The $66,000 914-6?



PART ONE

Now, the question always comes up..."How much of a premium do I give a car with low miles for the year produced?" There is a school of thought that says that low mileage example demand an extreme premium Here we're talking about absurdly low miles. Like a early 911 with, say, six thousand miles. Or a 993 Turbo S selling for, what I consider, silly money. I guess the greatest promoter of this is Richard Sloan in Connecticut.

Now, I have mixed feelings about this guy. He has a wonderful assortment of 356's and 911's. Stunning would be the word. But his prices are just as stunning, as in, ridiculous in some cases. Of course, he does have a regular inventory priced reasonably if only slightly high. But you sometimes have to pay a premium for a well-sorted example, hand-chosen by a Porsche guru such as Sloan. I have no problem with this. Hey, I would love to buy a 993 from the guy if it was reasonable. I would trust his taste. But I don't think I can afford what he has on offer, that''s for sure.

Still there are examples of crazy prices here. An '87 Targa Turbo with 24,000 miles for $72,500. I think you're paying for the mileage here, of course, But there's a lot that can go wrong with a 930 that spends more time sitting than doing what it's supposed to do. And an '84 Turbo-look Carrera for $36,900 with 41,000 plus miles. I think we're looking at a 40% premium here.

Gets crazier. A '67 911 with 18,000 miles for $110,000. If it had normal miles for the year, and this was a year ago I would have said under $20,000. If it was in good condition. He has two SC Targas. One ('81) with 63,000 miles for $20,900 (not terribly priced in excellent condition) but another ('79) with 4,175 (?!?) miles for $49,500. More than twice the price. Boy, he puts some premium on mileage!

A '97 Turbo S (what a beautiful car!) but with 12,350 miles and a price tag of $158 grand, a '94 964 Turbo 'Package Edition' with 7, 011 miles for $134 Grand (that's scary), and another '97 Turbo S with under 4,000 miles for $185,000! You could buy a lot of current Porsche performance for that money. There are others just like this, and, of course, other premium-priced 993 4S and '2'S models. But, remember, there are others more reasonably priced so you can't paint the guy as a complete wacko. As I said, he knows his cars, and must know his clientele. Check out www.SloanCars.com.

Ok, that's one dealer. But there others like him. But the funny thing is that there are some UK dealers who are completely off the mark when it comes to prices., Now, I do have to say a common misconception in pricing is thinking that One UK Pound is worth a little over $2. Well, if you were changing money, or importing something from there it is. But in reality, wouldn't the opposite hold true? Couldn't you value Porsches that way if you were buying here from there. Say you want a $30,000 993. Well, a Brit could buy it for that, ship it over, pay the costs and VAT and duties and still save a pretty penny. After all, the same car retails for 27,000 Pounds there. So shouldn't it be worth less if you reversed the shipping. Or is it that the dealers and restorers want the higher prices to justify the prices they charge? Actually I have a theory that the restorers are driving up prices to justify restoring cars that weren't worth restoring previously. Another time..

Actually, if go by the cost of living, say what is cost of bread, or rent, or whatever you see a very different story. Working it out that way you see the pound is worth actually around $1.25 or so. Then things start looking differently.

Plus remember that the Brits are paying a premium for RHD (LHD examples sell for less over there). Plus duties and other expenses (let's not forget gas prices) over there. So equating the exchange rate as a guide to buying American based purchases is a false idea. Sadly, it perpetuated by what was my favorite magazine, Greg Martin's Sports Car Market. It's sort of getting like some of the high end reviews of stereo equipment when some character was extolling the virtues of a high end tube amp costing $50,000 as a 'bargain'.

But you still get Brit dealers such as Export56 selling older, and nice, Porsches for absolutely ridiculous prices. But it still drives those prices up. And we're not even talking 'low miles' here.

A '67 Soft Window Targa S for 60,000 pounds. A '70 'S' for 48 grand in their money. A regular 914-6 from 1970. What do you think? Twenty Thousand dollars, Thirty thou? Nope. 33,000 POUNDS! And we're not talking low mileage here. This had over a 100,000 miles on the odometer. Richard Sloan is looking better to some degree.

Rounding that out is a normal 911T with 70,000 plus miles. What's that worth on ebay? Under twenty thousand bucks. Sure. Here, for you almost 37 Thouand Pounds. You still want to use that $2 per Pound equation? I don't even want to use $1.25!

Well, this is only the wacky side of the story. The next part of this rant covers the pluses and minuses of 'Low Mileage Example".