Selling Your Air-Cooled Porsche via an Auction
- Commander
- Jul 21, 2025
- 7 min read
When you make a decision to sell your Air-Cooled Porsche, there are many options to consider, such as selling privately, to a dealer, via an online auction or via a live auction.
I recently decided to sell my 1968 911 Hot Rod. I knew I didn’t want to sell it personally as I didn’t want to identify and negotiate a price or more relevantly, deal with buyers and tire kickers contacting me with many questions, and then trying to filter through real buyers versus curious onlookers.
Deciding on How to Price and Sell Your Air-Cooled Porsche
Pricing a modified early-911 is difficult because comparable sales are difficult to identify to provide pricing guidance. My ’68 911 was built on a 1968 chassis with a 1969 911S race-prepared engine, a 1971 911S 901 transmission and modified suspension with many Elephant Racing parts and Koni shocks. It was built to drive, and in particular to be a “Mountain Carver” along the roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains around my home in the Asheville, North Carolina area.
I had bought and sold cars on both Bring-a-Trailer (BaT)and P-Car Market and through Live Auctions with RM Auctions that is now RM Sotheby’s. They are very different experiences. Quite honestly, the online auctions are brutal. The “Peanut Gallery” is unrelenting in asking questions and analyzing the car up for sale. However, there is generally a price bonus when selling, particularly on BaT and you reach the greatest number of eyeballs with the following that BaT and P-Car Market have online.
My 911 Hot Rod was unique so it would take someone understanding and desiring the car to maximize the sale. I thought it might have an appeal by a Live Auction House because of its eye-catching appeal. I noticed that Broad Arrow Auctions, a division of Hagerty Insurance, was conducting an auction in Southern California in conjunction with the Air|Water all Porsche show. This show seemed like a target-rich auction as the car had a look and set-up for a southern California audience that would be looking for a canyon-carver with great potential for showing and driving in a new market.
My 1968 had spent its life on the East Coast and appeared in many shows up and down the coast, from Werks Reunion Amelia to Luftgekühlt 8 in Indianapolis, R-Gruppe (East) acceptance and many Air Brigade drives, events and Instagram Postings. The car would be fresh in California.
Selling Your Air-Cooled Porsche via a Live Auction
Friend and Porsche Expert, Ray Shaffer had joined Broad Arrow in the last year so a call went out to him. With a live auction house, just because you want to sell through their auction doesn’t mean that your car will be accepted. Their marketing brings the best-of-the-best buyers and prospects to their events so they want quality cars that will appeal to their customers that will result in a sale.
Ray and I had a conversation about the car and I provided him with photos and history of the car. Ray thought it had potential and agreed to research the pricing that he thought it would bring at auction. This would be reviewed with me and if we agreed to projected pricing and costs to sell the car, then it would be submitted to the Broad Arrow review panel for acceptance.
Selling Your Air-Cooled Porsche with a Reserve Price or No Reserve
A big decision with any auction is whether to have a Reserve price on the car or not. For those new to auctions, a Reserve price is a price set by the seller that is the minimum price that will be accepted by the seller to have the transaction go through. The No Reserve pricing means the car will sell no matter what price is achieved at auction. It can appear risky for the seller, because what happens if there are not buyers for the car? But, on the other side, a No Reserve auction often generates more interest and higher sale prices because bidders know that a sale will occur. In a Reserve auction, the bidders do not know what the Reserve is they never know whether their bidding will result in a sale or whether the auction will end with No Sale.
Since I was experienced with auctions, I went into the discussion with Ray with the idea to have a No Reserve sale on the car. My partner Linda was nervous about this decision but I was confident that the car was going in front of the right audience that a sale at price higher than my minimum would occur. As it turned out, it was not my total decision. For this auction, Ray advised that Broad Arrow was targeting all cars selling for No Reserve if the target price was under $100,000.
Pricing a Air-Cooled Porsche for Sale
Ray’s research indicated that they expected the car to sell between $75,000 and $125,000. I had the car insured with Hagerty for $75,000 and that was the price I had in mind if I was selling the car in a private sale. The other factors in making a sale is what commission would be charged by Broad Arrow for selling the car, their marketing fee and in this case the price to ship the car from North Carolina to California via covered transport.
I ran the numbers and decided the audience at a major all-Porsche show in Southern California would have the audience to sell the car at a price in excess of other options. Ray and I negotiated the selling commission and marketing costs and then it was submitted to the review panel to see if it was accepted for sale at the auction.
Air-Cooled Porsche Selling Recommendations for an Auction Sale
My 1968 911 Hot Rod was accepted for the Air|Water Auction so paperwork was signed and the process was agreed to prepare the marketing plan to get the car to market.
Ray came back with three immediate recommendations: 1) Remove the #68 Roundel so the car would not be mis-identified as a race car so it would have broader appeal, 2) we would market the car as a Sports Purpose 911 that is nomenclature that Porsche used for early-911 modified cars, and 3) Change the Speedline wheels (Minilite-look) to Fuchs that are more appropriate for an early-911 Sports Purpose 911.
We agreed on removing the Roundel and the calling it a Sports Purpose 911, but disagreed on changing out the wheels. I did not want the expense of buying period correct Fuchs, I liked the Speedline wheels (Minilite-look wheels) and didn’t feel the extra expense of the Fuchs would provide an added return on investment. Ray/Broad Arrow were in agreement with these decisions.
The next step was to get professional photography of the car for marketing on social media and in the catalog. Broad Arrow arranged for a photographer who spent a day at my house photographing and videoing the car. The team they sent were very experienced and professional in approaching how to best show this unique automobile.
Broad Arrow Auctions Marketing an Air-Cooled Porsche for Sale
The Broad Arrow marketing machine and Ray’s connections within the Porsche world took over and my 911 started appearing in Porsche forums and feeds on Facebook and Instagram. It felt like my Sports Purpose 911 was the star of the Auction.
I asked Ray about the reason for why the car was being featured so much in social media. The reason why a $100,000 is being highlighted instead of the $1,000,000 cars is that the look and price point provided a unique that was affordable and would bring more prospective buyers to auction if they thought there was an affordable car for them as opposed to the million-dollar buyers. A live auction needs to have a broad range of cars and buyers.
A Broad Arrow Live Auction of an Air-Cooled Porsche
Auction day came on April 29, 2025 and my anticipation and anxiety built as the day of reckoning was here. Did I make the right decision to ship the car to California, and agree to a No Reserve sale?
Ray advised that the car received a good lot number so it came up on the auction block in a good position in the early-middle of the auction among some of the more expensive high-quality cars so it provided the average buyer a chance now to jump in and bid and buy a car.
My goal was to have the car sell at a minimum price of $75,000. I could not travel to Southern California to be at the auction in person so was watching online with Linda. The auctioneer opened the bids at $40,000 causing Linda and I to look at each other with a look of concern; what if this No Reserve decision had the car selling at $40,000. Relief; with seconds the bidding shot up to $80,000 on the car.
All it takes is two people wanting the car which my car had. The final bid was $90,000 to an online bidder that delivered a sale price after buyer commissions of $100,800. I was ecstatic at the price achieved. Relief and joy were experienced in our living room as Linda and I were crowded around my laptop.
Ray immediately texted me with results as he was unaware that I was able to watch the auction through YouTube since my other commitment keeping me from traveling to California for the auction may not have allowed me to view on a computer.
Once the auction occurs, the experience is not complete. Ray was ever diligent in advising me as the process occurred to confirm the money was transferred and paperwork processed. It was about 30-days before the money was in my account but everything went off without a hitch.
Why to Sell Your Porsche in a Live Auction
Experts advise you along the way.
The auction company is experienced at positioning the car for the audience
Details are handled; no fuss
Your car will be in front of the right audience for the car
If you are in the right auction, real buyers are in the room, with money and ready to buy.
Thanks for the article on auction sales - this was the first coherent explanation I have found of the reserve/no reserve issue.