Will the Porsche 996 Turbo go up in value?

I had an email this morning from someone suggesting that Porsche 996 values will rocket over the next 18 months. She’d been chatting to other Turbo owners and the consensus was that good, well maintained examples are becoming hard to come by and these will be the cars people will want.

I can see where he’s coming from. At the moment you can pick up a 996 Turbo for under £23,000 which means it’s in danger territory. At that price, there’s a chance it’ll be bought by a wide-boy who as always fancied a Turbo but, in reality, can’t afford to maintain it properly. Now don’t get me wrong, 996 Turbos aren’t mega-expensive to run but they can require pricey maintenance (tyres alone aren’t cheap).

Once a Porsche gets into the hands of someone without the readies to maintain it properly, it goes into a downward spiral. Servicing is skimped, jobs get bodged or ignored and cheap parts get fitted. That £25,000 Turbo becomes a £20,000 car and is bought by someone even less able to run it. And so it goes on.

The consequence is that good well maintained 996 Turbos because rarer and people in the know will seek them out and pay decent money for them.

The Porsche 996 Turbo is an astonishing car. Very fast, very capable, reasonable practical and easy for anyone to drive. It’s also, someone else pointed out yesterday, not as flash looking as the 997 Turbo that follows but that’s an argument for another day.

So will values rise? Who can say? Car values aren’t like, say, share prices which may bottom out and then recover so it’s hard to predict. One factor that may stop 996 Turbo prices rises too much, though, will be the availability of cheap 997 Turbos (again, though, a poor one of those could end up being a money pit). However, I would say that if you bought a good 996 Turbo now you are unlikely to lose money in terms of its value. Just don’t buy a cheap, poorly maintained one.