986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post - What is going on with 986 and 996 prices?

Perfectlap · 04-30-2013, 07:10 AM

I call it IRONY.

The surest way to bankrupt a boutique car company: make very few sales.

The surest way to save a boutique car company: sell more cars than ever.

Fast forward 17 years later and the cars that saved your tail from being bought out by Toyota are now too plentiful to escape the clutches of excessive supply and weak economy demand (996/986/996/987).
And the air-cooled cars that were doing you no favors when you needed good luck the most in the 90's are now slowly recouping lost value. Ain't that something...

I don't think its the IMS issues. Not after talking to my Indy this weekend about the cost to rebuild NA/Turbo air-cooled Carreras.
Man if dropping $12K on of those repairs doesn't scare away a first time Porsche buyer... and you thought $2K for a IMSB was bad? Put it this way, if they'd a produced as many air-cooled as the water-cooled everyone would have one of both. Antique project car for the garage, water-cooled for daily driving/autox-DE.

I'm actually surprised that there's any real price difference in values between the 996 Carreras and Boxsters. First of all they're both plagued by nearly the same engine problems and a few other things like the AOS. But more importantly the supply of 996's is much higher than the supply of Boxsters. And for a weekend wrencher interested in taking a dip into Porsche waters working on a 996 DIY is not exactly easier..

Also, the 996 has been well below 20K for quiet some time now. I'm seeing threads of people picking up fairly well kept 996's for $10-$12K. So $9K mark can't be far away with 2012 991's pushing down the prices of everything below it as far as water-cooled. It's simply way too many Carreras up for sale. The Boxsters have an additional problem, they're impractical for most who need more than two seats and come with the same budget-eating issues like expensive parts and specialized labor requirements of the Carrera. Roadsters are always a tough sell for nearly all car manufacturers. Look at Honda they threw in the towel on the S2000 which was a great car.

04-30-2013, 07:10 AM	#14
Perfectlap Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: New Jersey Posts: 8,709	I call it IRONY. The surest way to bankrupt a boutique car company: make very few sales. The surest way to save a boutique car company: sell more cars than ever. Fast forward 17 years later and the cars that saved your tail from being bought out by Toyota are now too plentiful to escape the clutches of excessive supply and weak economy demand (996/986/996/987). And the air-cooled cars that were doing you no favors when you needed good luck the most in the 90's are now slowly recouping lost value. Ain't that something... I don't think its the IMS issues. Not after talking to my Indy this weekend about the cost to rebuild NA/Turbo air-cooled Carreras. Man if dropping $12K on of those repairs doesn't scare away a first time Porsche buyer... and you thought $2K for a IMSB was bad? Put it this way, if they'd a produced as many air-cooled as the water-cooled everyone would have one of both. Antique project car for the garage, water-cooled for daily driving/autox-DE. I'm actually surprised that there's any real price difference in values between the 996 Carreras and Boxsters. First of all they're both plagued by nearly the same engine problems and a few other things like the AOS. But more importantly the supply of 996's is much higher than the supply of Boxsters. And for a weekend wrencher interested in taking a dip into Porsche waters working on a 996 DIY is not exactly easier.. Also, the 996 has been well below 20K for quiet some time now. I'm seeing threads of people picking up fairly well kept 996's for $10-$12K. So $9K mark can't be far away with 2012 991's pushing down the prices of everything below it as far as water-cooled. It's simply way too many Carreras up for sale. The Boxsters have an additional problem, they're impractical for most who need more than two seats and come with the same budget-eating issues like expensive parts and specialized labor requirements of the Carrera. Roadsters are always a tough sell for nearly all car manufacturers. Look at Honda they threw in the towel on the S2000 which was a great car. __________________ GT3 Recaro Seats - Boxster Red GT3 Aero / Carrera 18" 5 spoke / Potenza RE-11 Fabspeed Headers & Noise Maker BORN: March 2000 - FINLAND IMS#1 REPLACED: April 2010 - NEW JERSEY -- LNE DUAL ROW Last edited by Perfectlap; 04-30-2013 at 07:24 AM.