I was perusing the Facebook Marketplace ads like I usually do and this 2001 Porsche 911 Cabriolet came up on my feed. I wasn’t even expecting to find a 911 as the typical price point for my project cars is usually under $10k. However, this 996 popped up for a fair price so I had to send a message to the owner. Shortly after, I got a phone number and called the owner directly to ask about the car.
It was already the weekend and I knew the bank would be closed, so I made arrangements to see it first thing Monday morning since the seller was about an hour away. I went about my day and later in the evening, I noticed that the seller changed the status of the car to ‘sold’.
I texted the seller and asked him if he sold it and he said he had someone come see the car already and was going to come the next morning to buy it. I wasn’t too surprised as I knew this is just how it works– cash is king, so if you’ve got cash right then and there, then it’s yours. Well, I just told the owner to let me know if for some reason the potential buyer doesn’t follow through.
The next day or two, I didn’t hear anything from the seller so I just figured the car sold. Until, I saw that the seller reposted the car for sale. So, I reached out again since I had a phone number and he told me that the car is still for sale. I asked him why he didn’t reach out to me again and he started getting defensive for some reason. My assumption is that he was getting overwhelmed with the number of responses on the car and got frustrated because he just couldn’t keep track of the responses.
Well, I made plans to go see the car again and this time I was able to test drive the car. The car was in decent shape. Mechanically, the car was sound. But from outside, there was some immediate concerns. The most apparent was the that the convertible top was broken and would not operate open/closed. Aside from that, there were the usual things you’d expect from a 25 year old car.
When it came time to buy the car, I found out from the owner that he had just purchased the car but decided to sell it right away. His reason was that it was supposed to be a son-and-father project. I was skeptical as it was so recently purchased, that they haven’t even received the new registration in the mail yet. This presented a problem as we wouldn’t be able to sign the title to transfer the ownership to me.
If you have a missing title when you’re trying to buy/sell a car, you normally just need to fill out a DMV Form asdfkljas;flkasjfas, and optionally fill out a Bill of Sale (DMV Form aslkdfjla;skdjfaksjf). The caveat here was that if the seller of the car registered the car within that past 90 days and hasn’t received the title of the car from the DMV yet, then you are required to fill out the DMV Form alskjfdlaksjfkla and go to the CHP to fill out Form l;akjsdlfkajslkfja for verification of the VIN number on the vehicle.
Since I made the hour drive out to see the car, I really wanted to make the deal there rather than come back again (or have the car sold by the time I came back.) I think the seller also wanted to make the deal quickly rather than deal with more people. So, I suggested that I pay for the car, take the car home, and come back at a later date to pick up the DMV title when it came in the mail. I felt comfortable suggesting this because the seller did have the registration from the DMV in his name.
Now it was time to pay. I feel like something always seems to happen to me when it comes to buying cars. I went to the bank and withdrew cash from the teller. They asked me for my driver’s license for a large withdrawal. I pulled my wallet and… my driver’s license was missing. I frantically looked all around and slowly realized that the day prior, I had to give my license for verification at some store, and they probably forgot to give my license back to me.
Long story short, I had to withdraw the cash limit without verification, and pay with a multitude of payment apps to pay the full amount. Thankfully, this worked and I was able to take the car home that day. The seller also kept their word and let me know a week later when the title came in and I picked up to fill out and transfer ownership.
As you’d expect, as soon as I had my new-to-me 996, I started researching the car and watched all the videos out there that were available on this generation 911. Since this is the first watercooled 911 released and the first time the 911 was mass-produced, the rarity and value of these cars is not as high as the previous generations, so people are snagging these up since they are an affordable entry-point into 911 ownership.
Almost every one of these 996 videos starts out the same. It talks about how the 996 is the most hated 911 generation out there, the reasons why (ugly non-circular headlights, first generation to be water-cooled, shares parts with the Boxster), and why the car is actually so great especially because of how it drives. I find these videos quite obnoxious not just because everyone has the same script when talking about the 996, but because I never thought that the car looked bad at all.
I’m a big fan of cars from the 90s-2000s, and this generation 911 falls right into that time frame. It was a time we had such a large variety of cool cars that now 20 years later, I can finally afford to buy. I didn’t really care for earlier generations of the 911, nor the more recent generations either. The 996 was the generation I just remember the most and would probably be the only one I would like to own (aside from a 993).
The timing is perfect with getting this new project car. We recently had our driveway repaved and there is now a space for this Porsche 911, but also for my Audi TT which I’m still working on as well. I try to focus on one project at a time, at the moment I’m working on the TT. However, when I do get to the 996, the first thing I need to get sorted out is the non-working, broken convertible top. If you’d like to see more work on this car, I wil lbe posting them up on my project page.
