We bought the worst 964 currently for sale, and couldn't happier about it.

The process revealed some disappointing but unsurprising realities of the late-model aircooled Porsche market. 

Good from far, Far from good.

At Modern Aircooled we build vehicles for clients for all sorts of reasons, for owners from all walks of life. While we always appreciate the reasons, we never let the story adjudicate the quality of our work, or make too big a deal about it. This project is different. Too interesting to ignore or simply document with paperwork and invoices. This project, put simply, is one for the books. 

A few months back we received a call with a request unusual enough we asked to have it sent over in writing. The client was restoring a house, and wanted to celebrate a particular milestone of theirs by having us install a 91’ Porsche Turbo in his basement. Seemed simple enough, until we learnt that the car would have to be carried through a regular doorway behind the kitchen of the historic home and down some wooden stairs, by hand. There would simply be no other way to access the space (trust me, we explored every option that we won’t divulge for privacy). 

Someone at some point had taken care of this thing, and put some thought into upgrades.

Faced with the prospect of cutting, welding, painting, and assembling a 964 Turbo in the final space, we started looking for sensible ways to get the insensible done. Luckily while the car needs to be complete, there is no requirement for it to ever run again, something that would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve safely. Given we would need to do paint and body work in the space we also realized we could potentially avoid the expensive and soul destroying prospect of permanently removing a real 91’ Turbo from circulation. Instead, with the client's blessing, we decided to build a perfect Turbo look replica in the basement, and save a significant amount of money in the process. Oh and did I mention we have a deadline? Queue the reality TV music!

Rep wheels and half assed lowering provide faux curb appeal.

The hunt was on!

Part of the rationale in doing a Turbo clone, aside from the significant cost savings, was the numbers game. Of the 66,574 total 964 variants produced between 1989 and and 1994, approximately 34,250 were Coupe variants, while only 4290 real 91’ Turbos were ever made. A production ratio of 8:1. All the Turbo variants combined only numbered around 6800. In a race against the clock we had to cast the widest possible net for the donor car, and a regular coupe would be the safest bet! Armed with a solid budget, and a lot of flexibility options wise, we jumped on Classic.Com (a great classic and collector car classified and valuation tool). We were shocked at the results. At the time of writing, there are currently 33 sales listings for 964’s with proper roofs across the United States. Of those 12, fully 12 are Turbos, another 11 are special editions, racecars, restomods etc. The most common, regular 964 coupe variants make up 10, a measly 30% of the market, despite many multiple as many being produced. Furthermore the few coupes put up for sale seemed to be snapped up in minutes. Frustration mounting, we resigned ourselves to snap up the first suitable car we could, even if it was too good a candidate for us to cut up without feeling bad. We nearly lost our nerve a number of times and overpaid for a pristine example. Thankfully however, at the last moment something perfectly less than perfect popped up. 

Missing parts, extra wiring...

A quick phone call and wire transfer later we were the proud temporary custodians of a 1990, 964 C4, with 185,000 miles. The worst 964 coupe for sale at the time. What would have been a mad purchase for any other use, we're happily sinking six figures into a car that would need nearly that much again to be worth it. We are proud to say though, that in doing so, a lot of good usable parts will go to live on in other vehicles. Salvaged to keep others on the road, while also delivering a dream result for our client.

Time always wins in the end without real love, care and attention.

What we learnt about the current 964 market.

It’s hot y’all! It’s easy to blame Singer for the dearth of less than perfect Coupes for sale, but they can’t shoulder that alone. Across the aircooled range it seems the rising tide has risen all boats, but the 964 generation very much appears to be that tide. What would have been 30-40 thousand dollar ‘driver quality’ Carrera 4’s a decade ago are just as likely to be quarter million dollar resto-mods today. 964’s, for generations were the half and half, weird in-between of aircooled 911s. They have now in many cases equalled, or exceeded the value of the 993’s that replaced them. It seems that the biggest upward pressure on prices has been mostly driven by the more common and lower end models, which in turn pushed the classically more favoured Turbos and special editions higher just to maintain a reasonable price gap. This quick tripling of the humble 964 C4 in value has created a goldrush of sorts. People are actively looking for the worst possible cars in a vain and futile attempt to bargain hunt or flip for profit. Sellers ‘know what they have’ even in the most basket case of projects and point feverishly to Bring a Trailer auctions where equally bad cars bring good money. The bottom end of the 964 market is the wild west of Porsche sales, a storm in a teacup that fades as you go higher up the ladder. If you are fortunate enough to be in the market for a legit 964 turbo you’re in a buyers market, with plenty of options to choose from. If, like us, you need something a little more pedestrian, your best bet is probably a time machine. 

We’ll keep y’all posted on the progress of the project as much as we can, along with more specific posts detailing the car itself, and the insane lengths we’ll have to go to get this done. So stay tuned, and let us know when you figure out that time travel!

Modern Aircooled.