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Weekly Motor Fix: air-cooled madness

4 April, 2016

I’m not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, to make a song and dance about the price of air-cooled Turbo Porsches, but something extraordinary has just happened.

Yesterday, I searched 911 Turbos for sale in New Zealand by highest price. Sitting atop this list was a very tidy-looking 1997 993 911 Turbo listed earlier that day — for $299,990.

Yep, $300,000 for a 19-year-old car. Next car down, for the same price, was a 2013 991 Turbo S. Faster, newer, and, quite simply, better.

I logged back on this morning just to make sure my eyes didn’t deceive me, but the car was gone — no longer listed. Maybe I’d dreamt that the asking price of these fabled air-cooled Porshes had popped up to this simply ridiculous level? Luckily, I’d taken a screenshot of the listing to post on Facebook.

Check out the comments in the post we published on New Zealand Classic Car‘s Facebook page here: 

Ummm, wow.

So I figured the dealer must have made a mistake and listed the car for $150,000 too much. I scrolled down through cheaper cars until I hit a purple Boxster trying to convince people it had something in common with a 911 Turbo. Still nothing.

So I called the dealer. The. Car. Had. Sold. For very close to asking price, within 12 hours of being listed.

I’m off to have a lie down.

A star in their eyes – 1968 Ford Galaxie 500

6 December, 2024

“Everyone asks that until they take a closer look,” says its owner today, Brent Harris of Auckland. “They also ask if I’ve done the restoration myself, and I have to tell them no, it is 100 per cent original. It’s the paint listed in the handbook.”
It was the original condition of the car that won Brent over from the moment he first saw it — that and the fact “it just looks stunning”.
Brent had owned a 1968 Mark II Cortina for four years. It was in need of some work and the question arose whether to spend the money or get something different. You don’t get much more divergent than Ford’s different approaches to its markets in the UK and the USA.

Bob’s Bambina video

3 December, 2024

Bob McMurray has spent a lifetime inside Formula 1, including 33 years he and wife, Shaune, spent working for McLaren from his earliest days as a mechanic through to watching Scott Dixon’s first Kiwi win at Indianapolis. Bob is now one of our top motorsport commentators and Toyota Racing New Zealand’s ambassador, a role he relishes.
Bob now owns this restored Fiat 500 F. The story of how he became its owner almost by accident and of its restoration is one of those that has ended well, and it was a bit of a laugh getting there. Bob’s Fiat actually has a distant McLaren connection.
This is a short video of Bob’s Fiat Bambina shot by Classic Car magazine