Is a Porsche 911 a good investment?

[qwerty88]

Is a Porsche 911 (1988) Carrera 3.4 Automatic with 110,000 miles on the clock and apparently full service history for £12,000 a good investment?

[romeodelta]

qwerty88 said:

Is a Porsche 911 (1988) Carrera 3.4 Automatic with 110,000 miles on the clock and apparently full service history for £12,000 a good investment?

Is it a G series? That sounds very cheap even with the miles, tread carefully.

Or is a 1998 996?

[off_again]

Too good to be true. Could be true, but looks super cheap for potentially what it is. An air cooled Porsche with a FSH for 12k? Yeah, weird.

[Chubbyross]

That sounds extremely odd. Even with a Cat marker I’d be very wary at that price for anything air cooled. Are you sure it’s not just the engine?!

[Wilmslowboy]

As mentioned above - 3.4 suggests it's a 996 (1998) not 1988

If it is a nice FSH 996 (1998) then £12k might not be a good investment but still could be a great car to own and drive.

[g7jhp]

If it"s a 3.4 and automatic then it's a 996.

There was no automatic on the 1988 3.2 Carrera.

The answer is NO, it's not a good investment.

[Jake899]

Don't buy cars for investment, buy cars because you like cars.
I personally think this kind of attitude is bad for our hobby.

[HughG]

No, they’ll probably go up in value a bit, but not as much as you spend on it. If you want to out it in a garage and let it sit there adding value unused, then the manual would be a better choice, but chances are there’ll be a big recommissioning bill.

I’ve had mine 18months, bought for a bit more than that, it’s cost plenty.

[SidewaysSi]

I paid double fie my gen 2 car. Great bit of kit but I wouldn't go cheap.

And cars are not investments.

[Filibuster]

Few cars are an investment, and Tiptronic 996 with 110k miles isn't one of them.

It probably will not depreciate further and prices might even rise a bit, but you do have upkeep costs, which can be significant on a Porsche 911 and will most certainly cost you more than by what the prices for a 110k miles Tip 996 will probably rise over the next, say 5 years.

If you want a 996, sure go for it! They are tremendous cars. Buy with both your eyes wide open and pop over to the Porsche section of PH for further advice.

But do not buy one with the intention of it being an investment!

[Biggy Stardust]

Golden rule: if you're going to buy one, take a friend who knows about them. If you don't know anyone suitable then ask for a PHer to help.

[LeoSayer]

They're a good investment in driving pleasure.

Financially, not so much. In my experience of owing a 993 the cost of keeping it on the road has outweighed the appreciation in the value.

[Chubbyross]

LeoSayer said:

They're a good investment in driving pleasure.

Financially, not so much. In my experience of owing a 993 the cost of keeping it on the road has outweighed the appreciation in the value.

This. Any appreciation (and it probably won’t be much with a tip 996) will be lost in keeping it running. If you buy an old Porsche make sure you allow for approximately £2k per annum for bills. Some years you might be lucky and have a cheap service, other years you’ll be hit with huge costs. I’ve had service bills before of around £4.5k when condensers and disks and pads needed doing, along with a few other smaller things.

Oh yes, and if you really love the car then stick another £15k in a borkage fund in case the engine grenades on you. I’ve been ridiculed on these pages before for admitting I keep a slush fund of around £35k in case of such problems. I do it so I never have to end up selling a buggered car that I can’t afford to repair - and that includes engine rebuilds. Buying a Porsche can be cheap. Keeping it running in good condition can be ruinous. That goes for Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and most other ‘high end’ sports cars.

Great to drive though!

[qwerty88]

Sorry, that was a typo! 1998 that should’ve read, as a couple of posters have pointed out already.

Also not the best wording from me, it wouldn’t purely be an investment, also driving pleasure. I’ve been reading into and toying with the idea of a used 911 for a little while now.

Thanks for the advice so far.

[Centrente]

I think you’d have an evens chance of driving and enjoying it and breaking even, depending on the car, which is a good deal. But you may also face a situation of big bills, being off the road a lot, and hassle. Either way, not an investment.

I disagree that cars can’t be investments. There are plenty of 911s you could have bought and forgotten about for 10 or 20 years then sold now without turning a key, which you would have made good money out of. And many more that you would not. But people who make money out of collecting cars usually don’t have that intention.