Why have Carrera GT values exploded lately?

Arguably Porsche’s most exciting supercar, the V10-powered manual-transmission-only Carrera GT was a celebration of Porsche’s engineering prowess in the pre-recession boom. It took the fight directly to Mercedes-McLaren’s vaunted SLR and Ferrari’s eponymous Enzo. It stood then as a testament to the power of carbon monocoque technology and classically handsome good looks. These days it’s viewed as a last bastion of driver control, for better or worse. It was one of the last real race-inspired supercars to offer three pedals and a stickshift. It has traction control but no stability control, ABS but no active braking. It really connects driver to car.

So is that why they’ve exploded in value 500% in the last decade? This was a car that sold brand new in 2004 for $440,000 and immediately dropped off. For the next ten years Carrera GTs traded hands below MSRP in the 300,000 dollar range. Among today’s elite supercar drivers the prospect of such a value curve is practically unheard of. Many new Porsche buyers, especially those with the ones that are limited production supercars like this, expect inflated values within six months of production ending. While the Carrera GT took a while to gain momentum on its trading value, the curve has been practically shaped like a goalie’s hockeystick since.

One such Carrera GT sold at Gooding and Co’s Amelia Island auction in 2013 for a mere $341,000. By 2013 the new golden boy of Porsche technology had been released in the form of the big power and speed 918 Spyder hybrid. The car collector’s attention had moved on from the old guard to the new new, for a little bit at least. Once the 918 Spyder started to command well into the 7-figures at auction on the second hand market, Carrera GTs started to gain in momentum. Some, it must be assumed, saw the Carrera GT’s back-to-basics analog spirit as the ultimate sports car expression, rather than the 918’s electrified and tech-packed wonder. If a 918 is worth 1.7 million, then surely a Carrera GT is worth half that at least, right? So by 2016 values of CGTs had blown up to the 700-800,000 dollar mark. Here’s one such example from RM Sotheby’s 2016 Amelia Island sale.

It would seem that things had stagnated pretty much in that little pocket between 2016 and 2020, because two CGTs sold at auction in 2020 for similar prices, here’s one from Gooding’s Arizona sale, and two from RM that year. There were a few exceptional examples that cleared into the 900s, but those were the exceptions that proved the rule. So why in 2021 — and apparently 2022 — have those values seen a huge uptick to cars now selling well into the millions? The example shown here, as of this writing, is poised to sell on Bring A Trailer of all places for $1.6 million. So they’ve more than doubled in value over the last 18 months? Yowza.

First, there are countless economic reasons that might explain why exotic car collectors would have an extra couple million to throw around at their own vision of perfection. We can point to government spending during the pandemic pushing more money into the economy, or the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly double what it was in March, 2020, or that there is an ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. Maybe collectors are more nihilistic about the future and figure they never know when an invisible virus might take their life, so smoke ’em while you’ve got ’em. Maybe people couldn’t summer at their villa in Mallorca, so are spending their vacation savings on a splurge car. Who knows.

What I do know is that the Carrera GT is among the best driving experiences to ever have existed. If you’re going to spend your windfall on a Porsche, there’s hardly a better one to consider. It’s becoming something of a cliché, but they just don’t build them like they used to. The Carrera GT is the last of its kind, and a breed that pretty much died in 2007 when this went out of production. Nobody, for any amount of money, is making a car like this today. So if every bland hypercar launched these days is just a number on a page that isn’t going to get driven in anger anyway, why not buy something that delivers a unique driving experience? For the last decade every hypercar and super-expensive sports car, including those built by Porsche, have been video game fast. The speed is there, but it’s disconnected from reality. Besides, no matter how much speed you buy, it’s still going to get smoked by a dork in a Tesla, so why bother?

It’s time to focus on driver enjoyment, lightweight, race-inspired V10s, and manual transmissions. Demand for cars like this is waning, but we have to do what we can to make them come back. Porsche listened to everyone when the GT3 got its manual back, so why can’t we ask for the same in Porsche’s supercars? Okay, maybe the Carrera GT is finally getting appreciated the way it should have always been, and getting the values it always should have, but if you’re going to buy one, please just promise you’ll drive it.