Here's Why Everyone Overpays for an Air-Cooled Porsche 911 (Including Me)

I really don't know how to begin this video because I didn't buy the cheapest air-cooled 911 in the USA nor did I get an exceptionally good deal on an air-cooled 911 to even lie about it being the cheapest one for sale in the USA I feel like I'm massively overpaid for this car but that's what everybody does when they buy one of these so I'm not alone but today I'm going to justify why I overpaid for this car and the status of the whole vintage air-cooled Porsche market in general I'm going to do my best not to call it a bubble my crap I just said a bubble didn't I prefer to read my incoherent ramblings rather than see me fumble through speaking on camera I had the solution below a link to my column on autotrader.com slash oversteer check it out so this is my new to me 1985 Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera which was option from the factory with front and rear spoilers oh look at that also a sunroof from the factory but I will never ever use the sunroof because they break all the time now this car isn't that fast it has 200 horsepower and a 0 to 60 that's a little over 6 seconds obviously it has a rear-mounted engine so it's not the best balanced car either and it has a pretty meh gearbox for a sports car it also shares some heritage with the Volkswagen Beetle despite all this I paid $38,000 for it I did what yes $38,000 for this car oh now much to my disgust five years ago this would have been a reasonable low 20,000 something car now as pretty this car looks on my potato camera it's actually just a nice slightly above-average car as far as Porsches go it has a hundred thousand miles and you know it's a pretty good driver quality repaint and it doesn't have much service history and there is one accident reported on the Carfax early in its life still I paid $38,000 for it which may sound like a lot and it is but if I wanted another coupe with less miles original paint and not as many stories it would have been about $10,000 more really it's disgusting I don't like the prices any more than you but that's what you have to pay for the privilege of owning one of these things what a privilege I'm privileged now enthusiast use the air-cooled 911 as Exhibit A in their rant against the investment era of car collecting for a rich news buy these things and lock them away hoping for a good return on their investment at some point in the future and they drive the prices up the 911 is particularly weird because there are a bajillion of them for sale and they made a lot of them obviously that's why there's somebody for sale and for the longest time they were cheap not quite throwaway cars but still really cheap sports cars that pretty much anybody could buy growing up my dad had a few of these when they were cheap when was a target and when I was four years old I apparently repeatedly stabbed the seats with a screwdriver over and over again I have no memory of this or why I did it and along with the other things that I did when I was a kid it's a miracle I'm not a serial killer but back on my dad's Porsche he eventually sold that had a few others but he bought the king daddy of the impact bumper cars as they're called because of these bumpers this little flexi rib thing here they have their impact bumpers he bought in 1986 930 turbo with 6000 original miles on it he paid $40,000 for it bought it around the new millennium and he sold it a few years later for $60,000 really really good return but he also did it shortly before I reached driving age that was really smart on his part as well but today that car would be worth 160 thousand dollars or more and as much as I would love to buy one I can think of a lot better ways to spend that money so I've settled well not really buy ridiculously overpaying for this 1985 3.2 Carrera the last iteration of the impact era 911 but a few years short of the much-improved g50 manual gearbox that was actually a really good boy this time since it was a lot of money and I actually paid a mechanic to look at it before I buy skaar was in San Diego and I was in Kansas I know brilliant idea to get a PPI right why why didn't I think of this before anyway he looked it over and gave it a clean bill of health so I paid the seller spent a thousand dollars shipping it from San Diego to here and wouldn't you know it it showed up it showed up kind of broken it was broken the PPI didn't matter I still bought a broken car the first night I had this thing I thought I was going totally insane because I couldn't figure out how to get the air conditioning to work I never owned an old 911 before but I thought I could figure it out now it's a little weird because there's these knobs down here I kind of look like ejector seats but it actually controls the heater and then you have another switch panel up here that controls the blower motor for fresh air and the heater looks like I could show control of the air conditioning but it doesn't that's actually down here there's a second blower motor that blows out these Center vents here for the air conditioning now I knew all this but this thing wasn't coming on I thought there was another button somewhere to get it going because it wasn't now I bought this car in June and it's really really hot here in June so I was determined to get it going again I discovered the fuse was popped I was really excited but the moment I put in a new fuse just popped again so like all of my other purchases where I didn't do a pre-purchase inspection this car immediately had to go to my mechanic no honeymoon period he did a little investigating and discovered the blower motor was totally locked up that's why I was blowing the fuse also the a/c refrigerant was low and it's still on the old r12 he fixed this and changed the oil which was 11 quarts and that all cost $1,200 $1,200 is a lot of money yeah but now I have marginally cool air conditioning which is exactly the way Porsche did it from the factory now let's circle back to the oil eleven quarts is a lot and that's because this air cooled car actually is an air-cooled it's oil cools they have a radiator but it's filled with oil that's why you need so many quarts to run through the engine and through this car's cooling system this car is so obsessed with oil that it has three gauges devoted to it one is for oil pressure normal gauge except it says druk press as well as one for oil temperature and another one for the oil level and it's a giant tank now the 3.2 Carrera is considered to be the least troublesome of the air-cooled engines tend to break regularly anyway that tend to break regularly and cost over $10,000 to rebuild but this one lacks the carburetors of the earlier cars that give lots of problems and it also lacks the timing chain issues of the 911 SC that preceded it though it does have that old crunchy gearbox but mine has been rebuilt but my engine is original and then you start using oil around this mileage and only get worse until you decide to rebuild it now I haven't driven mine enough to know if it's using oil but it doesn't smoke so I'm optimistic although my mechanic did note a bit of an oil leak from the oil thermostat which is located in an area named my Porsche enthusiast as the triangle of death because I guess this thermostat and a few other things that sit back here behind the engine are really hard to reach and you can't see them you have to repair it actually by feel like you blindfolded yourself and have to work on the car anyway let me put this back on yeah so you might be asking at this point why would I or anybody who's bought an air-cooled 911 in the past few years paint so much to put up with all this crap I mean for $38,000 I could have bought a comparable condition early 2000 design 11 turbo or even a 10 year old Carrera S really that's a good question it's a great question the answer is because because it's pretty it's pretty and no no it's not just because of that you really have to experience it it's it's the experience just just bear with me this is nice now owning a 911 is not about the driving experience it's about the overall experience and the first thing is the smell smell of this thing oh oh it smells so good there's something about new cars with all their plastic and they have to use synthetic odors to make them sell decent well I messed up the words they're synthetic odors to smell decent but not with this 911 it's such a rich leathery smell it's different when old Mercedes or an oldest high-end car something about it it's just it's just so good the exhaust on a air-cooled car is also very unique very unique and it's not loud now I really am terrible at driving this thing we're really bad because it's just so quirky it's different from any other car that I've ever owned the clutch is weird the gear shifter isn't the greatest but it's also weird and it's kind of fun it's part of the experience is getting to know this car really learning how to drive it [Music] those cars are just toasters now if you get in push a button and go but not this 911 it's so engaging now some might prefer the new ones I mean they are very cool very fast but you can't have that much fun with them in a legal way you have to go to a track there's there's no way to enjoy that car near its limits and any kind of legal speed unlike this car yes that's a disadvantage to some because they really want to go fast but one advantage this old car has is size the new 911s they are six inches wider and six inches longer than this car it's huge this thing is smaller than a new Boxster and Cayman as well and for reference is actually an inch skinnier than a first-generation Mazda Miata this Porsche is skinnier than a Miata it's crazy alright let me see if I can row it through the gears because I'm not very good at it okay Tony careful not go from second the first there we go oh I can't stop smiling thing is just so much fun it has so much personality feel so attached to this thing not too compared to a beetle again but this car because Herbie was so lovable and since the characters car felt alive and this thing feels very much alive as well but it's not like a Volkswagen Beetle it's on it's not a beetle really I'm not sure if I did this car justice as far as explaining why everybody over pays for them including me but he kind of give me points for trying if you think about it you really cannot walk into a showroom and buy a car anything close to this new anymore and you never will ever again so I guess that's why people are running back to these beautiful old cars and it is beautiful it is so pretty as far as the market goes I know a lot of people like to use the the B word when it comes to prices of air-cooled 911s it's a really bad word now I don't I don't think that's gonna happen but then again I'm still waiting on those beanie baby prices to bounce back as I'm sitting on a gold mine there anyway thank you for watching I really appreciate it oh my beanie babies this is my retirement portfolio Oh No

Channel: Hoovies Garage

Views: 969,953

Keywords: porsche, 911, carrera, 1985, 915, review, test, problems, issues, tyler, hoover, hoovie's, garage, 911 sc, inspection, leaks, air conditioning

Id: bm4zI_NRn-g

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/NCSUGrad2012]

Tyler has turned a business into buying and owning random cool cars. Good job, I think a lot of us wish we could do that, haha

[u/theuglybarnicle1]

The way that thumbnail looks it reminds me of Doug demuro lmao

[u/[deleted]]

Yup, sure is beautiful. Perfect spec.

[u/left_turn_signal]

How does he do it? Always gets the best deals and will sell it for profit in future. I know someone mentioned Tyler used to have used car dealership before. But still guy is crazy good car flipper.

[u/plasmalaser1]

An air cooled 911 is like a 18 year old virgin; we know it's how things should be but nowadays it's too good to be true

[u/fuggetcub]

That car looks clean as hell. I dunno if he overpaid for how mint this thing is.

[u/_bojangler]

Hoovies Garage has become a must watch YT channel for me. The Wizard reminds me of a guy I used to work with that could work on anything and everything.

[u/RickyTheSticky]

One of my absolute dream cars. Just feels and sounds so alive. It's a goddamn animal, just listen to that air cooled rumble at idle.

[u/Teknizion]

My dad owns a ‘84 Carrera. It’s insane how much the value of the car has risen in the last couple years. I think if he’s sell it now he would get 4x more.

He actually imported one from the US to the EU and changed it into an EU spec. So different bumpers and headlights.