Eh?

I dropped in at my local playground earlier this week as I was passing. You may know it as Goodwood circuit.

A Cobra had blasted past me heading in the other direction as I approached, alerting me to the possibility of there being some sort of event going on. McLaren use it to demonstrate their latest MP4-12C software update (I think they're up to V5.19 this week), so there's often something interesting circulating.

Not such luck this time, it was the usual mix of Caterfields, Lotus Elise's and a couple of lost looking Porsche Panameras. As I stood on the deck above the pits, a red hatchback appeared from the chicane, and accelerated past at a highly impressive rate. It was Vauxhall's latest attempt to dethrone VW and Ford, the Astra VXR, and with a claimed 276bhp its got the ammunition, even if it does have to drag 1475kgs around.

What was particularly noticeable (or not) was the engine note. No clear 4 pot wail as it headed towards 7000rpm for this hot hatch; all that was emitted from the designer pipes was a discrete whistling drone, for all the world as if it were powered by Dilithium Crystal.

Have EU drive past regulations and the universal adoption of turbo's consigned a clear crisp exhaust note to history?

Undervalued; the Porsche 964

I've noticed a definite re-evaluation recently, of the ginger haired orphan stepchild of the 911 dynasty, the '89 to '93 964.

Chastised as being neither modern, nor traditional, and with a tendency to generate big bills, the 964 was the one you looked at before buying a 993 or a Carrera 3.2.

The 964RS was an obvious exception, good examples now starting to follow on the coat tails of its more illustrious 1973 predecessor, and you'd have to dig 6 figure deep for a very good one.

Except, except.....

The 964 was the result of Porsche's first significant investment in the 911 for 15 years. The C4's transmission system was derived from that of the 959, and the 3600cc engine had twin plugs and gave a healthy 250bhp and good economy and emissions. The suspension used coil springs for the first time in a road going 911, and the specification included ABS, and a decent heating system for the first time in air-cooled cars. It even had active aero, with a rear wing that extended to give additional cooling and downforce at speed, yet hid way at a standstill to preserve the traditional 911 profile.

And that's the key point; the 964 is the last Porsche to retain the classic 911 profile, and yet it has all the mod cons, refinement and usability you'd expect from a 90's car. In fact, in 1998 I have fond memories of a six year old car that I used daily, and in which I reached 265kph on an Autobahn.

I'm clearly not the only one who has revised my option, prices of the few good 964's remaining have hardened over the past 24 months, and the very best are now on the market at dealers with asking prices on the mid-20s.

So I've put my money where my mouth is.

I picked this up from today. Its a 1990 C4 with 45,000 miles on the clock, and looks like new. Peter Morgan checked it over and commented that its the best 964 that he's seen for a very long time.

Do you like the registration?

991 Prices - too cheap?

The prevailing view of the keyboard jockeys on various motoring forums is that the new 991's sales in the UK have been disappointing, and that the cause is the supposedly inflated prices, as you 'have' to pay at least £95,000 for a 'decent' specification.

Not only have they been suckered into over-indulging from Porsche's option list, but they have short memories too.

A 3.4litre 991 (in what they'll have you believe is the poverty specification) produces 350bhp, drags itself 60mph in about 4.5seconds and on to 180mph. I fail to believe that this is not more than sufficient for the UK's crowded roads, and more importantly, quite enough to have a load of fun and is probably the sweetest driving 911 available. It also comes with a 7 speed gearbox, 19" wheels, navigation, a 9 speaker/235watt sound system, bi-Xenon lights, climate, leather seats, and a long list of electronic luxury and safety too-dahs, all as standard in its £72,500 price.


By way of contrast, here are the list prices of (993)911s eighteen years ago:

911 Carrera - Manual - £56,495
911 Carrera - Tip - £59,470

911 Carrera 4 - Manual - £59,845

911 RS - £65,245

911 Turbo - £91,950

And a little further back the list prices of 1992 964s in 1992 pounds were

911 C2 Coupe - Manual £48,310
911 C2 Coupe - Tip £50,914
911 C2 Cab Turbo Look - Tip - £70,294

911 C4 Coupe  - Manual £55,347
911 C4 Cab - Manual  £61,417

911 Turbo 3.3 £75,306

911 Carrera RS - £61,100

And you can add £2181 for aircon to all of those, £800 for an alarm, £995 for metallic paint, and £3084 for leather.

So a 250bhp 964 C4 coupe with air, leather and paint would have been around £62,000.

So it beats me why a 385bhp 991 C4S at £81,000 represents some sort of wildly optimistic pricing strategy on Porsche's part. According to the inflation calculator I found the equivalent to the 964's price would be £103,000.

SS7

The Flying Banana

There has been a change in The Car List Blog's fleet.

For a while now the space in the garage for an 'interesting' car has remained empty. But early this year the planets aligned favourably, and I was able to start the hunt for something suitable. My parameters were fairly simple:
- adequate performance for modern roads
- a satisfying driving experience
- 3 or more seats
- a sensible ownership proposition; so good reliability, spares availability and specialist support
- low (if any depreciation)

I considered, and rejected plenty of possible candidates, from 30's vintage tourers, to classic British iron like Stags or Bristols, through to Youngtimers like the Mercedes 190E-16 or Audi Quattro.

Finally, and somewhat predictably, the only candidate remaining on my shortlist was some variety of Porsche 911. The later, water cooled cars offer incredible value at the moment, but big question marks over drive-train longevity are still pulling prices downwards. The late 80s and 90s 964s and 993s are a better fit, but from what I can see there's a good chance most examples will require money spent on suspension, and corrosion is becoming a growing issue. The same can be said for the middle year cars build from 1974 to 1989; a lot of solid looking cars hiding significant rust. While anything can be fixed, the costs can mount up rapidly, and you won't see back a 5 figure sum spent on refreshing rusty metal.

But you might on an early car; those built using the original 'long hood' or 'pre-Impact Bumper' body shape in the decade from 1963. So the decision was made, the now to find a car. The challenge was presented by the market; the price of early 911s started to move upward several years ago, and the very best cars are now being traded for serious money - £50,000 and up. Perhaps I could find something that might form a solid base, and improve it over time? I'm no stickler for originality and I love some of the hotrods built by R-Gruppe members in the US are lovely things......

As it happened, I had to spend a couple of weeks working in Florida in January. Before leaving I did idly run some web searches to see if anything suitable was available, but I wasn't about to spend hours traipsing around the state looking at old cars, time was short anyway and my main focus was on delivering some value to my client.

Then one Thursday evening driving back from the office to my lodgings south of Daytona Beach, I caught out of the corner of an eye the unmistakable profile of a 911 roofline, with it's windows framed in chrome. It was sitting in the showroom of what looked to be a dealer in main street, so I decided I may as well return at the weekend and have a look.

It emerged out that the chrome windowed car I'd spotted was a 2.7litre 911S from 1974. A lovely thing, but yet to have much of a following in the UK, and not what I was searching for. I mentioned to the owner, an expat Austrian, that my preference was for an early car, and he beckoned me to follow him. He led me through the showroom, and through double doors into a large workshop at the back of his unit. Sitting on a lift was a tired looking bright yellow 911, with oxidised paint, wide rear arches, obviously fake Fuchs road wheels, and generic 90's sports seats and steering wheel.

I took a closer look, expecting to find rust in all the usual places. But all the metal looked solid, apart from a section near the front towing eye. In fact, the more I looked, the more solid it seemed.  It wouldn't start though, so I had no-way of checking the state of the mechanicals, but it is the bodywork that's the deal breaker in these old 911s.

I took the opportunity to take a lot of photographs, and later that day uploaded them to my photo-server and emailed the links to a couple of specialists in the UK, asking them to give it a once over. The replies came through within 24 hours, neither could find obvious problems in the photos and gave the car a cautious ok. I left an offer with the dealer, suggesting a lower price that the one he'd picked off the wall, and asking for some remedial work to be undertaken.

By this time I'd returned to the UK and so the usual banter over price took place by email, and by the end of the week the car was mine, and was on its way to the UK.

All I could do was wait and hope that when it finally arrived the car was better than I'd remembered and no worse than I feared.

Good Advice

I happen to have cash in the bank at the moment as the result of a property sale. The ‘interest’ rate offered by my bank on my balance is 0.2%. So should I leave £100,000 in the bank for a year it will gain £200.

Except, with inflation running at 5%, I would actually loose £5,000 in real value, even before the government comes for their chunk of the £200.

No wonder there’s a lot of money piling into classic cars. But there are plenty of pitfalls too, even if you suspect the current bull market is a repeat of the 1988-1991 bubble.

With that in mind here are some very good rules of investing in old cars (courtesy of a well known Belgian car dealer):

1. Don’t be cheap. Do not buy because the car seems inexpensive. Pay for quality at the outset, and it will later turn out to be a bargain.
2. Don’t gamble on ‘future classics’. The safest investment is one made in a car of which the rising value has already been confirmed by the market.
3. Buy what you really like; lead with your heart but invest in your pleasure as well.

SS7

Winter

Well the frosts have finally arrived in my corner of the balmy south coast and I'm off to get the winter tyres fitted to the Golf.

I've been a user since last winter, when they enabled me to make a number of journeys I wouldn't have considered trying on summer rubber. I'm just amazed there is still any debate on the wisdom of changing rubber in the UK.

SS7

The New, New 911

Here's Evo's Chris Harris spilling the beans on the new Porsche 911.

Its the first real 'new' 911 since 1997. So it had better be good, as we've got to live with the basic car for the next decade or more.

Luckily, first signs are good, even though there are the usual internet complaints about dumbing down/making it softer/being too conservative. Really, who'd be Porsche's chief designer?

My worry (electric steering system aside) is that while the new mostly-aluminium body is 40kg or so lighter that the 997, a good chunk more could have been saved by using the old 6 speed transmission. That was quoted as being 25kgs lighter than the PDK 'box, and its difficult to see the same saving now the manual gearbox uses the PDK's castings. Is a 7th ratio really needed when almost all of the world's roads are limited to 70-80mph?

Its also been interesting to read the comments about pricing. There is an oftly expressed view that a good £10k worth of options are 'essential' for re-sale, and that the only version worth bothering with is the £81,500, 3.8litre 'S'. So you very quickly end up with the grand total on the Porsche.com website's configurator heading towards £100,000.

I beg to differ.

A ‘vanilla’ 3.4 has 350bhp and does 180mph. It comes with leather, climate, sat nav, Bi-Xenons, start/stop, 7 speed ‘box, 19”s, 235watts of stereo (with 9 speakers and aux input), alcantara roof lining, and electric windows. That's pretty much what I have on my 5 year old Golf, and the previous owner ticked every box on the form when he ordered that one. The baby 911 doesn't get taxed at the highest rates for VED, and you now get 36 months worth of Porsche warranty.

I can see how its easy to get seduced by the options list; I might add £1100 of PASM, £400 of rear Park Assist and a £150 Sports steering wheel. But I wouldn’t be that bothered.

However a look at options prices quickly reveals why Porsche is still most profitable car maker on the planet - and my views on the subject haven't changed since I sat down and specified my Cayman back in 2006.

For example, to paint the bloody thing in a metallic colour is £800. Total cost to Porsche ~€50.

To take away the complex, expensive stainless steel exhaust system and replace it with a complex, expensive stainless steel exhaust system that’s a bit louder and has a valve, switch, bit of wiring and software tweaks costs you £1800. Cost to Porsche? Must be €75 tops. Black wheels are £950, electric sports seats are £3,800, a window in the roof is £1200, some bits of useless carbon trim £1100, and they want £3k for their top of the line stereo.

So while loading the car with complex (and expensive) options might give you bragging rights on the forum I really think the pauper's version will be enough for the UK's roads.

In fact on the smaller 18" wheels it might even be the sweetest driving of all the 991 variants .

SS7