot purchase the car on my own and had to go through a licensed importer unless I was willing to pay 20k+ in Canadian taxes that was an unknown if I would receive back. Luckily my sales guy was used to this process with another customer and he recommended a licensed(appears on the DOT.gov) importer that will be buying the car on my behalf and having to do a commercial import on it which means the car has to have a new cluster face plate installed in MPH and wait at the importers dealership for about 30 days while the DOT reviews photos/paperwork to make this car compliant in the US. The plus side of this is that the car will show up with a WA title at my door step with 0 work required on my end except taking the car + WA title and registering it.

The only 997 I have ever driven was a 997 GTS Cab which I did not love(did not give me the GT car feeling compared to my GT4 at the time) so I'm looking forward to experiencing an RS. The car is being picked up today from the dealership and will begin the 30+ day commercial import process. I will keep this thread updated to see how it goes. The main reason I am going through all of these headaches/delays/road blocks is because the car itself is extremely clean and well taken care of(how many 997's have been CPOed 4 times and were majority dealer serviced? Not many.). I spent over a month trying to find another 997 RS to buy instead of this one but every single one I found either had a range 4+ DME, replaced engine/trans due to potential abuse or was repainted. I'd be okay with those things if the price reflected them but the price did not reflect that in the other cars I was able to find this past month. Although I did find a few extremely clean cars they were all low miles which meant the price reflected it and I just preferred to try and finish this transaction on the pumpkin since I plan to drive the car and wanted more of a driver mile RS.

Driving video I received from my sales guy after all the work was done on the car:



To be be continued....

 

That car looks amazing! Good luck on the importation, look forward to hearing your impressions of ownership.

Pumpkins in person are so cool, not an organge fan typically, but Pumpkin 997.1RS just works!

 

Very cool car esp w/all the color match bits.. if its not originally a US car what did they say the rules around import tax will be?

 

Congrats! Enjoy!

 

It's originally a North American car which basically means it was built to all the standards of a US car except the cluster and e-brake light on the cluster. There are examples in Canada that came from ROW(rest of world) which do not meet US and cannot be brought in. Tax to bring this car in is 2.85% in import tax + enclosed shipping + cluster swap + import fees/importer handling the transaction on my behalf which adds up to a decent chunk all together but still relatively a good price compared to what a pumpkin of this quality goes for here in the US.

 

Finally a man’s car. 😘

 

Congrats Filip! Can't wait to see you driving this in person!

 

Gorgeous car! Regarding the speedometer, I've been told previously that since these cars also have digital speedometers in the center display screen that can easily be switched to MPH in the settings that you don't actually need to change the analog speedometer for compliance. Of course I can see why you'd want both to be in MPH but I think most people look at the digital display primarily for their speed since it's front and center so I figured I'd mention it.

Of course, it's possible that the person who told me that was mistaken so may be worth confirming.

 

I believe you’re correct when it comes to a “personal” import and driving it through the border. We’re doing a commercial import with photos being sent to the DOT so I was told it isn’t worth the risk of submitting the car with a KPH Speedo along with potentially being rejected and on the plus side this will also make it look like a full American car. I just need to figure out how to change the KM to miles on the digital gauge.

 

Ah, got it. Didn't know there was a difference process--good to know!

My understanding is that when you swap the units both the speedometer and odometer units should change. Believe it's just done with the steering wheel stalk.

 

Not related to DOT compliance but the oil and water temp gauges are also different. Canuckistan cars have them in celsius vs. fahrenheit for U.S. spec.

Where did you source the faceplates from of you don’t mind me asking?

 

Congrats. As you can see by my avatar, I'm a firm believer that the 4RS + 997 GT of any time may be an ideal combination. Let's drive when it's down here. Maybe Sam will join too

 

Good to know.

I sent this one to my importer but he said he was going to confirm everything on Monday and have his face plate guy inspect the car in person to make sure they get the most accurate/OE like face plate.

https://gaugefaces.com/shop/porsche-...225-mph-black/

 

You can buy the OEM faceplates from Porsche. Suncoast Parts has them, pick your color.

 

Never thought to look there so thank you. It looks like those are from FVD, not OEM, however. There are no OEM options that I was able to find. Am I missing it?

I think the FVD ones are top quality made in Germany though. It’s also nice that FVD seems to be able to reproduce any of the OEM colors since those instrument clusters are discontinued from Porsche. The only one still available is the standard grey/black version and that is a full instrument cluster only (runs about $4k).