Views

Highlights from your Porsche correspondence via email, social media and Total911.com

dear Sir,

In a recent sales debate in the back of the magazine, your team pondered whether the classic market was stalling. You put the question to some European-based market specialists, and the outlook as listed was rather calming. The general consensus seemed to be it had bottomed out. However, I disagree.

House prices have slowed in the past year (this is always a good indicator as to what the classic car market is doing), with London in fact receding. On top of this I know some are now trying to get out of their classic cars, as they believe a recession is coming. I’ve also seen many cars are sitting around on forecourts for months, suggesting their value is too high or people just don’t want to spend their cash due to market worries. Either scenario suggests values of classics need to come down despite the market shrinking in the past year or so, which you admitted in your editorial.

You may now be wondering why I’ve decided to get in contact. Is it to pour cold water on the market and get everybody worried? In fact it’s the opposite. It shouldn’t matter what the market is doing. Only speculators and ‘investors’ will care. For enthusiasts like you and I, if the market collapses, so what? We’ll just go back to the old days where buying and owning a Porsche was an expensive hobby, but the fun had behind the wheel was worth all that cash lost. It’ll be interesting to see if the market does adjust some more if people actually begin driving their 911s again. rob cross

I imagine an enthusiast selling his 911 may well still take an interest in what the market is doing! Ultimately, nobody can predict what the market is about to do – certainly in this case there are simply too many factors, politically speaking, that can have an effect. However, the people we spoke to are highly thought of in their field and have been around long enough to have seen numerous economical cycles, and witnessed how the 911 has fared through all of them. We felt of all parties inclined to offer an opinion on the subject, theirs were to be of most interest to readers.

It is important you do what you believe is right with your own cars. If we adopt a mindset of years gone by where we are happy to own a porsche 911 and know we will lose money on it, then the state of the economy shouldn’t matter too much, and as you know, we’re big advocates of actually enjoying your 911.