Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

PRICE REDUCED - £5,500!

1989 Porsche 944 Turbo, Roughly 135,000 miles, 7 months' MOT, 5 months' tax. Based in Glasgow.

Very reluctant sale. I adore this car and had planned to keep it for good, upgrading and adding power over the years. Sadly, I just can't afford to run any car any more, let alone one this beautiful.

This is a late model 944 Turbo, the 250bhp version with a bigger turbocharger, stiffer anti-roll bars, bigger brakes, adjustable shocks, lighter wheels, etc. It has been sympathetically modified, both cosmetically and mechanically.

Cosmetic bits:
- Black with black sports interior (half leather)
- Fibreglass vented front wings (bloomin' gorgeous, even if I do say so myself)
- Fibreglass front splitter
- Tinted windows, indicators and rear lights
- Flamingeye dash illumination kit
- Becker Grand Prix head unit with Bluetooth handsfree and iPod connection (iPod concealed in armrest), Alpine amplifier and subwoofer (in hidden enclosure)

Mechanical bits:
- Koni adjustable shocks all round (full M030 kit)
- Forged Clubsport D90 wheels with new Continental Sportcontact 2 tyres all round
- Short shift kit
- Turbosmart adjustable wastegate
- Lyndsey Racing boost enhancer valve
- Custom stainless steel exhaust system

Maintained to high standard by local independent specialist (Motortune in Shotts, Central Scotland). Recent work (February 2012) includes new cylinder head and gaskets, full set of seals throughout car, new valve guides, refurbished turbocharger, polybushes at the front, the usual belt checks etc.

The paintwork is not perfect - it's a daily driver and has stone chips (particularly on the front and the wing mirrors). The A/C does not work. I know from the recent engine work that one cylinder has a small scratch - but it is not serious enough to affect the engine's performance in any way.

As with any performance car of this age, it's a constant project. My next jobs were going to be a gearbox rebuild (it's starting to get a little notchy) and removal of small amounts of surface rust from the rear arches. The surface rust does NOT indicate sill problems - the sills are solid and thoroughly Waxoyled. The small patches of surface rust do need treating over the next year or so though.

Everything bar the A/C works. No sunroof leaks, no problems with the rear hatch seals, the gas struts on the bonnet and hatch are good ... all the little problems people have with 944s have been well and truly dealt with. It's a fantastic daily driver or would make the perfect base for engine modifications and the eternal quest for more power. Not that it's currently lacking ...

This is a very well loved and much admired car. The vented front wings make it unique.

Edited to add an interior photo …

A feel for you, a great car for whomever buys it.

Really sorry to hear that It looked great when I saw it at Gaydon a few years ago. Whoever buys it will be a lucky s.o.b.

Tony tells me his Turbo is still for sale

That's unbelievable and a sad reflection of our cars worth currently. People keep saying that good turbos are slowly appreciating but I'm not entirely sure I beleive them. I'd like to but...

The problem is possibly location location location.

When some people go looking for a Porsche they are willing to travel, withing reason. Others will only buy one or look at them within 50 miles of their home.

I keep seeing car's in Scotland, Northern Ireland and southern Ireland which are first advertised at a reasonable price, and then they get advertised at ever decreasing prices until they sell.

Problem being, in any one county in England you can be sure that within half an hour of where you are, there will be a city with ample supply of people being willing to buy a Porsche at market value (for the local buyers) and that same location will have other cities within a 50 mile radius (for the people willing to travel a bit) so in other parts of the UK you can sell this very car for a much higher price.

I also think, that when it does sell, it will be to someone who either A: Buys it because its a bargain and has the amount to spend which it is being advertised for. Or B: Someone will buy it who would have paid the higher market value for it, but they came along at the right time and got a bargain.

Over the years I have constantly seen the same thing happening in Scotland and Ireland, which is a crying shame. I almost flew up to Scottland because their was a 968 CS on pistonheads for £6000!!.. I flew to Ireland to buy a 968 for a friend that was £4000.

Economically there are interesting things at play here. For any car, in any location, there is a price the car is worth, and there is a price at which point people will either travel long distances to buy, or local buyers not looking for that particular type of car will snap it up because its a bargain.

Every car has two prices, at one price it will be a fair price and someone who has done their homework will buy it (as long as they are near enough to you) and another price where anyone will buy it.

With this in mind, I would bet that at say £8k, this particular car is as likely to sell to someone in Scotland who wants a good 944 Turbo, as it will sell at £5k. But the lower the price goes the more likely it is to sell full stop. Therefore, if it was me, I would not drop the price any more and would not have dropped it as much as it has.

Good luck in selling it, it looks a real peach of a car, if you know anyone south of the border, and the further south the better, who is willing to sell the car for you, do it... it is more likely to sell and will sell at a higher price.

location true I think, my turbo was for sale in Cornwall for 1 year and the seller told me no one went to see it because of the distance..lucky for me though.

If we all get out in our Turbos and overtake everyone...that might market them...

Interesting point there Jon, and something I had not considered.

Just because I’ve always been willing to travel any distance to pick up the right car, not everybody feels the same.

I think it comes down to population density really—there’s a lot more people in the south, so a bigger pool of potential buyers!

This looks like a nice turbo.

The GRP wings look great, I was looking at them myself if I'd kept my 944. It does seem a pragmatic & sensible way to get a 944 sorted. I can understand if it was an XK Jag or an Austin Healey. But as a 944 it could work well, especially with a GRP bonnet, polycarbonate hatch.....

For me, the wings were about solving a perennial rust trap issue—what I consider one of the small design flaws in the 944. Those little plastic trim pieces on the bottom of the front wings (on S2s and Turbos) trap water and mud, leading to rot. Fibreglass doesn’t rust. Problem solved. The visual side, having a more unique looking 944, was a bonus.

The basic fact is that modifying a car to make it suit my own taste is always going to leave it less desirable to others. It’s like a house—decorate it in my preferred style and I turn off potential buyers who don’t share my tastes. It ain’t rocket science.

It seems that most of the people who really like my car already have a 944 of their own … and not many people want two! I may have to sell it to trade at this rate.

Good luck with the sale.

Don't loose hope, it looks a very nice Turbo just the sort of car someone out there would appreciate like I did when I purchased my current ex Simon Peckham Turbo. I travelled 450 miles return in a Polo 1.9SDI from Lincoln to Bournemouth just to view it, yeah I know - CRAZY shook on the deal and collected it Months later, that was 6-1/2 years ago and it still brings a smile every mile .

I did have 2 944's at one time but now I have upgraded to this Turbo I can't justify 2 of them .

Before selling to trade where have you advertised?

In the process of trying to find my Current 944 Turbo I needed to sell my Superb 40k 944 S2 Cab which I put up for sale in June 2005. Tried all the usual places :-
This Forum, pcgb forum & Mag, 911 & Porsche World Mag, GT Purely Porsche, Piston Heads, Tipec Shows (lots!) many free Classic car web sites, Peter Morgan etc. Get the picture. Many said I was asking too high a price (£10944 then £10,449 > £9944ovno) did get one or 2 timewasters (6 hours with one bloke ) even a £250 non returnable deposit from a guy who's family persuaded him he did not need another car!
I did start getting a bit desperate come end of November (the deadline for Turbo purchase had been agreed to be 1st week in Jan 2006) and it was not a good time for selling a CAB so I got quotes from Classic Car Traders (<£7k) NO I held out and out of desperation put an ad in Autotrader (which is actually where I got the Cab through in the 1st place). Got more enquiries from that ad in December than in all the previous months

Sold to a guy from London, after quite a few phone discussions, he never even came to see the car and sent £1k deposit via bank transfer then the full amount (didn't quite get my asking price but £8944) before he sent a low loader to collect it.

He bought it for his wife as a Christmas present, lucky lady! and lucky me I guess but you never know what might turn up if you can get to a wider audience with your ad.
Best of Luck
Clive

Sure is a nice looking car. As others have said, you just need to hold out for the right buyer. I nearly bought a 924 from a guy 60 miles north of Edinburgh but he sold it before I coul;d get up there. Distance is no problem for me for the right car - I bought my 968 from Middlesborough and I live 30 miles North West of London! I drove up one weekend to see it and collected it the next. All it took was a £35 train ticket and 4 hours of travel - the guy selling the car picked me up at the train station when I went to collect it. If you can collect a buyer from a train station or local regional airport (thank heavens for Ryanair and Easyjet) then it will sell.

Having just bought a Boxster S soft top I don't need a 944T as well unless I want a trip to the divorce courts and a larger overdraft. There again..........