Would you pay $1.2 million for a pair of fried eggs? As revealed by automotive consultant Ray Shaffer on Instagram, comedian and Porsche collector Jerry Seinfeld just spent that sum on a 996 Porsche 911. Yes, the Boxster-headlamped 911 known for intermediate shaft bearing failure and depressed resale values. However, the Classic Club Coupe isn’t just any 996, it’s Porsche’s own reimagination of the crunch time 911. Still, what a mad figure.
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In the 1990s, Porsche had the choice to either adapt or die, and it chose to adapt as radically as necessary to save the company. First came the Boxster, an entry-level mid-engined sports car that maximized component sharing with the then-incoming 996. As a result, Porsche’s rear-engined watercooled flagship shared an engine family, a set of switchgear, a pair of headlights, and a vast majority of body panels from the doors forward. While the common styling elements remain controversial to this day, Porsche’s Hail Mary worked. Nearly 26 years since the first 996 rolled off the production line in Stuttgart, Porsche is still cranking out new 911s.
Part of what makes the 911 Classic Club Coupe special is what’s under the hood. In place of the failure-prone standard engine sits the 3.8-liter Mezger engine from the 996 GT3, pushing output to 381 horsepower. That doesn’t sound huge by today’s standards, but the 996 also doesn’t weigh a lot by today’s standards. A base-model 1999 Porsche 911 tips the scales at just 2,901 pounds, so expect this one-off to be rapid.
All the styling tweaks on the Classic Club Coupe were penned by Grant Larson, the designer behind the original Boxster, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that not a single one feels out of place. The double-bubble roof recalls the Carrera GT, the ducktail throws things back to the 911 2.7 RS, and black Fuchs alloy wheels in modern sizing whisper Super Carrera. Add in the side skirts and front bumper from the 996 GT3 and you have a seriously appealing set of hardware tweaks. Unfortunately, the choice of Sport Grey Metallic paint is about as exciting as unbuttered toast, but the white-and-blue stripes are lovely touches.
Moving to the interior, it’s been heavily-reworked in the best way. To save money, Porsche had to build the 996 cheaply, which means that some of the plastics are cheap by 2023 standards. To rectify this, Porsche has slathered everything from the console to the gauge cluster hood in smooth leather. Well, almost everything — the seats and door cards get fantastic houndstooth woven-leather inserts that look so right. Speaking of leather, that cowhide-wrapped three-spoke steering wheel is out of a later 996, and the chunky sports shift knob is a welcome upgrade from the high-tech sex aid fitted to base cars. Capping it all off is Porsche Classic Communication Management, a brand new infotainment system with Apple CarPlay that’s designed to match the fonts and buttons throughout the rest of the cabin.
That’s all well and good, but $1.2 million is an enormous sum of money. High-mileage Carrera GT money, gated Murcielago money, house money. Jerry Seinfeld might be the only person on earth who’d spend that sum on a factory one-off 996, especially considering how much fun a sub-$100,000 996 GT3 or even a sub-$20,000 base 996 has to offer. However, I get it. If I had unfathomable wealth and could buy a cool youngtimer one-off with all the mod-cons, I absolutely would. There’s just something magical about a car old enough to be tactile yet new enough to not worry about.
(Photo credits: Porsche)
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You could argue the 996 headlights resemble the GT1.
Porsche calls those seat insert patterns Pepita. Why? I don’t know.
Because it sounds better than Pumpkin Seeds?
In Hungarian and German (these two I know of) “pepita” means “chequered”.
I think that calling the standard M96 engine “failure prone” is not entirely fair. Sure, it has some failure modes – as all engines do, really. The issue with the M96 engine is that some of the possible failures are very expensive to repair, relative to the value of the car. I know this – I’m the proud owner of the Boxster S which was gently mocked by Beau AND Torch in the following video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqjdVylJRxW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Needs a Pascha interior
The real reason he paid this much for the car is that it use to belong to Jon Voight.
The periodontist?
Came here for this
996s are at the bottom of their depreciation curve and represent a real value to enter the 911 club. Except this one. Definitely not this one.
Yeah 996s have definitely shot up in recent years. They’ve already past their bottom.
For me, the only 996s I really like are aerokit bodies and turbos, neither of which I can afford at this point…
They still seem relatively within reach. They’ve climbed a bit over the past couple of years, but anything with a running engine has spiked over that period.
If I recall correctly, this was a charity auction
It sounds like a lot of the parts are just off the shelf parts from Porsche and not bespoke. I don’t see why it would be worth that much.
This is out of left field, but when was the last time you saw anyone wearing a pair of Nike Shox? Do they even make them still?
I never found Seinfeld to be very funny. And apparently he likes to blow money on boring looking cars too
Well seeing that Mr. Seinfeld’s current net worth is estimated to be $950 Million dollars what he spent for this car is ShitBox Showdown money for him. 🙂
They cut corners on the plastic, but covered everything else in leather or woven leather. Just how expensive is plastic?? Or how cheap is leather?
“Classic Club Coupe? You heard of this Classic Club Coupe? You know, back in my day, a Classic Club Coupe wasn’t some little Porsche, it was a ’53 Eldorado someone took out to go golfing, and the houndstooth fabric wasn’t on the seats, it was on the driver’s pants.”
These folks should pay their fair share of taxes, and these cars deserve to be driven….not stashed in warehouses as vanity pieces for the fragile egos of the rich and famous
I mean, Jerry seems to at least drive a good number of his cars. That or sell them. He isn’t as good as Leno, but he likes to drive at least.
He drives them enough to have someone back into his 1973 RSR while it was street parked a few years ago.
I learned something today, thanks for checking me everyone
He drove it from the auction. There’s some clips online of him out on the open road driving that cat with all the other lunatics.
Jerry’s ego is far from fragile, it seems quite robust.
Pretty car, but not $1.2mil pretty
For a second, I thought this was about the 3 Porsches Jerry Seinfeld imported in violation of the 25 year rule, and paid to have homologated/crash tested in order to drive it here in the US. I think the end result is now sitting in an airport hangar being undriven