After a brief hiatus, I’m back where I belong behind the wheel of a Porsche 911. After some pricing / market research and a ton of great input from others, I will be taking delivery of a beautiful black 2011 997.2 TTS this week! The car was purchased from Tristan @ RAC Performance and it was a quick and easy process. I wish I was able to meet them in person but I felt very comfortable doing business with them remote.
A stunner!
The original owner checked a lot of nice boxes, my favorites being the factory aero package and Turbo II wheels!
The full leather interior with the leather center console looks really nice and I love the painted back seats…just can’t let my kids sit back there now
In addition to a nice set of original options, the car has a SpeedTech exhaust, integrated 9500CI radar system and the Cobb engine/pdk tune so it saved me at least $8K in upgrades. Full front clear bra as well. I would have preferred an all black interior, but with a black car the two-tone might actually be a nice break from black. I did order a set of black floor mats for the car.
The car was just put on a delivery truck and is enroute to Seattle…should be here by the weekend weather permitting.
I had narrowed my search to the 2010 to 2013 997.2 TT or TTS with the PDK transmission and knew there were plenty of them out there for sale, even in the winter. What were my must haves…I needed a list!
White or Black were the only two colors I was focused on…must not be lured into the siren song of some bright bold color that would draw unwanted attention. Didn’t want any version of gray/silver…Seattle is gray enough already.
PDK – shifting is fun but not in Seattle traffic.
Coupe – All my other 911s have been open top cars but for the Turbo, I wanted the classic lines of the coupe.
Clean Carfax, no accidents, no mysteries
Under 50K miles, ideally under 40k
Turbo II (5 lug wheel) instead of the centerlock wheel. My Targa had centerlock wheels and I’m one of the few that likes the looks and maintainability of the standard 5 lug.
TTS or a TT with torque vectoring and sport chrono (includes launch control and an overboost-function)
Three spoke steering wheel with the paddle shifters, I find the other wheel fugly.
Sport seats, manual or adaptive. The standard “comfort” seats do not fit my body type as well…they push in the shoulders.
The first contender was this beautiful 2011 997.2 TT from DrivenTexas (VIN WP0AD2A91BS766568). They were fantastic to work with but the PPI revealed a leaking RMS (rear main seal) and a few other issues. The price was good for a TT but not good enough in my opinion to cover the work it needed. Plus, it was on the higher side for mileage that I wanted and didn’t have the sport seats:
This next one may go down as “the one that got away”. White was my top choice and early on in my search I came across this stunning 2012 TTS with only 12K miles (VIN WP0AD2A94CS766498). The only thing that held me back was the gray interior and my assumption that I had all the time in the world because I was looking at sports cars in the winter…it would never sell. The PPI was clean and this car would eventually be mine after I got around to making my low-ball offer. It sold to someone else the day after my PPI for a full price offer…ouch.
I became totally enamored with the next car and was soooo tempted to buy it but in the end, I couldn’t get past the accident history and the body kit and mods were just too much for me. It was counter to most of my criteria but appealed to my inner 12 year old (which generally has control over the rest of me). I had found a 2012 997.2 TT with only 14K miles and it was way below market. It was also a Cab and a manual which I didn’t want (or do I), heavily modified and had been in 2 accidents. Not anything that would impact reliability or drivability but it kills the resale. It had a ton of high quality performance mods, a genuine Vorsteiner V-RT aero package all around, ADV trackspec wheels, Brembo GT brake kit and a Tubi Style exhaust. I managed to track the history of the car (why was I doing this?) and confirmed the original purchase and modifications were done by Ben Bermudez, CEO of Wheels Boutique. He told me a bit about the car. He used it as a wheel model and drove it as his personal car until he sold it. His modifications:
Custom tune by Protomotive (confirmed by them directly) – “The tuning we did for it would cover a broad range of bolt-on mods that were done at Proto Tech.”
Custom engine work done by Proto Tech (confirmed with David directly who did the work) – Phone call with David from his memory, no records. Beautiful car. They did a program update, intake, custom made equal length headers (he asked if his beautiful headers were still on the car), intercooler and turbo upgrade. He couldn’t remember the exact upgrade, said it could have been a housing upgrade, GT2 style upgrade, etc.
Vorsteiner body kit, Brembo big brake kit, wheels/tires and H&R springs were all done by Ben himself at Wheels Boutique.
There was another manual that I had my eye on for a while that was for sale on the East Coast at a McLaren dealership. Beautiful Basalt Black Coupe with 45K miles but the asking price was too high for my blood and I needed to keep reminding myself that I wanted the PDK.
These were all contenders…but they didn’t turn out to be “the one”. Thanks to all of the Rennlist members that helped me narrow down my search and provide their thoughts and opinions on the various options I was looking at – Feedback thread.
I’ve always loved cars, and in particular I have always loved the Porsche 911. I’ve owned an old air cooled 78 SC Targa. I had the pleasure of owning a rare air cooled M491 optioned Cab, an 87. I was lucky enough to be able to order a new 2016 911 GTS Targa. I had so much fun tracking it on the shipping route from Germany and even watched it live on a webcam as it went through the Panama Canal like a lunatic. For all the right reasons that I don’t regret for a second, I had made a major career move from the private sector to the non-profit world. Not surprisingly, it is much less profitable and as a result, I sold the Targa. After a few years without a 911 to call my own, I was feeling the itch. Time for some research!
I wanted to avoid taking the depreciation hit of a new car again so I spent a lot of time searching for a car that captured the true essence of Porsche, was still a bit modern, was at the bottom of the depreciation curve and would be fun to drive. After some initial research I narrowed my choice to a 2010 to 2013 997.2 TT or TTS Coupe with the PDK (manuals are actually much more expensive and for this car, I ideally wanted the TTS/PDK anyway. I had never owned a 911 Turbo and this model year seemed like the perfect fit!
I did a complete analysis of every car that fit that criteria available for sale in the US (this was in Nov/Dec 2019) and here are some interesting facts:
I found 106 cars currently for sale
Only 9 with a manual transmission with prices ranging from $80K for a high mileage tired looking Cab to $155K for a low mileage Coupe.
Model year has little impact on price in this range, it is tied to mileage and condition.
Average price for a Manual Cab is $98K with 30k average miles over 6 cars
Average price for a Manual Coupe is $120K with 25K average miles over 3 cars
Average price for a PDK TT Cab is $88K with 25K miles over 17 cars
Average price for a PDK TT Coupe is $85K with 33K miles over 21 cars
Average price for a PDK TTS Cab is $95K with 25K miles over 22 cars
Average price for a PDK TTS Coupe is $99K with 32K miles over 37 cars
Here are the price and mileage trends followed by trends for just the coupes (click to enlarge)
With this data I had what I needed to evaluate all of the available cars and find the best deal that checked all of my must have boxes.
I created a thread on Rennlist which has this data and some additional data / viewpoints in the thread – Research thread
By far the most fun I’ve ever had in a car was taking a weekend PNWR PCA Tour trip with my oldest son in which we got to drive Maryhill Loops Road. We also had the honor of documenting the trip and writing an article that was published in our local PCA magazine, The Spiel. An experience that we will remember forever and hopefully one that helps turn my son into a future gearhead!
A video of run 3 of 5
Our Article (click to enlarge)
To join the club or book events like this if you are already a member, go to www.PNWR.org.
I sold the 87 Cab because I had fallen in love with the new Targa GTS. It didn’t take long after the old car was driven away for me to secure the replacement. What can I say, I heal quickly 🙂 My local dealer had an allocation for a Targa GTS and I jumped on it. I spent weeks debating the options, the color, I spent countless hours on the Porsche Configurator. Red? Blue? GTS Interior? Sport or Sport Plus seats? Ceramic breaks? Blue? Red? Finally I stopped the madness and made up my damn mind! This is the configuration:
2016 Targa 4 GTS
Carmine Red (special color released for the GTS)
Full Leather Interior (black)
Carmine Red Interior Accents
PDK (dual clutch automatic)
Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC)
18 Way Sport Plus Seats
…
Here are a few stock photos and photos from the 3D Porsche configurator that I spent so much time in:
911 Targa 4 GTS
Porsche gives you a lot of details on the process when you order a custom spec car so I’ve been tracking each and every step. I think being able to track everything makes the wait take even longer!
6/10 – finalized the order
6/19 – vehicle entered the body shop
6/26 – vehicle build completion
6/30 – vehicle on board the Triton Leader and left the port of Emden Germany
Since then I have been tracking the ship as it made its way across the world. Germany. Denmark. England. Puerto Rico. Currently on its way to the Panama Canal and then on to San Diego where it will be trucked up to Seattle! Hopefully just a few more weeks to go before I get to turn the key for the first time!
You can see the Triton Leader (green arrow top middle) making its way through the Caribbean Sea towards Panama!
Without any warning (due to some communication issue) I got a call at work saying the semi was ready to pickup the car for delivery to California. I couldn’t get home but fortunately Meg made it home in time! The truck was too big for our neighborhood streets so the guy had to walk about half a mile and then drive it out.
Thanks to Meg for snapping one last picture of the car as the deliver guys were pulling away. Good luck in your new home! Now how to fill up this empty garage… 🙂
One last photo as the car is driven away to the new owner
911 Maniac 