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Arena Red Metallic is not a color that shows up often on the last of the air-cooled 911s, and a single owner holding the keys for two decades is rarer still. This 51,000-mile 1997 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S listed on Hagerty Marketplace (photos courtesy of Hagerty Marketplace) checks both boxes, and with about a day left on the clock the high bid has climbed to $90,000 across 17 bids — a number that still trails what Hagerty's own valuation data says a driver-quality 993 C4S is worth.
The 4S Was Always the Enthusiast's Cheat Code
The 993 gets talked about in reverent terms because of what came after it, but the Carrera 4S deserves its reputation on the merits. Porsche took the wide-hipped Turbo bodyshell, bolted on the Turbo's front air dam, cross-drilled Turbo brakes and 18-inch Turbo Twist wheels, then left off the wing and the turbochargers. Underneath sits the naturally aspirated 3.6-liter flat-six with VarioRam intake, good for 282 horsepower and 250 lb-ft, routed through a six-speed manual and Porsche's all-wheel-drive system with a limited-slip differential and Automatic Brake Differential.
The result is a car that looks like a Turbo from fifty feet, drives with the linearity of a naturally aspirated flat-six, and puts its power down in weather that would have a rear-drive 911 doing arithmetic. It is also, notably, the body style Porsche chose to end the air-cooled era with — the very last one built was a Mexico Blue Carrera 4S. If you want to understand why the 993 C4S developed such a devoted following, that combination is the whole answer.
Twenty Years, One Owner, One Garage
Chassis WP0AA2990VS321420 was delivered new in Arizona, spent time registered in Washington State, and was bought by the current seller in 2006 with roughly 41,000 miles showing. It has been Oregon-registered ever since. The seller drove it for about six years, then parked it — which explains how a car that has been in one pair of hands since the Bush administration has covered only about 10,000 miles in that time.
The cabin is Classic Gray full leather with color-matched console, door panels and carpeting, and the option sticker reads like someone spent a genuinely enjoyable afternoon with the order form: carbon-fiber and aluminum shift knob (X47), carbon-fiber handbrake lever (X58), carbon-fiber and leather steering wheel (X77), oval stainless exhaust tips (X54), aluminum-faced instrument dials (X71), the Motor Sound Package, electric sunroof, HiFi sound system, and power comfort seats on both sides.
A $12,000 Wake-Up Call
Cars that sit are cars that need work, and the seller did not skip it. Before the listing went live, Northwest Autohaus of Medford, Oregon, went through the car to the tune of more than $12,000. That covered engine oil and filter, air and cabin filters, transmission and both differentials, brake and clutch fluid, power steering fluid, an A/C service, new drive belts, a new fuel filter, plugs, rear struts, all four bump stops, front strut mounts, hood and trunk struts, a new battery, a four-wheel alignment, and a fresh set of Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4s in staggered 225/40ZR18 and 275/35ZR18. The shop also ran a compression check and a borescope inspection while it had the plugs out.
On top of the mechanical work, the car received a Fusion Plus ceramic coating and XPEL Ultimate Plus paint protection film across the hood, fenders, mirrors, bumper, door cups, headlights, rockers and sills. Earlier work under prior ownership included piston rings, valve guides and a clutch assembly at roughly 40,855 miles, plus a cylinder head reseal and valve service.
The Fine Print Worth Reading
The listing is refreshingly blunt about the car's imperfections, and so are the comments. There is a February 2001 damage entry on the CARFAX that predates the seller's ownership; he says his detailer found no evidence of respray with a paint gauge, all panel seams line up, and the selling dealership could offer no clarification. He has repeatedly invited a pre-purchase inspection.
More concrete is a pair of fuel lines flagged as cracking during the April 2026 inspection. Asked directly about them, the seller confirmed they have not been repaired — the lines are no longer available from Porsche and will need to be fabricated, likely by a hydraulic shop. The shop noted no leaking and did not call it urgent, but a buyer should price the job in. There is also a documented odometer failure at 51,057 miles this past July, fixed by replacing two gears, plus rock chips on the front fascia, wear on the leather and a drooping glove box door.
Where the Market Actually Sits
This is where the auction gets interesting. Hagerty's Valuation Tools currently place a 1997 911 Carrera 4S coupe at $179,000 in #3 "Good" condition, down 3.2 percent in the most recent update. The rear-drive Carrera S — same wide body, no all-wheel drive — sits at $175,000 in #3 and has given back 9.3 percent. A standard 993 Carrera coupe is $93,000 in the same condition grade, and a Carrera 4 coupe is $85,000, both flat. The 993 Turbo is the outlier that keeps climbing, up 6.8 percent to $235,000 in #3.
Read those numbers together and the shape of the 993 market comes into focus: the wide-body cars carry roughly a $90,000 premium over the narrow-body Carreras, the Turbo is still appreciating while the naturally aspirated wide-bodies cool slightly, and the all-wheel-drive 4S is now holding up better than the rear-drive S. Recent public results back it up — a 29,588-mile 1998 Carrera 4S brought $263,200 at Broad Arrow in mid-August, though that car's mileage puts it in a different conversation than a 51,000-mile driver with a CARFAX note.
Against that backdrop, $90,000 with a day to go is well under book for the model, which suggests either that the market is discounting the fuel lines and the 2001 damage entry more heavily than the guide accounts for, or that this one has room left to run. Auctions have a habit of settling that argument in the final ten minutes.
How to Watch It
The auction ends Wednesday, August 19 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. The car is in Azalea, Oregon, and comes with factory owner's manuals, service records, a CARFAX report, a Porsche-branded air compressor, the factory tool roll and a clean Oregon title in the seller's name.
If you have been tracking the air-cooled market, this one belongs on the same watch list as the last of the air-cooled 911 Turbos and the long-term-ownership 1996 911 Turbo that surfaced at Broad Arrow. And if the 993's fuel-line-and-fabrication homework sounds like more than you signed up for, the water-cooled cars make the same argument with a warranty-era parts catalog — see this 91,700-mile 2013 Carrera 4S that recently ran on the same platform. For more of what is crossing the block, our roundup of the coolest cars for sale on Hagerty Marketplace is a good place to start.
