2:19 pm, March 2, 2012
FINALLY – after nearly two years of hard work – our Porsche 911 is up for sale in aid of charity BEN.
For those of you who’ve been following the quest, apologies, but here’s a quick recap: We started with nothing, traded up 13 used cars with the help of the industry and finally managed to buy R97 RRK in October from a Brummie dealer.
Told you it’d be quick….
Anyway, since then we’ve twisted the arms of our industry contacts, starting with Porsche GB who gave it £2k’s worth of servicing, then the clean team at Autoglym spent nine hours making it look like new. Read more about all that here.
Our 90k-mile 996 Carrera 2 was then dropped off at Porsche specialists 911Virgin.com. There was one slight hold-up though. Before Henry Firmin and his team were prepared to put her up for sale he wanted us to arrange a warranty.
Henry is selling the car completely commission-free so we can hand over the entire proceeds to BEN – so he was understandably worried that, as the selling dealer, any comeback would see him out of pocket.
So we set about trying to find a warranty. Enter stage right, Car Dealer Power warranty award winners Car Care Plan. It isn’t normally the sort of car they’d be able to provide cover for – it’s too old – but they promised they’d find a way.
COVER
The firm’s Andrew Jackson was soon back in touch with a year’s cover that satisfied Henry and meant our car could finally go on sale.
R97 RRK went up for sale on 911Virgin.com yesterday for £11,995 and we’ve got everything crossed she finds a home soon. To be honest, it’s an absolute cracking buy. There aren’t many 911s of that age and mileage that can claim to have been given the once-over by Porsche GB – and with the Car Care Plan warranty to put buyers’ minds at rest too, it shouldn’t hang around.
Having spent three months with the car myself, while we were getting everything sorted, I’m even rather tempted myself. I loved the way it drives, the steering is incredible (it’s so true what they say about 911 steering), and it’s quick enough to be very entertaining.
It’s already started to attract some attention on PistonHeads.com too – a thread has already popped up about it – following the advert going live on the site here.
Let’s hope the next post about this story features me in local newspaper pose handing over a giant cheque to BEN.
