Craigslist can be truly surprising sometimes. Most of the time, the website is the home of questionable cars at high prices. Other times, vehicles that are far outside the reach of the average Craigslist reader pop up for sale. Why? The world will likely never know. An example of this is the appearance of a 1973 Porsche Carrera RS 2.7 for sale on Craigslist in Palm Desert, California. What is one of Porsche’s most legendary road cars doing on the free ad website? Perhaps it is the work of a seller who believes in leaving no stone unturned. At any rate, this yellow and black bumble bee of hot, nasty, badass speed can be yours for a paltry $479,000. Do you think there is a buyer out there on Craigslist who is ready to plunk down nearly half a million for their dream Porsche? Thanks to Tony P. for this pristine Porsche find!
So, why is a Porsche Carrera RS 2.7 special? While any Porsche is collectible on some level or another, the company is famous for making special cars once in a while that the faithful flock to with reckless abandon. In the early seventies, Porsche was deeply involved in several racing series. In racing during that time, in nearly all of the sanctioning bodies for series that specialized in using “street” cars, homologation was a requirement. This stated that a certain number of street versions had to be built before a vehicle was approved to race. The number was usually 500. Of course, this was cheated too, as racing back then was running fast and loose with the rules in every way you could imagine.
It was in this atmosphere that the 911 Carrera RS 2.7 was born. The plan was for Porsche to build 500 of these lighter, more powerful cars to qualify to race in the Group 4 Special GT cars class. It wasn’t long before customers heard of the plan and started holding up cash and demanding that Porsche take their money. Always willing to satisfy customer desires for large amounts of folding money, Porsche agreed to build more to satisfy enthusiasts and put them in the hands of people who liked to race when possible but weren’t part of the organized teams of the time. These additional cars were for more grassroots-level racing at track events and the enthusiasts who always wanted more power and better handling.
The performance numbers on these cars didn’t disappoint. According to Porsche’s website’s historical section, the car was the fastest German production car built up to 1972. A touring version with a little more weight could rocket from 0-100 kph (62 mph) in 5.8 seconds and would top out at around 152 mph. That is for a car that was produced 52 years ago. When you consider the advancements made since then in tires, engine management, and computer-assisted traction control, the numbers are impressive. Lowering the weight to a ridiculous 2,116 lbs. and cramming in a bigger motor has its benefits, then and now.
Once they made such a fast car, the test drivers were complaining of squirrely handling at high speeds. The engineers came up with a solution. A chin spoiler was added up front along with a rather upright spoiler that sat atop the engine cover. Playfully called the duck tail, this spoiler became a highly sought-after accessory for other 911 owners and calmed the rear end’s desire to wander at speed.
Giving the car a name also resulted in a Porsche tradition. The car was named after the Carrera Panamericana, a wild road race that ran the length of Mexico for five years in the early 1950s. Porsche had won a class victory in 1953 with a 550 Spyder (similar to the car James Dean was killed in). They felt it fitting to remember the hard-fought victory by using part of the name on high-performance versions of their sports cars. The Carrera RS 2.7 was the first car to wear the name, but there have been many more since.
As for this car, there isn’t much information included in the ad for a car that has a selling price of just shy of half a million dollars. The seller does tell us that they have owned the car since 1989. It is claimed to have a racing history, as the car is not a matching number car. What that history is, which can be quite important in the value of such cars, is not disclosed. We are told that it went through a nut and bolt restoration in 1990. The pictures are a testament to not only the quality of that restoration but for the care that the car has received since then. It has traveled 28,000 since the restoration was completed. You wouldn’t know that by looking at the pictures.
Who knows why the seller has chosen Craigslist to market this museum piece, or if it is for sale somewhere else? Cars of this caliber often change hands without so much as a whisper on the open market. Hopefully, the mileage covered since the restoration is an indication that the seller is someone who enjoys cars and is not part of the Porsche mafia that keeps these cars under wraps. For a purist few, it is hard to keep a car like this in the garage even if its value rivals that of a mansion.
I am stunned, and amazed at this asking price!
Hilarious. “No stone unturned” is not a marketing strategy I´d be happy with on selling a $$$ commodity item like this. You can only really establish the bona fides of a Carrera RS by buying through a dealer who knows the car and has a reputation to lose, but after a forensic independent inspection by a known RS specialist (not just a Porsche guy – someone reassuringly much more expensive!) and doing good paper research (the dealer should have this but someone should check it out).
A non-matching numbers car with racing history will trade at about 50% of the value of the real thing. Not $500K. Then there´s all kinds of minute detail which make a difference between $450K and $900K. A Touring from the first series of 500 homologation cars carries a premium over the later versions, for example. A genuine Lightweight is on a different scale, making the Touring look like good value.
And if a car has been restored, when and by whom? An older restoration was a wonderful opportunity to use the wrong parts. Availability of RS only elements is better now than it was 20-30 years ago, when the value of these cars still justified an exhaustive rebuild but the knowledge of the RS specification was much less widely known.
Duck tail, not duck bill. (I assume just a typo). The really big one is called the whale tail.
Let’s not forget the Tea Tray.
Which followed on the SC models.
A quick search shows this appearing on multiple Craigslist sites in the western US(SF, Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, Orange County, etc.).
On the Porsche Registry this car is listed as being painted orange from the factory.
It’s a Touring model yet the ad says not matching numbers due to racing history.
Sorry to be a cynic, but this smells fishy to me. Caveat emptor.
Teacher in a business class had a multiple choice test including caveat emptor. The possible answers:
A- The cave is empty.
B- Open the door and let the salesmen in.
C- Buyer beware.
I still laugh at this one.
I always thought it had something to do with empty fish eggs. Something only rich people know about buying. But I’m a poor boy…c’est la vie…
For sure. Who would actually try to sell a car like this on Craigslist?
Wow!!!! I can’t afford to even look at this !!
I have a buddy that works on Porches, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Saab, Fiat and Fords!!! The price he gets is phenomenal! But if you own one of these cars you can expect to pay the price!
The ’73 RSs have always been pricey. Limited numbers and racing origins made them popular right out of the box. Have seen them in action and they are fast. Good looking car here but then again it is yellow.
The mere fact that this car is listed on CL and not Hemmings is an immediate red flag (not that a Hemmings listing is necessarily a guarantee of a car being kosher but it improves the chances of a car being legit). No documentation and a scant description of this car’s history are 2 more reasons for me to take a pass on this one, even though it looks well presented.
I worked at Hemmings. There were plenty of s–t boxes listed. No fault of our staff. We had a mediator when a deal went south. As to this very Porsche. CL is not the place to sell something this valuable. I love 911s and this model is my all time favorite. Saw one at Watkins Glen in 1975 when Nikki Lauda won the Grand Prix. Still have my paper ticket stub.
Craigslist should be a warning for a half mil car.
Should be on an auction site, like bring a trailer, a reputable site.
And non numbers matching?????
I call fake or African Hut spoof. Hangon a sec let me give the seller my inof so they can contact me. Please.
In 1985, I sold my red 1973 CarreracRS 2,7, exactly simular to this one in mint condition, sold for Norwegian 240.000 who is ca US dollar 21.000. Today, you can not 4 find a car like this in whole Europe under US dollar 400.000
The Craigslist ad is the laziest effort to sell a clean early 911 I’ve ever seen. Add in that this is allegedly one of the rarer and more desirable models has to raise a lot of flags. If I were to go look at this in person, I’d want to take an armed guard with me.
CL car ads no longer free, at least in Asheville, NC. Now costs $5 to list a car!
Yup. Discovered that myself listing a motorcycle. Can’t blame them though. They are still easier to deal with than Ebay.
I saw this RS for sale displayed at the annual European Collectibles open house in Costa Mesa this past Saturday with a price tag of $390k. As per the listing it noted that it was originally orange. I drove a tangerine orange M471 lightweight (rubber floor mats instead of carpets, leather door straps instead of interior door handles, lightweight Sekurit glass etc) when they first came out in late 1972. It was very fast but extremely twitchy and still wandered at speed and followed every slight bump in the road.
These are fabulous cars to drive. I had one for some time and later a 911 S converted in Germany to RS spec using factory parts. They have a relatively low compression ratio and mild cams so very tractable for everyday driving. Mine was not at all twitchy.