Buying an Air-Cooled Porsche on PCarMarket

I think of PCarMarket.com as a place to look for newer Porsches but I recently found an early 911 that attracted my attention. It is a 1968 Porsche 911 with a 1969 911S Motor and a 1971 911S 5-speed manual transmission. The motor features Mahle 2.2L pistons, a custom camshaft, Weber 40 carburetors and PMO intake manifolds.

1968 Porsche 911 Outlaw with '69 911S engine

This showed up on PCar Market as an offering from the dealer, Hunting Ridge Motors in Mt. Kisco, NY. I would normally expect to see a Porsche 911 Hot Rod like this one on Bring-a-Trailer so I was surprised to find it on PCar Market. The model, look and style of this early Porsche 911 fit my needs and had an emotional attachment for me.

When I used to race a 1969 Porsche 911TR it had a very similar look. I always spoke with Phil Bagley of Klub Sport Racing where I kept my racecar about taking it to a streetcar. Due to the historical value of the car being a former Porsche factory race car it was advised against destroying the history of the car.

1969 Porsche 911TR

This 911 Hot Rod was the solution. It has a very similar look to what my racecar’s look but is set up for road driving. Plus with the orange hoods it was reminiscent of the orange Porsche 914 that I had just sold. Linda and I quickly gave it the name of Junior since it is a cross between my light ivory ’69 911 racecar and my orange ’73 914.

Porsche 911 Outlaw Interior with Scheel Racing Seats

Since I had just sold my ’73 Porsche 914 on Bring-a-Trailer, watching this ’68 911 Hot Rod on PCar Market was going to provide a good comparison between the two sites.

My observations:

• The costs to sell and buy are comparable: $99 to list a car for sale and a 5% buyer fee to purchase.

• Bring-a-Trailer is very selective in what they offer for sale on the site, while I am not sure that is the same with PCar Market.

• The Bring-a-Trailer enthusiast community is much more engaged in evaluating the car and providing prospective buyers with valuable information.

My preference as a buyer and seller is still Bring-a-Trailer as the marketplace offering the widest exposure for your car and as a buyer provides you with the greatest information and point-of-view on the validity of the purchase.

However, PCar Market provides a strong auction site to market your Porsche that may need gain Bring-a-Trailer approval or is a newer model Porsche that doesn’t normally appear on Bring-a-Trailer.

So what happened with this beautiful 1968 Porsche 911 Hot Rod and me? At four and half days out from the end of the auction, I jumped in with an initial bid of $35,000. @Falky and then @DrBrian quickly outbid me. These two continued bidding against each other until 24 hours before the closing with a top bid of $50,000. Then, they stopped bidding.

Bidding on Porsche 911 Outlaw

I found it very suspicious that @DrBrian suddenly dropped out at $50,000 one day before the end of the auction. Did he really think that he might purchase this car for $50,000 or was he just driving the price up?@Falky put one final bid in at $51,000 and then he disappeared too.

New serious buyers then jumped in at five hours to go with a short spurt of activity. Most notable was @cpr4500 who first appeared with a bid of $56,000. I held off on my jump back into the fray with a bid of $60,000 that was quickly topped by cpr4500 at $62,000. A jump of $2,000 meant @cpr4500 was serious and wanted the car.

The auction was on!

PCar Market uses a style similar to Bring-a-Trailer; if a bid comes in during the final two minutes of the auction; the auction is extended another two minutes. @cpr4500 and myself went back and forth. My limit was $68,000. @cpr4500 bid $66,000 and I countered in the final minute with $67,000. The auction timer ticked down.

OMG – I might win this car, and I did!

1968 Porsche Outlaw

Tags: Porsche 911 Hot Rod, Early Porsche 911, PCar Market