Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hello Porsche People -- my first post here, Happy New Year.

I fancy a 944 and am thinking I should be able to bag a good one for between £3000-£4000. Would I be right? Besides Autotrader, Car and Classic and Pistonheads should I be looking anywhere else? From doing a little ground work I'm firmly of the opinion that it is far better to spend one's £££ on getting the best possible car and budgeting appropriately rather than going for a cheap snotter which is tempting only because of a rock bottom price, but will soon need bags of money throwing at it.
One final thing -- insurance....any suggestions please? I would do less than 6000 a year. I had a friend with two a few years ago and they seemed very robust. I also thought it still looked stunning. He had one in black and another in dark red/brown- very 1980s...!

Just downloaded what looks like a great article by John Hearnden.

MANY thanks for any advice you can give. I'm a true petrolhead at heart having owned many great cars, however, the potential 944 would be my first venture into Porsche ownership!

Use the buyers guide, it tells you pretyy much all you need to know.

With regard to insurance, Heritage insured mine when it was a second car for just over £200 for the year. I'm in my early forties with full no claims, a garage and I don't live in the Bronx. I hate to mention the dreaded PCGB on here, but if you are a member you will qualify for a discount.

Happy shopping.

You get a discount as a member of Tipec too. Hello. Thats a sound budget & should buy something good. I'd spend 3K & keep 1 to cover contingencies. Buy on condition not model. Join the club first go out in some so you know what a good one can do!

Oops! Didn't know about the TIPEC discount, I now feel suitably shamed....!

Great, thanks for the suggestions. Keep'em coming. Hoping to purchase late March/April and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.

Jon, hi and welcome, You should be able to pick up a 944 for that amount of money.

I have a question for you, will you be doing the maintenance and repairs yourself, or paying a garage to do them?

I would advise you to go to a TIPEC meeting in your area and see a few cars before you decide what to buy. Colour is important as you will have to look at it sitting in the drive for the next few years, so a red one will be best ( that was a joke ). Hang on for the right one once you know exactly what you want.

Thanks for the welcome Lee, and everyone else and I'll check out when and where the next meet is taking place. Re. maintenance, I don't mind getting my hands dirty and doing fairly straightforward or routine stuff such as servicing, but more complex issues such as suspension, clutch etc etc. I tend to leave to the experts. I'm fortunate in that I know two excellent guys here that run brilliant garages. One has transplanted a Rover V8 and gearbox into a Triumph Stag and rebuilt the thing from the floor up, including bodywork. Not my cup of tea, but it's an impressive beast nonetheless.

I'd try to find the best example I could within budget - belts done, decent history, fairly original spec, and ideally....black. Think they look stunning. However, there are other sensational colours out there, so condition first, I think.
This forum seems like a brilliant resource.

Hi, welcolme for insurance try Classic Line i have both my cars with them. I used to be with heritage , they beat them and CVI hands down for same cover.

If black is what you want, then go for it. What colour interior though?

Insurance, I went for CVI. Cost me £35 to join TIPEC and I get £40 off my insurance ( no brainer really ). £176 for my 928 and £93 for my 944 on the same policy, 3000 miles each ( and yes they do qualify for classic car insurance ). You will get discounts off plenty other places too, from spares to polish.

Hi Jon

Im on the same boat as you but on a much shorter budget. I pick mine(soon to be mine) up this weekend. And its black. I have been trying to get insurance for the past week and finding it hard to get anything good. I will be using mine daily and therefore cant get a limited classic policy. I'm 26 and have 4 years no claims and the best I can get is £810 at the moment. Footman James said they would match my best quote. That is unlimited with all the bells. Try some of the big ones too not just classic insurance companies.

Good Luck

Gordon

Last discussion we had around that type of policy, Adrian Flux with AVIVA policy was best. AVIVA won't touch you direct, but through Adrian Flux you get covered. My 944 was £316 a year with them before I went for the limited policy with CVI. Worth a try if you use daily and don't park in a garage etc.

Perhaps look on the insurance section of the forum? You might find someone, as it would appear there is no hard and fast rules to the cheapest policy.

Evening guys, thanks for your posts. At £1650 this is very tempting. 80 miles away, so not really the ends of the earth if it's worthwhile.

Worth going to see? Needs that dent sorting on the front wing though. Perhaps that sign means 'stay away' if they can't be arsed to sort an easy bit of cosmeticwork before going on sale.....Hmmmmm......

http://tinyurl.com/2vrfrn2

Tricky one. I'd be inclined to find out how the £2100 service was recently spent. This suggests someone hasn't been reluctant to spend money in the past? It may be decent enough and tick quite a few boxes but the advert is poor.

Perhaps it was just dented at the garage who are selling by someone on the forecourt moving cars? Think you need to extract some more info from them before setting out to see it.

I bet you could spend 3K sorting that out. It's a dealer & he will have to double his money on it or risk a loss. It's impossible to say without looking at it but I wonder what the underneaths like. Why anyone would want to drive around in a Porsche with a big ding in it is beyond me. Buy private. The money you save will run your '44 for a year & if you get an enthusiast owned one with history you will be able to keep & enjoy it a lot longer.

Good points. If a dealer was selling a nice example, I'd wager he'd be charging more than £1600 for it in hindsight. Private examples a good way forward. Pistonheads seems to be the place as most of the 944s on autotrader are either crap adverts or less than good examples.
I'll just have to be patient, I've been stung with a disasterous (2 actually....) purchase before. Once bitten and all that....Will keep a beady eye on the private ads.

Cheers.