Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | October 2023
Photo – Bring a Trailer
The Porsche 356 Speedster is a sought after collector car. It was eventually replaced by the Porsche 356 Convertible D. The Convertible D, in turn, was replaced by the 356B Roadster in 1960.
In 1962, Porsche introduced the T6 body style, which brought two engine lid grilles, a widened front trunk lid, and a fuel door that shifted to the right-front fender. The Roadster’s final year was 1962, which means the twin-grille roadster was only available for one year. And only 248 were built, all with coachwork by D’Ieteren Freres.
This example is powered by a 1.6-liter Super flat-four that was rated at 75 horsepower. It was refreshed 15-20 years ago and is now available on Bring a Trailer for the second time. Click here for more info.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monterey, California | August 17-19, 2023
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
RM throws out every superlative they can think of in the description for this car. It’s a little much, but the point is taken: this is an important and likely unrepeatable opportunity. Porsche’s 550 Spyder is already a legendary car, for reasons good and bad, and they command seven figures every day.
Porsche built four coupe prototypes of the 550. It’s got a slick fastback profile and is powered by a 1.5-liter flat-four. These were fully prepared race cars developed as a replacement for the 550 RS. The competition history for this chassis, 550A-0104, includes:
1956 24 Hours of Le Mans – 5th, 1st in class (with Wolfgang von Trips and Richard von Frankenburg)
1957 12 Hours of Sebring – 9th (with Ken Miles and Jean-Pierre Kunstle)
It also ran in SCCA races around the U.S. before being tracked down and restored by a Porsche collector in the 2000s. Since then, it’s been shown here and there. It’s got a pre-sale estimate of $5,500,000-$7,500,000, which seems low considering with 550 Spyders go for and the race history this car has. Anyway, you can found out more about it here.
If only Porsche went in order with their model name/numbering scheme. That would make the 911 the follow up to this, the 910. Imagine what a street-legal follow up to this car would’ve looked like. Instead, they are entirely unrelated.
The 910 was an evolution of the earlier 906 and for some reason slotted in between the 906 and 907 in terms of P-car prototype racers. The 910 was produced in 1966 and 1967. Just 27 were built, and this one was never raced under the Porsche works factory banner. It was used as an R&D car before being sold into private hands and later raced, including at the:
1973 24 Hours of Daytona – 38th, DNF (with Ed Abate and Bill Cuddy)
It is powered by a 2.0-liter flat-six that made around 200 horsepower. At one point during its life it had a 2.2-liter flat-eight installed that made closer to 300 horsepower. That engine, which is extremely rare and valuable on its own, is included in this sale. This car was recently repainted and was previously used on European tours (so there’s a hope of getting it road registered). You can read more about it here.
The 924 is not the most-loved Porsche of all time. It was the entry-level replacement for the 914, a car that was co-marketed by Volkswagen. The 944 replaced the 924 in the U.S. market beginning with the 1983 model year, however, the 924 remained on sale elsewhere in the world through 1988.
There was a 924 Turbo and a sporty 924S, but the real halo car in this range is the homologation Carrera GT (and GTS). Based on the 924 Turbo, the CGT featured an increased compression ratio and an intercooler for the turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four that pushed output to 210 horsepower. More modified race versions (Carrera GTR) made up to 375 horsepower.
Just 400 road-going examples of the Carrera GT were built, and they are visually differentiated from standard road cars with their fender flares and hood scoop. As of this writing, bidding is already at $54,000, enough to buy a few really nice 924s. Click here for more info.
Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | May 13-21, 2022
Photo – Mecum
The most famous Rufs are based on the Porsche 930, 3.2 Carrera, and the 993. Porsche’s 997 generation of the 911 was produced for the 2005 through 2013 model years, and that’s what this Rt 12 R is based on. Okay, not based on. Don’t forget Rufs are most certainly their own thing and not at all tweaked Porsches. No way.
The Rt 12 was offered between 2004 and 2012. Trim levels included “S” and “R”, with the R being more hardcore. In this spec, the twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter flat-six makes 720 horsepower and 693 lb-ft of torque. The bodywork is also revised and includes a GT3-esque rear wing and attractive center-lock Ruf wheels. Top speed was about 230 mph.
All 997 Turbos had all-wheel drive. The Rt 12 offered rear-wheel drive as an option. Just 13 R-spec Rt 12s were built, and this is one of only two in RWD configuration. This is a pretty crazy yet completely unassuming supercar. Read more about it here.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Amelia Island, Florida | March 5, 2022
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Philosophical question: if a car is produced by a manufacturer and later sent to a coachbuilder, what is the maximum length of time between those two acts to where the car is still considered what it is claimed to be? Most would agree that an Aston Martin DB4 tweaked by Bertone a few months after it was built is just fine.
But what if you take a 1960 Porsche 356B and send it to Zagato in 2016 for a new body? Is it still a coachbuilt 1960 356? That’s what we have here. There was a Porsche-Zagato Speedster raced in 1958 and 1959. That car no longer exists. In the 2010s, an American collector persuaded Zagato to recreate that Speedster. There was also a coupe version produced. In all 18 were built, and only one of the Speedsters ended up with a 1.6-liter Carrera flat-four.
This car, which is a real, Zagato-bodied 356 (though it just so happened it was bodied in 2016), carries an estimate of $450,000-$550,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Gooding & Company | Pebble Beach, California | August 13-14, 2021
Photo – Gooding & Company
Porsche North America contested three Indy Car seasons: 1988, 1989, and 1990. The company used specially built March chassis and then stuck their own powerplant behind the driver. For 1990, they had a brand new chassis designed, dubbed the 90P.
Power is provided by a turbocharged 2.6-liter Porsche V8 capable of 725 horsepower. Porsche’s two drivers in 1990 were Teo Fabi and John Andretti, the latter of which piloted this chassis, #5. The competition history for this car includes:
1990 Indianapolis 500 – 21st, DNF (with Andretti)
1990 Budweiser Grand Prix of Cleveland – 5th (with Andretti)
1990 Molson Indy Vancouver – 5th (with Andretti)
1990 Texaco/Havoline Grand Prix of Denver – 6th (with Andretti)
Actually, John Andretti drove this car in all but two of the 1990 points races. He finished 10th in the championship. The car was sold by Porsche to a collector in 2017, and then this car passed to the current owner the following year. It’s a ready-to-go historic open-wheel car with a pre-sale estimate of $350,000-$500,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monterey, California | August 13-14, 2021
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Walter Glockler was a Volkswagen and Porsche dealer based in Germany. He had a number of Porsche-based specials built between the late 1940s and mid-1950s. This is actually the last of the six of them. In 1954, he acquired a replacement 356 Pre-A chassis to build his only coupe-bodied special.
It is powered by a 1.5-liter four-cam flat-four (from a Porsche 550 Spyder… a car that owes its existence to a Glockler special) that was fitted in the 2000s. This car was originally intended to compete in the 1954 Mille Miglia, but was not finished in time. Instead it took part in a French/Italian road rally.
It later spent time at the Porsche factory before being exported to the U.S. It went back to Germany in the 90s and was restored the following decade (when the engine was swapped). This is an interesting piece (it even has Glockler-Porsche badging), and should bring a decent sum. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by Bonhams | Goodwood, U.K. | October 17, 2020
Photo – Bonhams
We’ve featured five Ruf automobiles thus far, with this being the sixth. The first five were all Porsche 911-based. This one, however, is based on the 987 Cayman. It’s actually built on a custom platform produced by Multimatic and is not just a modified Cayman. It just looks like a stretched Cayman.
The mid-mounted twin-turbocharged 3.7-liter flat-six makes 766 horsepower in Clubsport trim, 75 more than the base CTR3. Sixty is supposed to arrive in 3.0 seconds, and the top speed is 236 mph.
Only 30 examples of the CTR3 were produced between 2007 and 2012, and just seven examples of the Clubsport were produced since 2012 (and none have been made since 2018). This one should sell for between $780,000-$1,200,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
We start near the end of August with Shannons where the Australia-only Statesman sold for $21,486. The top sale was this 1972 Porsche 911E coupe that brought $224,695… which seems like a lot. More results are available here.
Photo – Shannons
Mecum had a sort of Kissimmee bonus sale trying to make up for a bunch of canceled events (hey, you can do anything you want in Florida, pandemic or not). This 2018 Ford GT topped the charts at $935,000.
Photo – Mecum
The Nash Statesman (another Statesman, really?) we featured brought $19,800. Click here for complete results.
Finally, for August, was Dorotheum’s sale in Austria. The top sale here was this 1973 Dino 246 GTS for $521,053. We wrote up a few cars from this one, and the Austro-Adler led the way at $149,515.
Photo – Dorotheum
The Glas 1300 Cabriolet sold for $81,747, and the early BMW brought $23,843. The Tatra went for $20,436, and the Steyr-Fiat brought up the rear at $8,174. Click here for more results.
Another sale, this one in early September, that we featured quite a few lots from was RM’s Auburn sale. Three of those cars were among the top four highest sales: the Duesenberg ($632,500), the Kurtis 500B ($550,000), and the Epperly-Offy ($407,000), but the biggest money was reserved for this 1935 Auburn Eight Supercharged Speedster. It brought $770,000.
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
The other Kurtis, the 500E, sold for $68,200, and the Murena GT went for $41,250, which, for its rarity, seems like a helluva deal. It was actually consigned to their Palm Beach sale, but the entire collection it came from got shifted to this sale instead.
$18,150 would’ve brought home a fairly original Franklin Airman sedan, while a check for $17,600 ended up being good enough for a 1922 Studebaker. The fact that I could’ve had this Chalmers for $10,725 is upsetting. The Moskvitch brought $5,225, and the CitiCar $2,200. Click here for final results.
To wrap up this rundown, we head down the street to Worldwide Auctioneers’ Auburn sale. The only car we featured from this one was the Faraday Future prototype, which appears to have been withdrawn. Womp womp. You can look at more from this sale here.
