Market Guides 
In the first half of 2023, the classic and exotic car market at large has seen a slowdown when compared to the high-growth era of the Pandemic. However, as we cover in our 2023 Half-Time Report, this isn’t a time to panic, as the market is still healthy and stable.
When it comes to Porsche sales that crossed the auction block between January through June 2023 compared to the same time period in 2022, Dollar Volume is down 7.5%, while the amount of sold listings increased by 5% – with 12% more total listings. While these numbers show a general slowdown of the Porsche Market, they follow a trend consistent with the industry overall where more cars are being listed at auction, but buyers are being more judicious in their bids, and sellers are having to re-set their expectations when it comes to pricing.
Porsche Market: Sold Listings
Total Porsche vehicles sold at classic and exotic car auctions for the months of January-June over the past 5 years, broken down by model.
Porsche Market: Dollar Volume
Total sales in USD for Porsche cars at classic and exotic car auctions for the months of January-June over the past 5 years, broken down by model.
Porsche Market: Sell-through Rate
Percentage of Porsche vehicles listed that successfully sold at classic and exotic car auctions for the months of January-June over the past 5 years, broken down by model.
Breaking it down by Model
It’s no surprise to see the 911 as the most popular model sold at auction – it made up 62% of the sold listings and 75% of the dollar volume in the first half of 2023. After that, we see the Boxster, Cayman and 718 selling the most, followed by the Front-engine models (928, 944, 968, etc) and the SUV’s (Cayenne and Macan).
High-Tier Porsche’s: 959, 918, Carrera GT and the pure-bred Race Cars
If we look at the higher tier value Porsche’s, like the 959, the 918 Spyder and the Carrera GT, Total Listings went up with respect to last year – but Sold Listings went down by 33%, and Dollar Volume went down by 50%. Of the 19 cars that crossed the block, only 10 sold – 7 of which were Carrera GT’s.
While it is typical to only see a handful of 959's sell each year, we saw an increase during this period thanks to the Canepa re-imagined 959 sold in December. Nevertheless, sales for original cars this year were stable compared to last year, although we did see one high-mileage example sell for over 30% less than the 959-average, which are typically low-mileage and highly original. The Carrera GT had regularly made our top 100 Markets list, but it seems that growth may have peaked in 2022: the average $1.3M per sale for the 7 sales that have taken place this year sit well behind the 2022 average of $1.8M.
Porsche 911's
Even with more 911's hitting the auction block in January-June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, the growth in sales has remained rather subtle with just a dozen more cars changing hands, causing the Sell-through Rate (STR) to slide down by 6 percentage points. However, unlike the upper tier of the Porsche world, the Dollar Volume for 911's has outpaced the number of vehicles sold, suggesting that overall and on-average, they are still appreciating, or at least are maintaining their value.
Average Prices for Porsche 911, broken down by model variant:
Diving deeper, Sold Listings and Dollar Volume for 911's in the $1M+ value tier have slightly regressed. Yet considering how few of these models are put up for sale at auction, it doesn't ring any alarm bells. The sales numbers for the 911s in the $500K-1M bracket remained steady compared to the previous year. These rare, high-value gems continue to hold their ground in the market, reflecting a robust health.
The $250K-500K bracket emerged as the star performer, boasting a 34% surge in Dollar Volume and a 28% hike in Sold Listings, thereby raising the Average Price from $338K to a solid $340K. This price bracket experienced the most substantial growth amongst all 911 tiers.
The bulk of 911 sales come from the $40K-250K bracket, accounting for 74% of all transactions so far this year. Despite a slight 2.5% fall in Sold Listings and a corresponding 4% dip in STR, this segment continues to prop up the overall market stability.
Porsche 911s priced under $40K followed a similar trajectory as their pricier counterparts. However, they've displayed a unique characteristic: becoming more liquid in the market this year, marked by an increased STR. Nonetheless, the Average Price saw a marginal decline as more cars sold for the same total Dollar Volume.
In conclusion, while the Porsche 911 market may not be racing ahead at breakneck speed, it remains solid and consistent, aligning with the broader industry trend. It's a time for both buyers and sellers to be more judicious, adapting their expectations to the new, less-bullish market dynamics.
Other Models
The Boxster, Cayman and 718 cars, which are Porsche’s mid-engined / entry level sports cars, have an impressive growth track record for the past 5 years. While Dollar Volume increased significantly, Total Listings and Sold Listings did not increase at that rate. The latter is probably due to the more special versions of these mid-engined Porsche being brought to auctions, and their more competitive prices vs 911s.
The Cayenne and Macan are an interesting case in auction sales. They have an impressive Sell-through Rate of 81%, which has remained stable since 2020. Since last year, we seen 2x growth in Total Listings, Sold Listings, and Dollar Volume for these SUVs – with Average price and Sell-through Rate remaining stable at very healthy figures. Panamera’s and Taycans saw similar behavior to the SUV’s, although with much fewer Sold Listings, and they have the worst Sell-through Rate across all model groups: 48%.
The Porsche 356's have seen a decline across all metrics. While Total Listings are stable when compared with 2022, both Dollar Volume and Sold Listings are down, and Average Price is too. These have become harder to sell, as STR came down 5% since last year as well.
The front-engined cars (928, 944, 968, etc) saw a decline in Dollar Volume, Total Listings, and Sold Listings. Nevertheless, the Average Price remained the same and Sell-through Rate improved slightly.
Porsche 914’s (the less expensive sports cars from the 70’s) also saw a small decline across all metrics. However, like with most models, we did not see anything that would cause an alarm or signs of the market coming down.
Top Porsche Markets
Below is a list of the best performing Porsche markets during the last 12 months. Sale prices are collected from the leading auction venues around the world in real time (live and online) and curated into comparable data sets known as Markets. We rank all Markets based on the year-over-year growth in CMB*, and report The Top 100 for you.
Out of a total of 323 Porsche Markets, below are The Top 100 Porsche Markets from June 2022 through June 2023.
- Click on the name of a Market to view all sales tracked in the last 5 years
- Use the Search box to view all Markets of a certain Model (ex: Boxster, Carrera)
- Sort the list by clicking on each Column header
- The table has 10 pages, go to the next page using the arrow on the top right
- Refresh the page to re-sort the list back to the initial setting
Note: Image is representative of the Market as a whole, not a specific listing.
12-month Growth
These Top 100 Porsche Markets have experienced an average growth of 14% over the past 12 months, representing half of the overall average growth (28%) seen across the global auction industry's Top 100 Markets for the same time period.
Porsche’s top 100 markets have collectively witnessed 1,473 sales in the last year, with an average sale price of $147K per vehicle, and a Dollar Volume of $158M.
The market that topped our list was the Porsche Cayenne Transsyberia, which saw an impressive growth of 71% in the past 12 months. In contrast, the 100th market, the Porsche 911 Carrera Club Sport - 3.2 Liter (1987-1989), experienced a more modest growth of 5%.
Out of the 323 Porsche markets we considered for this list, only 14% of them grew above 10%, 39% of them saw growth below 10%, 37% experienced a decrease between 0-10%, and a small fraction, 10%, decreased beyond the -10% mark. This indicates that a significant 76% of all Porsche markets exhibited variation in benchmark values within the -10% to 10% range, a testament to the overall stability observed for the Porsche market as a whole.
The Average Price for the Top 100 Porsche Markets in this list was $147K. Compared to the overall average listing price in the auction industry over the past six months, cars in these markets are more than twice as valuable on average, another sign that points to the strength of the overall Porsche Market.
However, despite the strength and stability, we did notice that most of the growth in the Top 100 Porsche Markets happened during the second half of 2022, so let's zoom in on what happened during the last 6 months.
6-month Growth
The average six-month growth rate for our Top 100 Porsche Markets was a mere 7% – half of the 12-month growth rate. Furthermore, only 81 of these 100 markets actually showed some growth during the last six months, albeit they were not the only ones to show growth over the same time period. With this being the case, we also evaluated which markets would make the 100 positions based not on 12-month growth but rather 6-month growth.
After evaluating the 300+ Porsche markets in terms of their appreciation over the past 6 months, the top 100 showed an average growth of 9%, with the top-growing market showing a strong 46% growth rate: the Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 Targa - US Spec (1974-1975).
Of these 100 markets that showed growth over the last 6 months, 87 of them also showed growth over the last 12 months – although only 67 markets from this 6-month list were also featured in the Top 100 Market table above. From this, we can see that while growth has slowed, it's largely the same markets exhibiting this growth pattern, and for the majority of them, most of the growth occurred in the second half of 2022, while for only a small subset (33 markets) demonstrated significant growth attributable to the past six months.
Under-performing Porsche Markets
Below is a list of the worst performing Porsche markets during the last 12 months, using the same criteria as the chart above.
Note: Image is representative of the Market as a whole, not a specific listing.
Top 10 Porsche Sales
We can't close out a Market Update without a list of the Top 10 Sales!
So... what’s next?
Next month, the auctions during 2023 Monterey Car Week will provide a further barometer of the overall market health. Right now, we are showing 104 Porsches for sale in Monterey, with more being announced every day.
Media contact: media@classic.com
*The CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark (CMB) is a benchmark value for vehicles in a given Market based on data accumulated by CLASSIC.COM and calculated by a proprietary algorithm that takes into account volume and recency of each data point. CMB can be used to assess the performance of a market over a given time period. However, it does not represent the value of a specific vehicle. Read more in our Glossary of Terms
