Pedro356C

I did not mean to sound like Marvin Gaye but I'd like to know "What's going on"! I've been helping a Brazilian friend to get a SC Coupe and it's been hard. I understand his color restrictions does not help as he wants a black car, but would consider dark grey, dark blue or silver as well...What I see is a market flooded by Targas and red cars...I wonder what was the percentage between coupes and targas, imported to the US, from 1978 to 1983... today's market shows 70% of targas...

At the Pelican parts classified ads, the good cars are selling in hours... what's going on? Who is the Vacuum cleaning the coupes from the market? The Germans?

nathan1

Overseas... Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia, etc... They are smart enough to realize that since the long hood cars have gotten outrageous the you can still buy a very nice SC in the $20's, good luck doing that on an early car. They will not be getting cheaper in the future.

I think we will all look back in five years and talk about the "good old days" where you could buy an original paint low mileage SC for under $30k... Just my .02 prediction.

Shannon123

Might keep an eye out on ownster.com they do a nice global (US) search for craigslist, ebay, autabuy, oodle and other obscure sources. Just type in your desire (ex: 1978 Porsche 911) in the upper right search box and it gives you everything available. MORE than you might think available....maybe not your color, but quite a few out there.

Good luck

Peter Zimmermann

Pedro, you know where to find a great red one if your friend changes his mind! That said, as I remember back to the days spent at my shop, when SCs were new, we maintained a lot of SCs. It seems that more, being in Los Angeles, were Targas, but very few few were black.

For some reason, off colors like Petrol Blue, Beige variants, White (very popular), different shades of Blue, even Gold, were more common than black. Silver was strong, Burgundy (Sport Grape), Green and Bronze not so much. Red has always been a big hit (Coupes & Targas), but is one of those love it or hate it colors. Other areas away from the CA coast might be radically different regarding color distribution, but this is the way that I remember it.

Pedro356C

Excelent tip... I was using "auto Tempest" for Craigslist! I appreciate!

Pedro356C

Hi Pete... unfortunately my friend is not fond of Red...go figure!!! But your book is flying to Brazil as I type...

groovzilla

pedro - you are absolutely right - great and even good sc's are hard to find and will be nothing but harder to find - just like the 356 market, the early 911's and now the sc's aare getting top dollar for excellent examples.

its also a color type deal - there are a few browns/whites and reds but try finding charcoal, silver, boues - not easy unless you pay $22-$25K and still hard to find.

racerbvd

Sorry, but I'm keeping my Black SC, it will be the very last car I ever own so it really doesn't matter how much $$$ I spend on it...

JMOrem

I am having the same problem, again. My expectation of a silver metallic with can can or even Lobster red interior is nearly impossible to find for the past 8 months I've been searching.

Being in Texas, a black car is not an option. Ruling out all Targa's, and all red cars.

KNS

Red interiors weren't very common in the late 70s and early 80s, you would have had a difficult time finding your color combo even 20 years ago. The dealers ordered the colors that would sell the easiest (no different than today).

I saw a red interior in a 997 recently, first one in a long time, especially in a modern Porsche.

mfyoung1086

Yeah you just don't see a ton of black cars from that era anyways, it wasn't a wildly popular color by any means, the problem is that black is a hard color to paint, it will reveal all its flaws, so car companies in general don't like painting cars black

Even today, as automotive painting has gotten way better you still don't see that many black cars on the road

mfyoung1086

I think the corvettes ruined that boat haha, remember those god awful red interiors they did in the early 90's!

WPOZZZ

We have a crappy Porsche market here, thus low prices.

Porsche 911 SC - $10500 (Honolulu)
http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/cto/2995280741.html

groovzilla

i've seen some awaful p-cars shipped over from hawaii

unfortunately the hawaii cars oxidize like crazy - the salt air demons take no prisoners

S2TGART

Pedro,

To address your question about the imported numbers between Targas and Coupes. Between 1978 and 1983, there were 12,611 coupes imported and 11,214 Targas. So it's essentially a 50/50 split. There was only 1 year where the number of Targas was more than coupes and that was in '78 Coupes 2436, Targas 2579.