The unfashionable honesty the market needs.
Why write this
Every collector-car publication tells you what to buy before it climbs. Almost none tell you what has already climbed and is unlikely to climb further. The second list is more useful, because it is where most buyers actually lose money, paying peak prices for cars the market has already fully discovered.
None of these are bad cars. Several are the best cars Porsche ever built. The point is not that you should avoid them. The point is that if you buy them, buy them to keep and drive, because the financial case has largely already played out.
The cars where the money has been made
- The 1973 RS
- The blue-chip of blue-chips. At $1 million and up, the RS is fully valued and then some. It will hold, it may drift upward with the broader top of the market, but the era of doubling is long gone. You buy an RS to own an RS.
- The 993, broadly
- The most desired air-cooled chassis ran its full appreciation in the 2010s. A clean 993 at $100,000-plus is correctly priced for what it is, the last air-cooled 911. The story is known, the price reflects it. Buy it because it is the one you want, not because it is cheap or climbing.
- The 964 RS and 3.6 Turbo
- The 964 special variants went from ignored to six-figure in a decade. That repricing is complete. They are correctly valued now as the rare, desirable cars they are. The bargain window closed years ago.
- Low-mileage time capsules of any chassis
- The market paid enormous premiums for delivery-mileage, time-capsule cars during the run. That premium is the most exposed part of the market, because it depends on a specific buyer who wants a car they will never drive. As the speculative money leaves, the time-capsule premium is the first thing to soften.
What this means for a buyer
If your goal is to own a beautiful air-cooled car and enjoy it for years, the peaked cars are completely fine, as long as you are buying with eyes open and not expecting the car to also be an appreciating asset. Pay the market price, drive the car, and judge the purchase on the joy it gives you rather than the number it might reach.
If your goal includes appreciation, the peaked cars are the wrong place to look. The value, where it still exists, is in the cars one tier down. The SC and 3.2 that have flattened to buyable levels. The 912 that is still climbing. The early water-cooled cars the next generation actually wants. The 996 that sits where the 964 sat in 2010.
The honest frame
A car is a thing to drive. The best reason to buy any of these is that you want to live with it. The appreciation era of the air-cooled market made a lot of people treat these cars as assets first, and that framing is now the riskiest way to buy. Buy the car you want to drive at a price you can afford to lose, and you will never be disappointed by where the market goes.
A note on values. The numbers here are enthusiast perspective drawn from public auction results and market observation, not financial advice. Collector car values move, sometimes sharply, and a car is first a thing to drive and only second a thing to own. Buy the car you want to live with. If it appreciates, that is a bonus, not a plan.