Keith’s Blog: The SCM 928 Has Sailed Away

Our 1991 Porsche 928 S4 has gone to a new owner. Courtesy of Matt Crandall (911r) and the gang at Avant-Garde Collection, it sold for $46,928 on Wednesday, August 25, on Bring A Trailer. The auction garnered 10,365 views, 823 watchers and 26 bids.

Avant-Garde Collection is local to me here in Portland, and Matt Crandall and I share the distinction (or infamy) of both having been the General Manager of Ron Tonkin Gran Turismo, the then-Ferrari/Maserati/Lotus dealer in Portland. (We carried Zimmer as well, but we generally don’t talk much about that.)

Avant-Garde Collection has built a reputation for creatively and attractively presenting its cars, and being attentive to the trolls during the auction. Over the weekend while the dealership was closed, a clan of “crank endplay” fanatics started pummeling the auction with demands for readings. One particularly friendly and patient person more or less posted, “No readings, no sale!”

Come Monday morning the readings were posted, and the end-play gang could go off their medication.

This sale procedure was a bit unusual for me. Matt put a reserve on the car, presumably because he was unsure of the market for an S4 automatic.

With less than half an hour go to until the end of the auction, bidding had stalled at $36,000. Matt called, and I told him to pull the reserve. The market is what the market is, and the bidding was high enough that it would not have meant a total bloodbath for me.

Then what every seller dreams about happened: New bidders jumped in and previous ones raised theirs.

We had a nearly $11,000 jump in the last few minutes. I threw in a two-year SCM membership, along with two caps and a pair of wine glasses. I don’t think it affected the outcome, but it added to the fun factor.

Avant-Garde makes a little more commission, I end up more than breaking even on the car (more about that later) and 928 owners everywhere can rejoice.

This car brought a fair price given its excellent condition, paperwork trail from new and recent service by marque experts.

Before I submerged myself into this slightly odd sector of the market, I did my homework.

While enormously capable, 928s are also enormously complicated and enormously expensive to put right. You can’t buy a rat for $15k, put $40k into it and have a car as good as this one.

My method of ownership is to pay what it takes to find a car with good bones that has never been abused. Then, put it into the hands of marque experts for them to make it right, without regard to cost.

If my 928 had not been in top shape when I used it, how would I ever have known what a good 928 was like?

Then I drive the cars and enjoy them, seeing what they have to teach me. In this case, I spent several months and went several thousands of miles with the car.

While it’s always better to make money than to lose it, my reason for buying and selling cars is to learn about them and take them off my bucket list, one at a time. I’ve had many people say to me, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to own a 928.” I felt that way too, and now the itch has been scratched.

With the sale of the 928 at $47k and the Volvo 122S at $20k, I have now funded the purchase of the 1971 Citroen DS21 I paid $68k for. You’ll be learning more about that car soon, and so will I.

And I’ve already had SCM contributor Miles Collier say to me, “I’ve always wanted to own a DS21.” I told him he can drive ours whenever he wants.