Softening Safaris?

Good Morning! Well, it looks like we’re back to hovering around the million-dollar mark, while our sell-through rate had a case of the Mondays dropping below average and into the low 60s. One car that helped with the low sell-through rate was the latest 992 GT3 which failed to sell at one of the lowest bids yet.

THE MARKET

Sell-Through Rate (STR): 62%
Market Volume ($): $1,062,247
Market Volume (Units): 21

TOP SALES

2017 Porsche 911 Turbo S Coupe $160,000 Bring a Trailer
2021 Porsche 911 C4S Coupe 7sp $137,000 Cars & Bids
1988 Porsche 911 Coupe G50 Safari $135,000 Bring a Trailer
2018 Porsche 911 Targa 4 GTS $127,000 Bring a Trailer
1964 Porsche 356C Coupe $93,000 Bring a Trailer

SPOTLIGHT

It looks like the Safari craze is here to stay and to be honest, I think it’s a good thing. Porsche has a deep history of rallying at legendary events such as the Monte Carlo Rally, Mille Miglia, and Dakar. These builds bring up pictures of watching the 953 rip through the desert on their way to the 1984 Paris-Dakar win. But has the market for these Safari builds started to soften, or is it still strong as ever?

Like restorations, Safari builds come in all shapes and budgets. Pricing tends to depend on who built it, the quality of work, and of course parts used. Did it come from a shop known for only building Safari 911s, or was this a one-off project? Did the car receive paint, body modifications, and engine modifications, and what parts were replaced? Depending on the answers to these questions, a car could have anywhere from $100k to $500k dumped into it, along with the cost of a donor car.

Today’s Spotlight car, this 1984 911 G50 Coupe Safari, was built by Group 2 Motorsports out of Woodinville, WA, a shop that appears to work on different types of cars and bikes but looks to focus mainly on Porsches and track-prep. The donor G50 was completely repainted in Green with the impact bumpers and side trim custom fabricated for a smoother look and rear-exit exhaust. On the inside, you’ll find a completely refinished interior with racing seats and Pasha-style trim with a MOMO Prototipo steering wheel, Smiths clock, and Heuer Trackmate stopwatch.

The suspension features an Elephant Racing lifted suspension with Bilstein adjustable coilovers and Tarett Engineering sway bars, and it rides on 15” Braid alloy wheels wrapped in Pirelli Scorpion tires with H&R wheel spacers. Rothsport Road and Race built the engine and features PMO individual throttle bodies, Rasant Products cam/crank housing, Mil-Spec wiring harness, and MoTec engine management.

I’d imagine a build like this to be in the $150-200k range on top of the donor car. In today’s market, one should expect to find a solid donor 3.2 liter 911 Coupe in the $40-60,000 range as I wouldn’t expect anyone to take a top-of-the-market example as their starting point. All in, you’re probably looking at just over $200,000 to just shy of $300,000 to replicate what G2 has done here.

So for this Safari to sell for $135,000 represents quite the buy, in my opinion. I also think that this example shows that your run-of-the-mill Safari market is softening a bit, as we haven’t seen an example sell for near cost-to-build in quite some time now. It would be interesting to see what a Keen Project Safari would bring in this market as there is still a deep waiting list for what many consider the best of the Safaris.

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