Finally got my 996.1 and I couldn't be happier

Hey Everyone! Finally was able to get ahold of an early build 996.1. Here is the story: So I've been on the hunt (off and on) for well over a year now. I would always find something that was either already sold, or simply out of my price range. The just over 2 weeks ago on a Friday, while going through cargurus.com trying to find an ad for another 996.1 that I had missed out on so I could show my best friend, I bumped into an ad for a newly listed 996.1 that was being sold by a small dealer in Orlando, FL. I live in Miami, FL so Orlando is basically right there for me. The ad was extremely light on the details. It only had 4 pictures posted and the description read "new arrival, more pictures coming soon." From what I could see in the pictures, it was Glacier White on Savanah Beige, manual transmission, yellow headlights and taillights, and only 70,551 miles. The asking price was $30,995. Not a steal, but not terribly high either, it all depends on how its optioned. I was not very impressed with the listing, and I was further discouraged since it was being sold by a dealer. Also, it would most likely be missing the service history that we all look for. I looked through the free Carfax report and noticed that it spent its first 3 months and 2800 miles in Pennsylvania. Then 1.5 months and 1800 miles in North Carolina. Then when it was only 5 months old and having only 4600 miles, it made a move to Texas where it spent the next 25 years. That was good since it spent most of its life in a warm climate. Despite all this, I decided to do nothing. The fact that there were so few details, plus it was being sold by a dealer really discouraged me. The next day which was a Saturday, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give the dealer a call. The gentleman I spoke to was the owner and he was very forthcoming with the details. He bought the car from an auction (Manheim OVE). It was currently at a local shop specializing in German cars getting a PPI done. He said he does that with every car he buys to make sure they are good to go before he sells them. The shop found three issues with it and all three issues were being repaired: new blower motor, new blower motor resistor, and new air oil separator. He sent me a link to view the PPI results. He said he had no records and no service history, and nothing came inside the car. He did tell me that the car was in great condition, drove great and it was all original (no mods he could see). It only had two cosmetic flaws: a poor repair on the front bumper and a small tear in the headliner (about half an inch). I asked him for a picture of the options sticker. He said he would get it to me once the car came back from the shop on Monday, along with additional pictures. I hung up fully expecting to never hear from him again. Low and behold, on Monday he contacted me. He sent me a message saying that the repairs were taking a bit longer than expected and that he would be getting the car back on Tuesday. I acknowledged the message and again thought that would be the last time I would hear from him. To his credit, on Tuesday he sent me pictures of the options sticker, the car, and a quick walk around video where he pointed out the two cosmetic flaws previously mentioned. To my surprise, the options sticker showed that not only was it an extremely low optioned model, but it had 408's! I had to confirm that they were still on the car, so I asked him for pictures of the backside of the wheels. He said the car was at the tire shop as he had decided to replace all 4 tires, but that we would get me the pictures ASAP. Sure enough, the next day he sent pictures of the back of the wheels which confirmed (with part numbers) that it still had the original hollow spokes. At this point, the price was a lot more attractive! I called him up and tried to negotiate down the price. He wouldn't budge at all. I agreed to pay asking and buy it. On Friday I rented a car one way and drove up to Orlando. Once there, I inspected it from top to bottom and front to back. No previous body work. No obvious damage anywhere. Everything worked as it should. A/C was ice cold. Car drove perfectly. It also still has its original engine that I confirmed with the serial number. We did the paperwork and I drove it home. A total of about 250 miles to get back home. Driving at 75mph in 6th gear had the RPMs at 2800. I got an average of 24.7 mpg! Overall, I am ecstatic with my purchase. The car drives well and pulls hard. I'm already looking forward to doing some small mods here and there. Now, the obligatory pictures

Also forgot to mention that the dealer was FANTASTIC throughout the whole process. He was an honest, no-nonsense type of guy. Very easy to deal with. Made the process enjoyable as there was no drama, no lies, and no empty promises.

This is a wonderful buying experience and What a great start to a long term relationship with your Glacier Whtie 2/98 build. I am the lucky owner of a Glacier / Black 3/98 build and we love every minute of it. Mine has just over 100k miles and stlll wears it's original paint and frankly looks brand new. Amazing how well these early build 996's hold up. Welcome to not only the 996 frey and early build 996 club but to the Glacier White / Amber club. May you have many happy miles with her.

Thanks! I had just missed out on a Glacier/Metropol Blue/early build with ambers (found it too late), so I was pretty bummed. But this one popped up and the rest is history You are right in that they hold up well. The interior picture I posted was from the dealers ad. It's a terrible picture and I wasn't that impressed. But when I saw it in person, the interior looks amazing. The picture does not do it justice. I plan on taking some better ones soon enough. Thanks again for the welcome I plan on learning a bunch and contributing just as much.

Best of luck enjoy the ride it’s a beauty white 996 are special

Good for you Bruddah!! Welcome to the crazy train. Glad the right car found you.

Congrats 👍🏻

Great story and a fantastic buy. Very interesting to see that combination of options!

Dang and 408s! You got a great deal!

Congrats and Welcome! Something about a white 996 that makes me happy. I�m in Miami too and there are a lot of local events if you ever wanted to join.

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Would you mind identifying the dealer? Just curious. I bought my first Porsche 6 years ago from a dealer in Orlando and also had a good experience.

I've only had 2 Porsches and one 996 (still have & love them). But I've owned more than 50 cars. Every one has a story of how it found me. When the point in the story transforms to "this car is meant for me!", it's an exciting moment.

I have never seen such a lightly optioned 996. Very interesting! And the colors are gorgeous. Good get.

Good job! Great colors and the dealer took care of the repairs. Very cool 😎

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Thanks everyone! Very cool. Yes, definitely interested. I went to DRT back in January. I also went to the C&C at Parkhaus1 on March 4, but was only there for about an hour, had to leave a bit early. I've been told about Beat Culture for Porsche which is the 2nd Thursday of each month. If there is anything else, I'd love to know about it. Thanks! Don't mind at all. I left him a 5-star review on Google. Rock Sound Autos . It's a small, one person operation. The owners name is Romeo. Great guy. This is indeed how I'm feeling. This car was meant for me and it somehow found me. When I want something, I normally put a ton of effort to get it ASAP. However, in this case, I took an extremely laidback approach from Friday when I found it, all the way until Wednesday midday. Only on Wednesday late afternoon did I kick it into high gear and put maximum effort to make the deal happen. Deal was finally closed (verbally) by about 7pm on Wednesday. There were plenty of points during those 5 days or so where the process could have fallen apart. Indeed! I was surprised by that as well. He said he does that with all of his cars. He buys them and then sends them to get a PPI and get all issues addressed. I forgot to mention that he also had the ignition switch replaced as it was not springing back after the engine was started. Overall great experience.

Beat Culture is pretty chill but it�s mostly non 996 guys. Vintage Vices is pretty active on IG, good guys there. I�ll DM you my contact info and won�t be back in Miami until July.

Congrats on a really nice looking early build 996 Great exterior color and unique options The only things the original owner needed, lightweight wheels and a CD player

Nice score on a Glacier White Early 99!!!! IMHO the only thing better would be if it was XAA ...I miss my chance to buy a Early 99 Glacier White XAA right here in my little rural town for $25k a few years ago....I thought the price was just a little high..lol

Nice, you don't see a lot of white 996s. Congrats and welcome to the club!

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996.1 owner here, I love mine. I had to do an ECU tune to get rid of the E throttle lag. You have saved that money right there, and the hollow spokes are expensive we've all seen them on BAT. White has to be a really rare color, it looks nice on the swoopy soft curved 996. Why do all new cars look like a maniac drew them... They're all jagged angles and sharp lines. I'll take an xk-120 or an older 911 any day of the week. To each his own 👍 Did you end up paying the 31k? Sorry if you posted I read 2x and didn't see that. Just curious.

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Thanks again everyone! Thanks! Oh wow, that was quite the deal looking back with today's prices lol When I first started looking just over a year ago, I remember running into older threads where people picked them up for around $15k. I simply took my eye off the market for too long and I missed the ultimate low point in terms of pricing. Either way, here we are. Indeed! White is indeed not very common. Funny enough I found two of them within a few days of each other. I would have totally ended up with the first one had it been available. I did mention it but no worries, yes, I did end up paying asking. In my opinion, it wasn't a steal, but it wasn't a ripoff. It was priced right based on the current market. And if it was a bit high, I don't care, I'm in love

I have found this to be true of almost every used car dealership. They pretty much advertise all their cars at their bottom line price or close to it. I walked from a number of cars because of used dealers unwilling to move much from their price. My 996 is the exception for which I paid the asking price.

GORGEOUS. Holy cow. Congratulations. Enjoy it in best of health - see you on the internet!

Looks really good in white, and also the partial black or dark grey trim in the interior. I gotta do that some day. And for the record I bought mine at an independent dealer also, European specialist, and paid full price. But they were willing to fix a couple of things I objected to and also fixed the flaws that were revealed from the PPI. Congratulations.

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Yeah, in the beginning he gave me the typical line of "I'm getting a lot of calls for this car". However, when I was there doing the paperwork to buy it, he told me "you're going to make a lot of people sad today. I have people waiting in case this falls through." Also, after dealing with him, and getting a feel for his style of doing business, I do not doubt he was telling the truth. Thanks! Yeah, white looks really good on the 996.

Congratulations are in order! That is a beautiful specimen. These early 996.1 coupes -- ambers intact -- really speak to me. Were you specifically hunting for an early production example? According to my data (at present, I have information about a random sample of 443 early 996.1 coupes), Glacier White is a fairly rare color, representing 7.4% of the cars I've catalogued. Savannah Beige is more common, with 20.5% of my sample having some form of Savannah Beige leather. In terms of the intersection of those two colors, I'm only aware of three coupes in the early production VIN range that were finished in Glacier White over Savannah Beige. Their VIN endings are: 590 (your car) 1131 1312 ...of which, yours is the earliest. Cheers!

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like you i wanted an early car. Yes I have 408s. I�m currently sitting at 102k miles, so I have already driven it more than 12k miles. If you think is fast and pull strong with mods it can be faster. Keep the original parts as I believe in the future in case you decide to sell put it back to stock will be the way to go. Yes I also found my car In car gurus and went to Wisconsin to pick it up. I was lucky because I snatched it for $18k. I also got me an 03 turbo that one is a rocket ship. Become a PCA member, our region here is super active go to cars and Coffees, drives, social gatherings etc, you�ll meet mechanics and fellow porsches guys that will help you with a bunch of stuff. Now get out and drive, 6 month oil changes, shell v power 93. I nickname my cars, this one is the silver surfer. Yeah I�m in the Houston area.

Beautiful Porsche! I recently bought a Carrara White '03 Targa, black interior, so I like your Glacier White one. Enjoy!

Nice example. Always had a soft spot for the 996 coupes.

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Thank you! Yes, I was specifically looking for an early production car. I didn't care about the actual production date, just as long as it was something with a throttle cable. My main goal was to get the most analog Porsche possible within my budget. My budget was to stay as close to $30k as possible, but not get into or past the $40k's. Bonus would have been something in the $20k's. I really like the earlier models too (930, 964, 993), but those are priced way out of my budget. After researching the 996, I determined that if I was able to find an early model with as few options as possible, it was as analog as it could get bearing in mind my budget. Obviously if I found one that had traction control, the onboard computer, power seats, etc. but everything else was exactly what I wanted, I wasn't going to pass it up. My list of wants/wishes were: Manual transmission (a must) A color that you don't see too often (I was looking for so long however, I just about dropped this wish) Not modified at all or minor mods only Mileage that showed use; not a garage queen, not a super high mileage car Ambers (as this likely signaled an early production model, also, I like the look ambers lol) As few factory options as possible 408's would be the icing on the cake, but not required by any means This is why finding this car was amazing to me. To the point where I'm firmly in the "it was meant to be"/"the car found me" camp. It literally checked all of my wants/wishes. As I said before, I couldn't be happier Wow, you scored a great deal! How long ago was that if you don't mind me asking? Congrats, it looks great. Thanks for the tips/advice, I appreciate it Thanks! I'm sure yours is a beauty. Thanks!

Your parameters while searching for a 996 were almost the same as mine, from budget to color preferences to mileage to modifications! I was agnostic about options count, but I did have full leather as a preference. Glad we weren't hunting at the same time as one another, I'd have been very sorry to lose this car to you. Agreed, ambers are the way to go! I ended up dropping my wish for an unusual exterior color -- mine is a 7/98 build in Arctic Silver (something like 42% of early 996.1 coupes were finished in Arctic Silver, as far as I can tell).