If you’re connected to the Porsche community, deeply in tune with new listings on BringaTrailer.com or attended the Las Vegas Grand Prix over the weekend, you may have seen Diane’s Car. This 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe was the subject of a marketing campaign for Bring A Trailer and one of its Local Partners, 1600veloce. In today’s Market Monday, we’re comparing this sale’s results to the overall market for 3.2 Carrera 911s to determine whether the hype delivered a better result for this Sahara Beige beauty.

Bring A Trailer is pretty well known among the car community as the largest online auction platform for buying and selling collector and enthusiast automobiles. In June of 2020, Hearst purchased Bring A Trailer right at the start of the pandemic buying spree. While public data for the site’s performance isn’t readily available, sources reported sales volume rose from over $800 Million in 2021 to a height of $1.5 Billion in 2024. Obviously Hearst’s investment, plus its ability to help the platform scale to accommodate the pandemic surge in volume, has paid off in spades.

I’m a bit of an insider due to my current occupation as an appraiser and consultant, but I’m still a bit amazed to find car people who haven’t heard of Bring A Trailer. To most non-car enthusiasts, the site is understandably not top of mind, but I find it surprising that car folks are still unaware of it, especially since it’s so dominant in the marketplace.

With competition from sites like Cars and Bids, PCarMarket — and established names like RM Sotheby’s, Mecum, Barrett-Jackson, Bonhams and Gooding Christie’s — it’s understandable that Hearst wants to secure its supremacy in the marketplace and grow into new markets. A national advertising campaign called It’s Never Just a Car, created by Hearst’s creative and media agency PMG, launched in June of this year with the goal of driving deeper brand penetration among car enthusiasts, first-time buyers and anyone with a passion for cars. Sales are an obvious business goal, but Hearst also wants to continue building the community that made Bring A Trailer so successful.

Buy Diane’s Car is clearly a targeted campaign intended to support this overarching strategy. Stickers, flyers, billboards, sign boards, and more with the tag line “Buy Diane’s Car” were used to blanket Las Vegas in advertising in a guerilla-style approach. Featuring a prominent image of a Sahara Beige 1986 Porsche 911 on a plain white background with black text, the ads felt home-grown despite the sizable media spend behind them. The weekend of the Las Vegas Grand Prix was obviously chosen to reach a captive audience of automotive and motorsports enthusiasts.

Successful seller 1600veloce was offered the opportunity to participate in Bring A Trailer’s campaign, providing a list of potential cars and owners to feature. It’s a smart and fun way to drive awareness for Bring A Trailer, the true results of which will be privy only to the company’s executives and Hearst, but did it also boost the sale price for Diane’s 911 Carrera?

In short: probably a little. Diane’s 1986 Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera Coupe sold for a hammer price of $106,500, or $111,825 after tacking on Bring A Trailer’s buyer’s premium of 5%. This sounds like an astronomical price for a G-body 911, but in reality, it’s not too far off the market price. Here’s why:

As I wrote in this short piece over a year ago, the market for impact bumper Porsche 911s has been steadily appreciating. Yes, these cars saw a spike during the pandemic and a small decline after, but prices have continued to rise again.

Impact-bumper 911 prices have risen so much, in fact, that the most desirable examples of the 3.2 Carrera have started to approach the six-figure values of the 993-generation Porsche 911.

For a drivetrain as stout and reliable as the 3.2-liter engine in the Porsche 911 Carrera from 1984-1989, you might think mileage might not matter. Porsche enthusiasts also tend to be drivers, to whom mileage is more a badge of honor than something to fear.

The data disagrees. As with pretty much all cars, low-mileage cars bring more money as the chart above clearly demonstrates. This is by far the biggest factor in Diane’s result.

For late-model and new cars, the most popular colors are black, white and silver. Most 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupes sold are finished in red, black, or white, which were the preferences of the time. Blessedly, Porsche collectors increasingly appreciate unusual shades on these cars and are willing to pay a premium.

As you can see in the chart above, 1986 Porsche 911 Carreras sold in the last 12 years that were painted in something other than a common color typically sell at a 10% premium. Ultra-rare colors can result in some truly impressive high bids.

The size of my data set — which covers base (non-M491 or Turbo) 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupes sold in the last 12 months — limits concrete conclusions, but Sport Seats appear to be a desirable option on G-body 911s. This seems like common sense. Surprising, maybe, is that a rear wing neither adds nor hurts value.

Interestingly, very few 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupes have both the rear wing and Sport Seats, making Diane’s car the only one with both options and finished in a rare color to sell at online auction in the last 12 months.

Diane’s 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe had a strong result, selling for a price near the top of the market for a base car. While the marketing helped, the car’s combination of rare color, sport seats, rear wing and lower mileage all drove desirability and therefore price. Condition will always be #1, which is why the top sale for a 1986 3.2 Carrera Coupe in the last 12 months was a gorgeous silver metallic car in excellent condition.

Plenty of good cars fail to meet reserve or sell at a bargain on an “off day.” Lots of attention for a car whose auction ended on a lazy Sunday almost certainly had a positive effect here. Bring A Trailer generated attention for itself and 1600veloce likely got a bump in brand awareness, as well.

Personally, I think the real winners are Diane and the new owner of her super-cool 911 coupe.

Wolf and Mare provides car finding, appraisals, and auction services for buyers and sellers of collector European cars. If you’re interested in acquiring an overseas car, give us a call or drop a line!