GT4RS - Availability, what’s the latest?

[LiamH66]

fridaypassion said:

That little league table to me would look like this

GT4RS
718 GT4
410 Exige






981 GT4

Lots of cars you could fit in that gap the 981 is not a great car in my opinion. <snip>

Different strokes... I think the 981 GT4 was the one I've loved most so far. Aside from the slightly thrown together feel of it that I loved, and lousy steering feel out of the box that I didn't, it was transformed by a proper geo setup without changing a single original part. I didn't mind the hole in the torque curve as I was generally under it on the road, and always above it on track. The manual 'box was an absolute peach, and I really didn't mind the heavier clutch and more agricultural driving experience on the road than a 982 GT4. It just added to the event of taking it out for a drive. On the track, all that ceased to matter. I knew I was trying harder than 982 GT4s to keep up, but that just added to the fun.

GT4 RS as it turned up was surprisingly better on the road, but while much quicker on track, it needed a load of parts and work before it was anything like as user friendly for me. In fairness, more committed and confident track drivers can make them work on all standard parts. You really do need to get them by the scruff of the neck to get them turned in, and be ready to catch them if you lose rear grip on the way out of corners. They've made them very safe for ordinary civilians on the road, and really good for experienced track drivers. I'm somewhere between the two of those, and while probably closer to the latter, painfully aware I'm driving a relatively fast and expensive track car uninsured.

Geo helped, but with front lift, just couldn't get the front ride height down anything like low and pointy enough, and the dampers really couldn't cope with the rear spring rate, so rebound was not properly controlled. I've gone with a Suspension Secrets kinematics pack (fitted in 2 stages to get a feel for what each did), and for me, that's a more complete solution than a DSC controller. Each to their own. I'm aiming to end up with some Ohlins dampers later this year, but for now the reduced rear spring rate has the rear hopping and corner exit snap oversteer under control.

I don't know if I appreciated the simplicity of life the 981 GT4 offered enough. I bought it as a 3-season daily that I could do a couple of track days a year in. Ended up owning it for 6 years, spending very little on it aside from overheated or worn out Cup 2 tyres, warranty, servicing at correct intervals, and really just enjoying it on a daily basis most of the time. Totally characterful, totally fun, one of the best cars I ever owned.

Is the GT4 RS objectively better? Yes, but it has needed work for me to enjoy it as much on track. Is the gap you show between those cars justifiable? I've never driven an Exige. However I have to point out the cost gap between the outgoing 981 GT4 and incoming GT4 RS was £84k, and more like £90k once I'd got the GT4 RS to handle anything like as well (for me) on track. It's probably more like £60-70k now. One can't go backwards with cars without being disappointed, but I'd take a 981 GT4 ahead of a 982 every time, then and now.

Liam

Edited by LiamH66 on Thursday 12th February 23:12

[Snowy999]

Liam, I agree with everything you've said above!

[donutskidmark]

Terminator X said:

Saw this on A/T, gorgeous

TX.

https://rpmtechnik.co.uk/porsche-sales/vehicle/718...

I’m fairly sure this is the only UK delivered 4RS in PTS NATO Olive Green, I don t know of any other .
In the flesh it looks the business

Edited by donutskidmark on Friday 13th February 10:18

[Jimbo_vx]

I have the advantage of the GT4RS being my first Porsche.

In at the deep end.

I’m sure I’ll mess around with it, like I have all my other cars but mostly I’m intending to drive is just as it is. On track and off.

[fridaypassion]

Yeah I find the whole 981/982 thing baffling I've driven multiple 981s so its not that "oh you drove one with a poor setup" thing I actually drove a fully Manthey kitted out centre gravity car that felt planted but still the steering is very dull on them. The 718 out of the box is a near perfect all round car.

[GTRene]

donutskidmark said:

https://rpmtechnik.co.uk/porsche-sales/vehicle/718...

I m fairly sure this is the only UK delivered 4RS in PTS NATO Olive Green, I don t know of any other .
In the flesh it looks the business

Edited by donutskidmark on Friday 13th February 10:18

lovely, I like that.

[ChrisW.]

Snowy999 said:

Liam, I agree with everything you've said above!

I loved mine ... an eight year project ... wonderful.

[Terry Winks]

I loved the 981 GT4.... always felt quite raw and a bit skunkworksy. Again objectively I am sure the 718 is the better car, but its not what I would pick.

[Snowy999]

only 6 left on the Porsche approved site.......

[Digga]

Snowy999 said:

only 6 left on the Porsche approved site.......

Even back end of October when I was actually looking at these as a very real, potential buy, the feeling I got was the prior abundance was a mere snapshot, and most cars were already finding homes.

[bosshog]

Terry Winks said:

I loved the 981 GT4.... always felt quite raw and a bit skunkworksy. Again objectively I am sure the 718 is the better car, but its not what I would pick.

The 718 just felt a bit dead to me for some reason - compared to the 981 GT4 as well - much much preferred the 981. Still miss it tbh. Whilst 718 had nothing wrong with it a sorted engine it just lost the passion/fun factor. Ditto spyder.

[Helier]

donutskidmark said:

Terminator X said:

Saw this on A/T, gorgeous

TX.

https://rpmtechnik.co.uk/porsche-sales/vehicle/718...

I m fairly sure this is the only UK delivered 4RS in PTS NATO Olive Green, I don t know of any other .
In the flesh it looks the business

Edited by donutskidmark on Friday 13th February 10:18

I have a black olive, similar look depending on lighting. Suits the car (bias)

[harryblue]

Digga said:

Snowy999 said:

only 6 left on the Porsche approved site.......

Even back end of October when I was actually looking at these as a very real, potential buy, the feeling I got was the prior abundance was a mere snapshot, and most cars were already finding homes.

People were just waiting for them to drop to their real worth and then they were buying them, I was going to buy one when they dropped down but went for a 997 RS instead, I was tempted to get a 4RS though, it's a lot of fun for the money.

The big thing to watch is what will they sell for when the owners that bought them at £120-130k get bored and all want to move them on around the same time. I think they'll be a hard car to sell and as the stock piles up I can see big discounts, that's when I'll buy one.

[TDT]

Discount (on new cars - now out of production) ≠ Depreciation (already used cars)... They are not the same thing.

Edited by TDT on Monday 23 February 14:04

[BlackR8]

harryblue said:

Digga said:

Snowy999 said:

only 6 left on the Porsche approved site.......

Even back end of October when I was actually looking at these as a very real, potential buy, the feeling I got was the prior abundance was a mere snapshot, and most cars were already finding homes.

People were just waiting for them to drop to their real worth and then they were buying them, I was going to buy one when they dropped down but went for a 997 RS instead, I was tempted to get a 4RS though, it's a lot of fun for the money.

The big thing to watch is what will they sell for when the owners that bought them at £120-130k get bored and all want to move them on around the same time. I think they'll be a hard car to sell and as the stock piles up I can see big discounts, that's when I'll buy one.

Looking at cars for sale I can see that the 718 Porsche GT4's with decent specs/miles seem to have settled between £70-90k with the 981 GT4 propping up prices, and the oldest 718 around 7 years old now so any further depreciation I am guessing will be very slow. When you say stock piling up and big discounts on GT4RS, where do you think they will settle in comparison?

Looking at the GT3>GT3 RS there is usually a £30-50k+ uplift to switch to the RS, with the GT4 >GT4RS the leap in car is bigger I would guess due to the 9k rpm cup engine being in the RS ontop of all the other differences. So I would guess the cost to change will need to be maintained to an extent otherwise the regularly cooking GT4 will start to look quite expensive if these 4RS 'big discounts' bring them much lower beyond where they are today.

Edited by BlackR8 on Monday 23 February 15:59

[harryblue]

BlackR8 said:

harryblue said:

Digga said:

Snowy999 said:

only 6 left on the Porsche approved site.......

Even back end of October when I was actually looking at these as a very real, potential buy, the feeling I got was the prior abundance was a mere snapshot, and most cars were already finding homes.

People were just waiting for them to drop to their real worth and then they were buying them, I was going to buy one when they dropped down but went for a 997 RS instead, I was tempted to get a 4RS though, it's a lot of fun for the money.

The big thing to watch is what will they sell for when the owners that bought them at £120-130k get bored and all want to move them on around the same time. I think they'll be a hard car to sell and as the stock piles up I can see big discounts, that's when I'll buy one.

Looking at cars for sale I can see that the 718 Porsche GT4's with decent specs/miles seem to have settled between £70-90k with the 981 GT4 propping up prices, and the oldest 718 around 7 years old now so any further depreciation I am guessing will be very slow. When you say stock piling up and big discounts on GT4RS, where do you think they will settle in comparison?

Looking at the GT3>GT3 RS there is usually a £30-50k+ uplift to switch to the RS, with the GT4 >GT4RS the leap in car is bigger I would guess due to the 9k rpm cup engine being in the RS ontop of all the other differences. So I would guess the cost to change will need to be maintained to an extent otherwise the regularly cooking GT4 will start to look quite expensive if these 4RS 'big discounts' bring them much lower beyond where they are today.

Edited by BlackR8 on Monday 23 February 15:59

It's hard to call because it's not happened for many years and even then it's not apples with apples, if you go back to the days when the 964RS was impossible to sell and they were giving them to employees as company vehicles then you'd have thought they'd nose dive when they came to be sold on, but as we saw weird things can and do happen.

At the moment (or in recent times) there was a surplus of stock of the 4RS, so they dropped to a price where it was attractive enough and now it seems like they're being gradually fed into the market. In 2-3 years when traditionally people would trade them in for the newest thing there might not be a newest thing, or there might be greatly increased demand because there isn't much else like it to buy new in the Porsche range.

We're also seeing brand new GT3s sitting on showroom floors, which is something not seen for a while either, so it's going to be hard to predict what the future holds because this hasn't happened in this way before.

Who knows, there are a range of variables that are unusual and a lack of demand now might not translate into a lack of demand in the future. The only thing that seems constant is scarcity drives up prices, so a 991.2 Touring made in low numbers will sell for good money, I've seen them at £200k when you can buy a 992.1 Touring for £150k.

So it's anyones guess, if Porsche don't make anything interesting for a few years then it might create demand on the previous generations.
If they do start to produce interesting alternatives then the large amount of 4RS's that might come to market at the same time could push prices lower than they normally would and they might be difficult to move on, just like the above example, there were a lot of 992.1 Tourings bought to market and so the price is low compared to the 991.2 Touring.

[finmac]

[quote=fridaypassion]That little league table to me would look like this

GT4RS
718 GT4
410 Exige






981 GT4

Interesting, for me, I purchase an Exige 410 (and immediately did the soft roof conversion) a short while after I had bought my second 718GT4, a clubsport one. My previous 718GT4 was my daily and I used it summer/winter. Post purchase, Every time I went for a Blat I would pick the Exige 410 as the car of choice. So much that I ended up swopping the GT4 for a 911T instead!

Edited by finmac on Tuesday 24th February 08:27

[ChrisW.]

harryblue said:

It's hard to call because it's not happened for many years and even then it's not apples with apples, if you go back to the days when the 964RS was impossible to sell and they were giving them to employees as company vehicles then you'd have thought they'd nose dive when they came to be sold on, but as we saw weird things can and do happen.

At the moment (or in recent times) there was a surplus of stock of the 4RS, so they dropped to a price where it was attractive enough and now it seems like they're being gradually fed into the market. In 2-3 years when traditionally people would trade them in for the newest thing there might not be a newest thing, or there might be greatly increased demand because there isn't much else like it to buy new in the Porsche range.

We're also seeing brand new GT3s sitting on showroom floors, which is something not seen for a while either, so it's going to be hard to predict what the future holds because this hasn't happened in this way before.

Who knows, there are a range of variables that are unusual and a lack of demand now might not translate into a lack of demand in the future. The only thing that seems constant is scarcity drives up prices, so a 991.2 Touring made in low numbers will sell for good money, I've seen them at £200k when you can buy a 992.1 Touring for £150k.

So it's anyones guess, if Porsche don't make anything interesting for a few years then it might create demand on the previous generations.
If they do start to produce interesting alternatives then the large amount of 4RS's that might come to market at the same time could push prices lower than they normally would and they might be difficult to move on, just like the above example, there were a lot of 992.1 Tourings bought to market and so the price is low compared to the 991.2 Touring.

That all sounds very plausible ... regarding the 964RS I think the resurrection of this was synchronous with the rise of the trackday ... so many were used for this and whilst money was spent to keep them running well, values rose to make it a no cost exercise. Now the Porsche market is much larger and their halo has survived with ever increasing prices ... due to the collector market.

The challenge now is not the number of 964RS ... it's the total number of GT cars that have flooded the trackday / serious road / collector market, and Porsche are now losing ground.

I popped into OPC Leeds a couple of days ago and asked about a GT3 Touring ... I was told that for me to have any chance there would need to be an existing relationship. And it's no longer as-if a GT3 Touring at £200k is the best thing since sliced bread ... there are many other options as we are seeing particularly in the lightly used market. My reply was that I had owned around 33 Porsche's and bought six new form them but had been told in 2017 that I wasn't a good enough customer to change my 981 GT4 for a new 718 GT4 and that those things can't just be un-said ... and that was the end of the conversation. I am just one of many ...

So, we know that the investor / collector market has deserted Porsche because they will all lose money ... the smart guys and gals have picked up the GT4RS and SRS at list -£30k ... which is some hedge. So what comes next ??

For all the drivers depreciation is a fair exchange, for everybody else they are out of the market. Hence why should there not be massive oversupply ?

After all, the cost of the extended warranty with the new servicing requirements and cost is not insubstantial, OPC's continue to build palaces to past times for which they must charge, and to my eye the market is going south.

Now tell me that this wrong ... and why ?

[harryblue]

ChrisW. said:

That all sounds very plausible ... regarding the 964RS I think the resurrection of this was synchronous with the rise of the trackday ... so many were used for this and whilst money was spent to keep them running well, values rose to make it a no cost exercise. Now the Porsche market is much larger and their halo has survived with ever increasing prices ... due to the collector market.

The challenge now is not the number of 964RS ... it's the total number of GT cars that have flooded the trackday / serious road / collector market, and Porsche are now losing ground.

I popped into OPC Leeds a couple of days ago and asked about a GT3 Touring ... I was told that for me to have any chance there would need to be an existing relationship. And it's no longer as-if a GT3 Touring at £200k is the best thing since sliced bread ... there are many other options as we are seeing particularly in the lightly used market. My reply was that I had owned around 33 Porsche's and bought six new form them but had been told in 2017 that I wasn't a good enough customer to change my 981 GT4 for a new 718 GT4 and that those things can't just be un-said ... and that was the end of the conversation. I am just one of many ...

So, we know that the investor / collector market has deserted Porsche because they will all lose money ... the smart guys and gals have picked up the GT4RS and SRS at list -£30k ... which is some hedge. So what comes next ??

For all the drivers depreciation is a fair exchange, for everybody else they are out of the market. Hence why should there not be massive oversupply ?

After all, the cost of the extended warranty with the new servicing requirements and cost is not insubstantial, OPC's continue to build palaces to past times for which they must charge, and to my eye the market is going south.

Now tell me that this wrong ... and why ?

I'm actually surprised they're still pushing that "build a relationship" stuff, I think I'd have laughed in his face.

The market is dead, a low mileage 992 GT3 Touring can be had for well under list now.
It had such a headwind that not everyone has noticed or accepted it, but the future is not looking good for Porsche.

I think the restomod thing is dying as well, there seem to be a lot of very low mileage restomods for sale.

I think it's unlikely that I'll ever buy a new 911 again, I have the ones I want and nothing else really tempts me, I may buy a SRS if the price drops to something that's too tempting, but I don't think I'll ever leave an OPC with a new Porsche again.

[ChrisW.]

That's how I feel.

I was talking to a friend who has just bought a 2000 mile SRS ... white, Weissach, PCCB's and carbon bucket seats plus ... £122k. Lovely.

But I do like the look of the Boxter 4.0 25 ... there was a manual 7000 mile car with FSH, warranty, PCCB's ... a one owner car at £67k.

Nicely tarted, silver with a black interior and the gold 25 trimmings ...