Porsche 944 Prices - The Future....
- Thread starter MartinRS2K
- Start date
pauljmcnulty
Active member
I hope not. [&o] It's low miles, and the 2.7 is sought after for some reason. It's obviously in nice nick, but if genuinely rust-free it's hard to know where you'd find an equivalent for sale at the moment. What would it cost to buy a low-miles 2.7 in more "average" condition? Then, get the bodywork and paint sorted, service including all the items mentioned, and you still have a car without a warranty. Personally I think over £10K is pushing it for a Lux, but I'd have to value a car like that (not having seen it so caveat emptor) at nearly £10K for insurance purposes. Factor in a dealer profit, which is perfectly fair, and I'd be saying £10-£12K wasn't surprising. I really don't think a lot of people appreciate the cost of bringing an average car up to top condition. Buying the best you can find makes more sense than a scruffy one you could easily throw many £000s at, and prices are starting to reflect that more and more.
My 2.7 was on 78k with everything working and having benefitted from a long list of maintenance including new suspension, etc. to make it completely perfect it needed the front bumper repainting and that was it. I had a club valuation of £8k 3 years ago on account on its condition and mileage so i don't think the 5-figure Lux is going to be the stuff of dreams for long. However, if i had sold it I'd have been lucky to get £5k so i do still think there is a gap between asking prices and selling prices. For £8k i could've bought a minty 986 Boxster S with a far greater perceived cachet than a 944. (As it was, i bought a rough around the edges, but structurally and mechanically sound, Turbo S threw a load of blood, sweat and cash into getting it properly sorted and paid for a holiday.) Ive scratched the hairdresser car itch with a Mk2 MX-5 that I bought last year and have erm . . . Done half a mile in since then 
Reading that I would assume JMG want more than £12k for theirs as they are using the other car as a benchmark and alluding to the fact that theirs is better. Maybe Sharks was ahead of the game and other traders have simply caught up to the fact that buyers will pay for the right car. Paul
MartinRS2K
Active member
Paul, my post isn't about the values as I am one who totally agrees that they are undervalued, especially low mileage, well maintained and excellent condition examples. My comments are more to do with how some 'dealers' are perceived to be taking average cars and turning them into polished turds and then selling for 5 figures, yet others seem to be able to charge whatever they want for their work and cars without anyone raising an eyebrow. Some laughed and scorned me for selling my car at £18k, but would the same car in Specialist Cars of Malton, Paul Stephens etc. have been sold for less than £23k? No and we would probably praise them for having such a good car for sale. I don't know Jon Mitchell or his work, but I have seen a couple of cars that have had £8-10k spent on them at JMG and are expecting the cars to be worth £12-15k+ when in fact I valued both well below £7k and couldn't see where them money had gone [8|]
pauljmcnulty
Active member
Are you meaning modified cars? So often we see huge amounts put in to more and more modifications on cars that don't add to the value, certainly over a certain point. It's always seemed to me that the highly-modded 944s are done as a project, and so only of real interest to the owner. The owners also seem to reach a point where the project loses momentum, or the next gains are exponentially expensive. It's the original cars that seem to command the highest demand, rightly or wrongly.
pauljmcnulty
Active member
I'm confused! Were people scorning it was too cheap, or too expensive? [8|]
MartinRS2K
Active member
A few people said a 944 Turbo would never sell for £12k no matter how good. Our cars still have the image with a large percentage of the car community (unfairly in my opinion) that they are not worth and will never be worth good money [
] We know how good they are and I hope prices keep rising and people realise what a great car they really are.
MartinRS2K
Active member
Yes both were modified, but not heavily track focused, just fast road but I just couldn't see where the £10k had gone on the car. The performance gained and parts used didn't stack up with the bills for the car? I know a couple if other people that have viewed cars recently with a view to buying that were also dissappointed with what they were seeing for the invoices on show and the car shown (not sure who did the work on these cars).
pauljmcnulty
Active member
Mad. Oh well, there will always be someone complaining about everything! Regarding dealers, I wonder if people ever appreciate the mark-up they need to make? I think you/re right that your £18K car would be well over £20K at a dealer: that's what they have to add to cover business overheads and warranty the car. It's a bit like those of us who can't DIY work on the car getting grief. "£1000 for the belts? They are having a laugh! I can get the parts for £200 and do it in a morning", sort of misses the point entirely! []
]
I'm not at all suprised that these cars can have thousands spent with little to show for it. My Turbo had £10k worth of invoices from a London Porsche specialist for 12 months of ownership, and really, it was mainly routine work, that for me as a DIYer might have cost me a couple of grand tops - it's easy to spend thousands on a car when the hourly rate is £70 + vat. Honestly - some of the invoices I have that are four figures, I would have fell over if I had been charged that for the amount of work done! But then people will always tell you that a Porsche is never cheap to run, and you are paying for specialist knowledge & experience - which should give you a better service in the long run. As for the sudden boom - I do think base model NA's are going to struggle to fetch £10k, but time will tell. Good luck to the dealers that are turning a quick buck at the moment, I don't imagine it's always win-win when selling cars for a living, but as the prices firm up, obviously the prices they are buying at will increase also, so the margins will be reduced. It is refreshing that they are selling at the prices they are, and makes one feel better about investing time & money into a 944. As Martin says - hopefully the prices will continue to stay firm.
Suffolk944
Moderator
I don't think anyone would disagree on the fact that 944's have been considerably undervalued in the past in particular when compared with the prices of far more mundane machinery of a similar era that command substantially more money. It's good to see the balance being redressed somewhat.
Suffolk944
Moderator
Thing is even some light modifications will transform a 944 turbo - untouched ones might be more original in the markets eyes and therefore worth a bit more but on the road they just don't compare. Of course any sane individual would stop at those light mods from a purely financial point of view but happily not all of us are quite that sane and focus more on the enjoyment our modded cars give - you can never have enough boooost [
][8D]
pauljmcnulty
Active member
Yep, it makes no sense to me! But then, if it's on-road ability you want then you'd buy an S2, of course. [
] I think the problem comes from projects that go too far, become incredibly expensive, and are never really even finished before the owner loses interest/money, and gives up. Selling a half-developed uber-944, with perhaps £20K spent on it and it only half-finished, is a bad plan. It can be done, look at Mark's turbo, but most never seem to get finished before they are sold. I can think of examples where the owner leaving the car standard and restoring it, instead of going over-the-top on a project, would have ended with a better car, regardless of it's value! Light mods are also reversible, of course, which also makes sense.
MarkK
Active member
Anything that affects the 944 values positively is fine with me,lots of the Porsches that have seen increases in values owe their increased values to a bit of hype in magazines,TV and internet maybe now its our turn that our undervalued cars might be worth something more in line with other cars from that era? I saw this coming a little while back and i am not smug about being right at all[]
]
Suffolk944
Moderator
Shhh yes don't tell Oli but I think I would prefer an S2 to an unmodded turbo....[:-]ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty Yep, it makes no sense to me! But then, if it's on-road ability you want then you'd buy an S2, of course. [
bmnelsc
New member
IMHO we all should be happy to see higher prices for our rides - unless you are currently looking for one of course While you may not agree with the margins that dealers are adding you have to agree that those prices trickle down to our "average" cars also by raising average selling prices, etc. The best way to preserve the 944 is to create demand for them and higher valuations increase interest.
While you may not agree with the margins that dealers are adding you have to agree that those prices trickle down to our "average" cars also by raising average selling prices, etc. The best way to preserve the 944 is to create demand for them and higher valuations increase interest.
Indi9xx
New member
Groan... Firstly, Im not a dealer, last car I sold was my 930 turbo this time last year, which there is an epic thread about on pistonheads as again, I had no idea what it was worth, so I put it on ebay for a starting bid of £1 and it sold for £37,500, which even I was shocked about for 930 needing a full respray! Instead, I am a specialist who normally stays away from selling cars, which probably explains why I have so bloody many Porsche cars housed anywhere I can hide them, friends garages, driveways, the back car park at the workshop.. The facebook page has only had 400 people like it in the last 4 years, it's not going to rock the world with anything I say there about car values, the car isnt even listed anywhere yet. Last summer when I decided this one was too good to be my winter beater, I thought "shame these are only worth about £4k to £6k, shame it will cost almost that much to perfect it and what I have paid for it, but at least someone will get a nice car that will appreciate it" But while we have been doing odds and ends to it, and getting a bit carried away in the process, the market as gone a little bit "weird" to say the least.. For the last month I have been meanting to take photos of it, but have been waiting for a moment when the back car park was not full, it has not been raining and the front car park has had space to photograph it. Once photographed I checked out Pistonheads classifieds, because, to be honest, generally there are the odd dreamer car being sold there, but in reality you can get a good feel for how much a Porsche is worth there, and what seems to be selling... But I almost fell off my chair!! So, the facebook post was not setting the stage for me to manipulate the market... Far from it.. it was me rambling on (as i do) and maybe I should have said the following... "OMG - Have you seen how much some people are advertising these for??? Go check out Pistonheads and tell me what the hell you think they are worth, because it beats the hell out of me what to advertise it for" That's all.. PS: Martin, as soon as the other facebook page "shared it" I did have a look.. Thanks for calling me "The Oracle", even though I do not think you meant it in a nice way
Posts made and opinions expressed are those of the individual forum members
Use of the Forum is subject to the Terms and Conditions
