Tag Archives: 911

News

A Million-Dollar Porsche 911 Speedster That Lost Six Figures Before Its First Oil Change

In the high-stakes world of Porsche restomods, depreciation is supposed to be something that happens to Cayennes, not carbon-fiber 911 Speedsters. But this Gunther Werks build just proved that even the bluest of blue-chip air-cooled exotica isn’t immune to gravity.

This particular Gunther Werks 911 Speedster—one of just 25 ever made—recently sold for $965,000. That sounds outrageous until you realize it had traded hands for $1.15 million only a few months earlier. That’s nearly $200,000 gone in under a fiscal quarter, which is about the same rate of value loss as a Bentley leaving the showroom.

Ouch.

The car left Gunther Werks’ Huntington Beach facility in October 2022, built to the firm’s obsessive standards and finished in a bespoke Gin Tree Green metallic. A year later, it landed at New York–based HK Motorcars, who apparently saw it less as a toy and more as a rolling financial instrument. That gamble didn’t quite pay off.

The dealer tossed it onto Bring a Trailer, where bidding topped out at $905,000—well shy of their reserve. Soon after, a private deal closed at $965,000, locking in a $185,000 loss for the seller. Whether that means the dealer overpaid or the new buyer scored a bargain is something the next resale will reveal. But either way, it’s a reminder that even seven-figure Porsches don’t always go up.

Fortunately, if you’re going to lose six figures on a car, it might as well be one that looks like this.

Gunther Werks doesn’t restore 911s so much as re-engineer them. Each Speedster begins as a donor 993 that’s stripped to its steel skeleton before being reborn with a full carbon-fiber body. Every panel is lighter, stiffer, and shaped with modern aerodynamic intent, even if the silhouette still screams late-’90s Stuttgart.

This one’s custom green paint is offset by matte green stripes and yellow Porsche script, a subtle nod to motorsport heritage wrapped in boutique-level craftsmanship. It’s less “classic 911” and more “what Porsche would build if it ignored accounting.”

Underneath the carbon lies a 4.0-liter air-cooled flat-six that’s about as far from stock as a Mezger can get. With Mahle pistons, forged rods, and a billet crankshaft, it produces 430 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque—numbers that would’ve sounded absurd in a 1990s 911 but now feel perfectly at home in a carbon-skinned Speedster.

Power goes through a six-speed manual, because of course it does, and the chassis is handled by adaptive coilovers with Brembo brakes big enough to stop a small aircraft. Six-piston calipers up front, four in the rear, and more grip than a tax audit.

Inside, the same no-expense-spared philosophy continues. Gunther Werks cabins are more private jet than vintage Porsche, blending bespoke materials with modern hardware while still preserving the basic 911 layout.

So yes, someone lost nearly $200,000 on this Speedster in record time. But the person who bought it for $965,000 may have just landed one of the most exquisite air-cooled Porsches ever built for what passes as a bargain in this rarefied world.

In the restomod market, timing is everything. And sometimes, even a million-dollar Porsche has a bad day on Wall Street.

Source: Bring a Trailer

News

How a Tiny Mountain State Became Porsche’s Wildest Playground

If you were asked to guess where the Porsche 911 sells better than any other car, you’d probably say Southern California, Monaco, or maybe a leafy corner of Switzerland. You would not say Andorra—a tiny mountain principality wedged between France and Spain with fewer residents than a medium-sized European suburb.

And yet, here we are.

In 2025, Andorra registered 86 new Porsche 911s, making it the best-selling car in the entire country. Not the best-selling sports car. Not the best-selling luxury coupe. The best-selling car, period – beating Toyota, Hyundai and all the other brands that usually dominate European sales charts.

In a market that sells fewer than 2,500 new cars per year, that figure is as surreal as seeing a GT3 parked at a grocery store. But in Andorra, it makes perfect sense.

The Monaco of the Pyrenees

Andorra’s reputation is built on three things: skiing, mountains, and taxes—or more precisely, the lack of them. With one of Europe’s most favorable tax systems, the country attracts wealthy residents, professional athletes, digital nomads, and business owners who like their income lightly taxed and their garages heavily stocked.

The result is a new-car market that behaves like nothing else in Europe.

Where most countries revolve around subcompact hatchbacks and budget crossovers, Andorra’s streets are dominated by performance cars, luxury SUVs, and six-figure toys. The Porsche 911 isn’t a weekend indulgence here—it’s a daily driver.

When you live in a compact, affluent, mountain-road-rich country with minimal traffic and a healthy number of racetrack-quality passes, the idea of commuting in a 911 starts to feel downright logical.

A Sports Car Beats the Sensible Stuff

That the 911 topped the chart at all is astonishing. That it did so again in 2025—growing from 83 to 86 registrations—feels almost absurd.

To put that in context: the Toyota Yaris Cross, a practical, sensible, fuel-efficient compact SUV, finished second with 63 sales. The Seat Arona, Spain’s affordable home-team crossover, came third with 57.

Those are the kinds of cars that lead sales in normal countries.

Andorra, meanwhile, chose a rear-engine German sports car that can cost as much as €340,000.

Last year, Porsche’s dominance was even more extreme, with the Cayenne and Macan also beating mainstream superminis. In 2025, the lead is slimmer—but the symbolism remains staggering: a 911 still outsells everything.

Brand Rankings from an Alternate Reality

Even stranger than the model rankings is the brand leaderboard.

Despite not placing a single car in the top 10, BMW was Andorra’s best-selling brand with 204 registrations, narrowly beating Mercedes (200).

Toyota, Ford, and Hyundai followed, but the real jaw-dropper comes further down the list:

Ferrari sold 56 cars in Andorra in 2025.

That’s more than one Ferrari per 1,500 residents.

For comparison, Spain—a country of 48 million people—registered just 109 new Ferraris in the same year. In other words, Andorra bought more than half as many Ferraris with one-five-hundredth the population.

That’s not a market anomaly. That’s a statistical mic drop.

What Andorra Tells Us About Cars and Money

Andorra is what happens when geography, wealth, and tax policy collide in a small, dense, car-friendly bubble. People who move there don’t need economical transportation—they need something entertaining to drive between ski resorts, cafés, and mountain villas.

And if you’re going to buy one perfect all-around sports car, the Porsche 911 still makes more sense than almost anything else on the road. It’s fast, usable, reliable, comfortable, and endlessly configurable. In Andorra, it isn’t just a status symbol—it’s the default choice.

Everywhere else, the 911 is a dream car.

In Andorra, it’s just what you buy when you need to go shopping.

Source: Porsche

Tuning

Gunther Werks Gemini Commission: Subtlety, Turned Up to 862 Horsepower

In the restomod world, subtlety is usually the first thing sacrificed on the altar of excess. Widebody kits shout, carbon fiber gleams like a mirror, and horsepower figures are wielded like blunt instruments. Gunther Werks’ latest creation—the Gemini Commission—takes a different approach. It’s proof that an 862-hp Porsche 911 can whisper instead of scream, even while bending the laws of physics in the process.

The Gemini is one of just 75 cars built under Gunther Werks’ Turbo program, which already puts it in rarefied air. But this particular commission pushes exclusivity further, layering bespoke design choices over an already obsessive reengineering of Porsche’s beloved 993-generation 911. Somewhere, a very fortunate owner is about to have the kind of New Year that makes the rest of us question our life choices.

Like every Gunther Werks build, the Gemini starts with the 993 chassis—the last of the air-cooled 911s and, to many purists, the last truly analog one. From there, the Turbo program adds a widened stance and serious aerodynamic upgrades. A vented hood relieves high-pressure air trapped beneath the car to reduce lift, while gills in the front and rear fenders improve cooling and stability. These aren’t styling flourishes; they’re functional necessities when you’re dealing with supercar-level performance wrapped in a ’90s silhouette.

For the Gemini, that aggression is cloaked in restraint. The body is finished in a muted gray selected from four possible hues, and it’s the kind of color that reveals itself slowly, changing character with light and angle. It’s not orange, red, or yellow—and that’s precisely the point. This car doesn’t demand attention; it earns it.

The wheels nod to the original 993 Turbo design but reinterpret it with modern precision and a striking white-gold finish. It’s a bold choice, yet somehow still elegant. Elsewhere, Gunther Werks adds subtle exterior touches, including a stealth-gray wrap on the CNC-machined mirror caps and door handles. The result is a cohesive palette of tones that feels considered rather than conspicuous.

Inside, the Gemini continues its balancing act between craftsmanship and performance. Carbon fiber dominates, as expected, appearing on the upper instrument panel, door panels, center console, and even the racing seat shells. But Gunther Werks knows when to soften the edges. Tangerine orange Italian leather appears in key areas, injecting warmth and contrast without overwhelming the cabin.

This is also the first Gunther Werks build to feature two distinct cockpit motifs. The driver’s seat is trimmed in luxurious Japanese denim with orange stitching and detailing—a material choice that sounds odd until you see how perfectly it works. The passenger seat, meanwhile, is upholstered in fine Italian leather, creating an asymmetry that feels deliberate rather than gimmicky. The center-mounted tachometer, ringed in orange just as Ferdinand Porsche intended, stands out against the other gauges, which wear gray-coated CNC-machined bezels matching the exterior accents.

Lift the rear hatch, and the Gemini stops being subtle altogether—at least mechanically. Nestled beneath is a 4.0-liter flat-six assembled by Rothsport Racing, and it’s mechanical art in the purest sense. Unlike the vertical cooling fan used in standard 911 Turbos, this engine employs a horizontal fan that pushes more air and cools all six cylinders more evenly. It’s a small detail with enormous implications for reliability and performance.

The rest of the engineering reads like a wish list for speed obsessives. Radiators ensure the turbochargers are fed a steady supply of cooled air, while side vents and a ram-air effect at speed sharpen throttle response. Individual throttle bodies on each cylinder add immediacy that modern turbo engines often lack. In normal driving mode, the engine produces a still-absurd 608 horsepower. Switch to Track mode, and that number jumps to 862 hp—enough to make the notion of “restomod” feel hilariously inadequate.

Gunther Werks isn’t revealing the price of the Gemini Commission, citing customer discretion. Fair enough. What we do know is that the Turbo program starts at $850,000, which tells you everything you need to know without saying anything at all.

The Gemini doesn’t exist to shock. It exists to demonstrate restraint at the extreme edge of performance—a rare quality in a world that often confuses loudness with greatness. And that may be its most impressive achievement of all.

Source: Gunther Werks