How The Most Hated Porsche 911 Is Defying A Softening Market

It wasn’t that long ago when 996 Porsche 911 models (the ones with fried egg headlights) were cheap, full-stop. You could get into a decent running, driving car for less than $20,000, provided it wasn’t anything hugely special like a Turbo or C4S. However, once the world opened back up in 2021, a strange thing started to happen: All those cheap rear-engined Porsches started to disappear.

As the collector car market softens in 2023, a clear set of winners and losers from peak pricing has emerged, and in the case of these 996 Porsche 911s, they certainly aren’t the cars you’d expect.

First, let’s do some filtering. We’re going to remove all the really special models from the pool, like the GT3, GT2, and Turbo. These expensive, ultra-high-performance 911s aren’t exactly indicative of the broader 996 market, and GT2 pricing in particular has been up in the stratosphere forever. Next, we won’t be taking an exhaustive look at every trim level, body style, and transmission, because we’d be here all day. Instead, we’re looking at standouts, the cars moving up and down in value. Believe me, there’s a whole lot of up-and-down going on.

At the top of the pecking order for regular models sits the Carrera 4S, a model produced between 2002 and 2005 that paired the 911 Turbo’s wide fenders, big brakes, and suspension with naturally-aspirated M96 power, all-wheel-drive, and a fetching heckblende rear reflector that conjured up images of older 911 models. Just a few years ago, top-notch examples of these cars were fetching well north of $60,000. These days? Well, the 18,000-mile example picture above hammered for $53,500 in November.

Oh, and on top of that sits the Carrera 4S X51, an “if you know, you know” power package that turned up the wick with a better intake manifold, better exhaust manifolds, unique camshaft profiles, CNC-milled cylinder heads, new intake valve springs, new oil baffles, and revised engine management software to run the whole thing. Sure, it only boosted output from 320 to 345 horsepower, but it’s a durable package that’s rare to see. Unsurprisingly, most X51 Carrera 4S models are still worth crazy money, such as this Ice Green Metallic car (finished through Porsche’s Paint to Sample program) that sold for $46,000 just last month.

Of course, if we’re talking about X51 cars, we need to talk about the 911 40 Jahre, otherwise known as the 911 40th Anniversary Edition. Celebrating 40 years of the 911, this unusual limited-run chimera is strange by Porsche 911 standards, in that each of the 1,963 examples made is basically alike. They all got the front bodywork and radiators from the 911 Turbo, they all got the X51 power pack and limited-slip differential, and they were all painted GT Silver Metallic. Decent examples are still trading for north of $40,000, such as the $43,000 example above that sold in November, but they’ve fallen from a previous Bring A Trailer peak of nearly $60,000.

Next down the hierarchy, it’s the 996.2 coupes, the ones with a revised front end treatment sold between 2002 and 2005. Despite these cars all featuring the inferior single-row IMS bearing, they’ve historically carried a substantial premium over pre-facelift cars. Despite this, they aren’t free from the softening of the general market.

Take this 41,000-mile black-on-black example that hammered on Bring A Trailer for $31,500 earlier this year. It does the song and dance perfectly, is a properly low-mileage car, was specced in an agreeable color combination, and sold for decent money. However, if we were to go back a few years, it wouldn’t be hard to find 996.2 Porsches in similar shape extracting a lot more from collectors’ bank accounts.

Here’s another black-on-black 996.2 Porsche 911 coupe with a manual gearbox, this time with 44,000 miles. The major difference? This one brought in $40,000 back in 2021. Sure, the seller of this example may have a great history on Bring A Trailer, but that alone doesn’t account for nearly a 25 percent drop in value between totally comparable examples.

However, if you happen to own an early 996 with the controversial fried egg headlights, the sky isn’t exactly falling. Far from it, to be precise, as enthusiasts seem to finally be latching onto these older cars. Some consider the pre-facelift 996 coupes the sweet spot of the 996 range for a variety of reasons. Their Boxster headlights may be more pure to the original design, their smaller 3.4-liter engines may be less prone to bore scoring than their larger 3.6-liter successors, particularly early examples should all be fitted with the far more durable dual-row IMS bearing, and the early two-wheel-drive manual 996 coupe is still the lightest roadgoing water-cooled Porsche 911 ever sold. Feel free to annoy brand new GT3 owners with that fact.

Whatever the case, these pre-facelift coupes are commanding stronger and stronger money, such as this 2001 example that recently sold on Bring A Trailer for $25,750. It may not be cosmetically perfect, but it ticks all the right boxes. It’s a manual 2WD car with a documented IMS bearing replacement, Turbo-twist wheels, Litronic xenon headlights, and plenty of service receipts.

If you wanted to buy a similar car in 2021, you’d have likely looked at something like this 1999 model year car that gaveled for a mere $16,246 with fewer obvious cosmetic imperfections. Sure, that 1999 car may have a bit more mileage on its odometer, but neither that nor the 2001 car are crazy low mileage examples, and a difference of 34,000 miles doesn’t solely explain a price difference of $9,504. You could buy an entire Boxster for that delta!

If there’s one part of the standard 996 Porsche 911 market that hasn’t moved a ton, it’s the models with the least-desirable specs. The bottom end of reasonably well-kept automatic cabriolets has settled at around $20,000, right on with what we saw in 2021. However, one thing has changed: The model year doesn’t seem to matter. For instance, check out this 2002 911 Carrera Cabriolet auctioned at Bring A Trailer last week for $20,500. Unusually, it’s a facelifted 996.2 car, and it looks well kept. Facelifted cars have typically carried a premium, even models without the most desirable specs – so to see a number of them at the bottom of the market is surprising to say the least.

So where are 996 Porsche 911 prices going? Well, they’re diverging in a way few anticipated. While Carrera 4S and other historically more-desirable models have generally fallen in value over the past year, the oft-maligned fried egg models are finally getting their flowers. It can be hard to predict collector car values based on historical trends. After all, there was once a time when it was cheaper to have Charlie’s Angels blow up an original Mustang instead of a Mustang II. However, the sturdiness of early Porsche 996 values is surprising, as it bucks every trend people expected. Maybe it really is the fried egg headlights’ time to shine. After all, they are the lighting clusters that saved Porsche. In any case, this is just another example of why buying what you like and enjoying it is often the only way to come out ahead. The collector car market is a strange beast, and since most cars can lose a whole lot of money depending on timing, you might as well get some use out of what you own.

(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)

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