It is not often you find a Porsche 968 Sport for sale – with the Porsche world is dominated by the iconic 911, where interest and value are centred on the rare and ground breaking models.
When it comes to rarity, think of the 993 Turbo S, with 345 built? If you could find one for sale, you’d be looking at at least a quarter of a million quid. 997 Sport classic with 250 built? Same story. Put the 968 Sport into the list of top 12 rarest 911s, and draw your own conclusions?
In between the two, in terms of numbers produced, lies the Porsche 968 Sport, with just 306 leaving the factory. Of these only 278 seem to have been registered in the UK. And to add to the rarity, just heading for the UK market. Today, nearly 30 years after the brief 1994 to 1995 production window there are a remarkable 243 still registered, a sign of how well respected they are by a very small circle of Porsche cognoscenti.
These cars are the end of the line of Porsche’s development of front engined cars of the ’70’s, ’80s and 90’s. By 1994 these ‘transaxle’ cars had come a long way, and by now had a 3 litre, 4 cylinder engine with new Variocam variable valve timing and a new 6 speed gearbox sitting over the rear axle.
The combination proved extremely effective, with motoring journalists hailing it as the best handling car of the time, with perfect weight distribution and a level of grip that actually outweighed the 237HP power available. Here was a car that could cover ground on real road conditions astonishingly quickly.
But how did the UK manage to get it’s own exclusive Porsche? The ‘standard’ 968 was a superb GT car, well equipped, fast and a proper driving machine. But then there was the 968 Clubsport, focussed at track use before track days were even really a thing. There was dramatic weight reduction through deleting rear seats, some soundproofing, electric windows, rear wiper, airbag, extraneous wiring and even engine covers. And added were Recaro sports seats, 17″ wheel with wider tyres and lowered suspension based on experience from the 944 Cup race cars.
In the UK today there are 152 of the 968 Clubsports registered, with over 100 of those on SORN – a clear sign that these cars are being tucked away as their value rises.
However the Clubsport proved just too raw and unfiltered for the UK market and UK road surfaces, and the Sport was born. Built alongside the Clubsports, with similar chassis numbers, came the Sport. On the Sport some of the deleted items crept back in – electric windows and boot release, and rear seats, and new cloth front bucket seats that were a lot easier to live with than the punishing Recaros. So here was a track-derived Porsche that could actually be used on UK roads, but limited to just over 300 units.
Today these largely forgotten unicorns are beginning to attract well deserved interest from a wider audience. With the drift of 90’s motors into the world of the more established classic cars, rare cars from the aspirational manufacturers are climbing fast in value – the Porsche 964s have seen big increases, as have the rarer 993 cars sold alongside the 968s.
For today’s buyer, looking for a Porsche 968 Sport for sale, there are only ever a limited number of cars for sale – and one has to take care. Around the mid-2000s, when the cars were a decade old and getting affordable, many actually got the chance to do what they were meant to and ended up as track day cars. Some were retro fitted with the M030 suspension and LSD and all would have been brilliant – but used hard. Today, with values more sensible, some of these old warriors are appearing with certain elements of their history brushed over, so it pays to look at history and for evidence of old body repairs carefully.
The Porsche 968 Sport for sale with us is the best we’ve seen in the 3 years we’ve been following them. At the point at which it might have been neglected or thrashed, it was with an owner who seems to have acquired the it in the summer of 1999. At 5 years old the car looks to have had owners in St Albans, Colchester and Nottingham. The first owner put an enthusiastic 10K mile a year on the car, but after that subsequent owners were barely managing half that.
So, moving to the South Coast in 1999, the car was registered A11 GOB to reflect the owner’s profession, and was something of a local celebrity alongside his wife’s car, A11 LEG – which reflected her former career.
Keeping the car until 2015 with servicing mainly at Rivervale Brighton and Porsche Centre Mid-Sussex, and putting around 3000 miles a year on the clock, this owner is largely responsible to the great condition of the car today. It was clearly garaged, and there were some big bills, not least for new camshafts, balancing shafts, Variocam unit and associated belts and chains at 85k miles in 2007.
From 2007 to 2015 the MOT record shows steady use of around 2000 miles per year, and then just 1000 miles to early 2018 when a new custodian in Oxfordshire took over, adding the car to a collection of 1990’s rarities, correcting a list of minor issues and carrying out a service. The following year, 2019, saw some attention to the brakes by Hillcrest in Henley, but having moved house and inadvertently filled the new garages with a fresh collection, the car moved into the ownership of another collector, this time based in Hampshire. As the car was on the ramp in his garage at home when the enforced hiatus of 2020 came around, a number of small details were attended to, such as renewing the fixings for the front undertrays. The car was also sent to GTR Motorsport in Andover for a freshening of some paintwork, replacement of failing spoiler fixings and a retrim of the driver’s seat in the correct Porsche material. The climate control panel was also replaced at this stage.
This rare Porsche 968 Sport is now for sale. It is wonderfully unmolested, and has not had the exciting but wearing track use that so many have. The Polar Silver paintwork shows off the design and shape particularly well, and in itself seems a rare colour for the marque. The driving experience is excellent, and reminds one of how good the cars of the era were, when handling was prized as opposed to pure horsepower. The simplicity of the cabin is a joy, and a reminder of the days when in a Porsche, less was more.
At £22500, this is an opportunity to acquire a well looked after rare and interesting car, and one that’s value is likely to increase as it’s 911 contemporary’s values soar.