If further proof were needed that Porsche fans have far more money than sense, someone just paid a staggering $164,000 for a 968 coupe.
You might remember that we posted about the 968 in question when it went live on the Bring-a Trailer auction site last week. The unusual Amethyst purple paint and incredibly low 8,222 mileage guaranteed it would sell for strong money, but that strong money in our mind was probably half of what bidding had reached when the digital hammer fell.
Hagerty’s valuation data suggests a concours condition top grade car should be worth $75,000, though this car’s extremely low mileage would make it worth more. We know from a bit of internet digging that this same car sold for $64,400 at an RM Sotheby’s auction in 2020, and Hagerty’s data also shows that prices for the very best 968s (but not average cars) have risen as much as 25 percent over the last 10 months, so the owner was probably hoping for a bit of a payout.
But a $100k payout? The final hammer price of $164,000 makes this 968 more than $20,000 more expensive than the brand new 718 Cayman GT4 RS, a car that’s sure to be more fun to drive, is more significant, and worth far more in the long term. And don’t give us the “old Porsches are so special” guff. It won’t work in this case.
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Freakishly low mileages tend to get buyers excited because it’s not always easy to find another similar example, unless the car is a very special model that dozens of collectors bought and stashed away when new, like a Buick GNX. But that’s the thing with this 968: it wasn’t that special at all. It wasn’t a Club Sport or an unfeasibly rare Turbo S. It was just a regular 968 coupe.
And is the 968 really that special anyway, aside from being the last of Porsche’s front-engined four bangers? I’ve driven 968s, 944s and 924s, and owned a 2.5-liter 924S, so it’s not like I don’t see the appeal. They’ve got a great handling balance, the big hatchback rear makes them fairly practical (even if the back seats are a joke) and the 968’s 237 hp (240 PS) output means it’s reasonably quick. But they don’t feel special inside, and I always thought the four-cylinder engine, which Porsche developed from one bank of a 928’s V8 over a decade earlier, was a fairly uncharismatic motor.
That’s not something you can say of a Boxster’s flat-six, but a 2001 Boxster 3.2 S with just 5,326 miles sold for a paltry £17,750 ($23,400) on the Collecting Cars website last July. The Boxster was built in far greater numbers than the 968 ever was, but that’s still a ridiculous gulf in price.
The 968’s hammer price even manages to make sense of the insane $112,000 someone paid on Bring-a-Trailer for a 7,000-mile Acura Integra Type R in January, and makes the $83,000 an also-7,000-mile BMW E46 M3 changed hands for a couple of weeks ago, on the same auction site, seem like an absolute bargain (I admit I was dead sure it would top $100k).
Like the Boxster, the E46 M3 is more numerous than the 968, and being only 20, rather than 30 years old, you might argue that it’s not quite “classic” enough. But I don’t buy that. The E46 M3 has already attained classic status, is widely regarded as one of the greatest performance cars of the last 30 years, one of the greatest M cars ever, and the best M3 since the original E30. But the Bring-a-Trailer audience judged it worth half as much as the 968, which is hardly one of Porsche’s landmark cars.
Don’t get me wrong, I really dig this 968, which is why we wrote about it in the first place, but not for that money. Porsche struggled to sell the 968 when it was new because it was too expensive compared with newer, faster, more advanced Japanese rivals. Later, when they hit the used market and prices dropped, they made more sense as solid, fun used cars that were much more affordable than a 911, but recently values have been climbing. That’s fair enough, but $168,00 is insane.
But what’s your take? Did the buyer of this 968 get a great deal on one of the finest Porsches ever built during one of the most fascinating (and shaky) periods of the company’s history? Or was he just comprehensibly shafted on a Bernie Madoff scale over a very ordinary four-cylinder coupe that happened to be painted in a interesting color, have an incredibly low mileage and, perhaps most important of all, is wearing the right brand’s hood badge? Leave a comment and let us know.
