It seems odd, given the current economic climate, to be talking about the most expensive Porsche 911 ever made: this limited-edition Sport Classic version of the iconic sports car is on sale now for £214,200. The number needs rolling around in your mouth and easing into your brain. Over £200,000 for a 911.
Still, if anyone knows the value of its cars and the willingness of customers to pay for them, it’s Porsche. Not for nothing is this the brand that can charge £114 for a full-colour Porsche crest on the alloys. Heck, even a 911 Carrera GTS can be specced to £163,000 without too much effort.
Porsche is phenomenally successful in making money. In 2021, the firm made €5.3 billion (£4.5bn) with an operating return on sales of 16.0% - figures that could be skewed by the current supply situation - but even before the existing silly season in new car prices, the Stuttgart manufacturer was making some of the healthiest margins in the automotive industry, regularly targeting 15%.
So here we are, with a £200k-plus special edition: the 911 Sport Classic. This is the second time that badge has appeared, as the first was on a 997-generation 911 back in 2010. That version was a run of just 250 cars, whereas this car is one of 1250 worldwide. (There’s no set number for the UK allocation in order to stop speculators, apparently. Reading between the lines, it doesn’t sound like it’s yet sold out, unlike the last one, which was entirely snapped up before anyone even got to drive it.)
It’ll be interesting to see how the sales pan out. You get the feeling that Porsche needed to up the volumes on this car to justify all the extra engineering that went into it (more on that shortly) but the firm itself admits that prices of the last Sport Classic (limited to 250 units, remember) softened after launch and only came back in time.
This is also the second of two Heritage Design projects. The first was the 911 Targa that was released last year, a car that nodded to the 1950s and 1960s road racers that made Porsche famous, as well as the 356 and early 911. This one is slightly later, trying to ape the 1960s and 1970s, with the clearest link being to the 1973 2.7 Carrera RS and its famous ducktail rear spoiler (see separate story, below).
Porsche hasn’t revealed what the next two cars will be, but it’s a safe bet that they will continue on that chronological path. A Rothmans 959 for the modern era? Yes, please.
Further influences from the past with this Sport Classic include the Fuchs alloys, the pinstripe down the middle (painted this time, not stickers), roundels on the doors (thankfully deletable), the houndstooth cloth inserts on the seats, the ‘double-bubble’ roof and even the rev counter, which has a lovely green element to it, aping the rev counter on the 550A from the 1950s.
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So give me a GT3rs any day. And money back. And no more silly manual gearboxes? What next? A return to drum brakes? Manual gearboxes are obsolete! Since last century!
The writer is incorrect in claiming that this boring heritage car is th fastest rear drive 911? That accolade clearly belongs to the GT2? Unless you scan the options on the Manthey site.
That Piers gives this a 4.5 rating highlights how little he knows about 911's or Porsche's in general. At best lazy journalism, more precicely someone clearly out of their depth. Blame his managers for that, not him. No J. K. L. Setright for sure!