Time Travelling – Cars you should have bought in 1995 – Porsche

Porsche values are always going to be in contention one way or another. Strap yourself into our time machine as we travel back to the pre-internet world of 1995.

Do you remember Top Marques magazine? Back in the 1990s it was a high end, full colour spin off from Autotrader. We found a copy on eBay for just £3.55. It’s 160 pages of cars for sale, with glossy full colour photography and not a web address in sight. The original RRP on the cover was £1.95. When that figure is adjusted for inflation to give us an equivalent in 2018 money, it equals £3.69.

So at £3.55 including delivery the magazine has lost just 4% of it’s value over 23 years… That’s a better performance than some of the cars we look at in this blog series.

Find the other blogs in this series:

Aston Martin / Ferrari / Porsche / Ford

Note:

We’ve used the inflation calculator from thisismoney.co.uk, so our figures are approximate. For some cars, we’ve taken a rough estimate of values based on recent sales figures, and for some we’ve spoken to our network of dealers. It’s important to note that it’s impossible to gauge the quality of the cars from the magazine. If you had bought these cars, you’d also need to factor in maintenance and storage costs for the last 23 years, but we’re allowed to dream, right?

If you bought any of these cars in the late 1990s, do post in the comments below.

Prices in a context:

It’s September 1995, Blur are top of the music charts with their hit ‘Country House’ and the Ford Mondeo is Britain’s third best selling car of the year, behind the Escort and Fiesta. Ford sold 118,040 Mondeos in 1995, and this 1 year old 1994 M registration 5 door hatch looks a steal at just £8499.

Right, now that we’ve got some context on the price of goods in 1995, we can continue…

Thanks to Harry at Portiacraft for help with values, who added “at the moment prices are all over the place also depends on condition”.

We’ve taken Harry’s uppper estimate as a rough guide, and looked at cars currently for sale online.

Porsche Values Through Time – Porsche 912

As found for sale in Top Marques, Sept ’95:

The Porsche 912 has seen huge gains in recent years as popularity has grown.

To put that figure of £8250 into context, look at the car aboove… MK1 1.6 litre Ford Mondeo, anyone?

Porsche Values Through Time – Porsche 911S 2.4

As found for sale in Top Marques, Sept ’95:

The Porsche 911S is one of the most desirable air cooled 911s, and at £13,950 it was an expensive car even in 1995.

For the same sort of money, from the same magazine, you could have had a 1 year old Ford Probe with just 19,000 miles on the clock.

Porsche Values Through Time – Porsche 911E

As found for sale in Top Marques, Sept ’95:

The 911E was the cheapest one in the range back in 1967, beneath the 911T and front running 911S.

Back in 1995 £5,500 wouldn’t even get you behind the wheel of an M registered Mondeo 1.6. That would have set you back £8,499.