‘Early 911s are hardly PC fare even today’

You’re getting nostalgia from me this issue because there seems to be absolutely nothing else happening. Auctions have all been cancelled or postponed, I’m barred from buying things on ebay until further notice, winter works on my Alfa Spider have stalled while it’s away having some professional attention. And I’d already tidied the garage, though I’m still two 10mm sockets down.

That only left starting series three of Dedicated Survivor on Netflix or finally sorting through all the stuff at my end of the loft. The latter won and I’d almost filled a whole black sack with junk before uncovering a stack of late-nineties copies of PC. That of course slowed proceedings.

I was particularly drawn to the Spring ’98 issue, not only by the Aston DB6 restoration on the cover, but also the extensive pre-’89 Porsche 911 buyers guide. Something I’d written, having temporarily escaped doing the Market News pages. Early 911s are hardly PC fare these days, so what were they doing in there? Being good value. I’d actually forgotten how affordable they were then, when 911s were merely seen as practical sportscars.

The immaculate black Carrera 3.2 in the shoot even belonged to my hairdresser, who’d bought it for £12,000. There was also a 3.0 SC that a dealer wanted just £10,950 for. An early 2.4T Targa was another dealer car, on offer for £8450. Times that by seven for today’s value.

But the line that really got me was: ‘The seriously sporty 911S cars now command £14-16k and are still on the up.’

Were they ever: I hope one of our readers saw that and took a punt while they could because those same cars are more like £120-160k now.

‘I’m barred from buying things on ebay until further notice’