I strongly suggest that you do not follow that advice, with two potential exceptions we'll get into later. Some people are spending a lot of time advising the rest of us to “invest” in a 1999-2004 Porsche 911, internally known as the 996 and given the nickname "fried egg" for the shape of its Boxster-sourced headlights. The lesson I would encourage you to ignore goes something like this: Given enough time, all Porsches will eventually become super-valuable, no matter how unwanted they are today. There are all sorts of lessons to take away from The Case Of The $32,000 914. For that kind of cash, you could get a five-liter Mustang, capable of towing a 914 down the quarter-mile in less time than it could complete the task under its own power. My dinner companion paid somewhere north of 30 grand for his 914 2.0. Things have now gotten officially out of hand. The market didn’t pay any attention to me, and pretty soon any 914 was worth serious money. Twenty years ago, when values for the flat-six-powered 914-6 started to rise above $10,000, I shook my head in disgust-those cars combine the raw pace of a Cutlass Ciera with the repair costs of an ‘87 930 Turbo.
The smart money bought an old BMW 2002, which could also be had dirt cheap and which would blow the proverbial doors off the VoPo. In a straight line, they were easy meat for a 2.8-liter Chevrolet Citation in a corner, they were prone to behavior that was by turns fascinating and terrifying. These cars were about 15 years old back when I was in high school, and could be had in good condition for three or four grand. Instead, it had a Volkswagen-Porsche badge in Germany, and was derisively called “VoPo”-the nickname given to East German police. It was a 914 2.0, the infamous Vanagon-engined misery-mobile that wasn’t even considered worthy of a Porsche badge in its home country. The difference in this case? My dinner companion’s dream Porsche wasn’t a 356 Super or a 964 RS America or even a 991 GT3 RS. Insofar as I am both an automotive journalist and a long-time Porsche Club of America member, I hear stories like this all the time. Last week, I had dinner with a very nice fellow who told me a very long story about finding and purchasing the Porsche of his dreams.