Porsche 911 Sport Classic

 It seems odd, given the current economic climate, to be talking about the most expensive Porsche 911 ever made: this limited-edition Sport Classic version of the iconic sports car is on sale now for £214,200. The number needs rolling around in your mouth and easing into your brain. Over £200,000 for a 911.

Still, if anyone knows the value of its cars and the willingness of customers to pay for them, it’s Porsche. Not for nothing is this the brand that can charge £114 for a full-colour Porsche crest on the alloys. Heck, even a 911 Carrera GTS can be specced to £163,000 without too much effort.

Porsche is phenomenally successful in making money. In 2021, the firm made €5.3 billion (£4.5bn) with an operating return on sales of 16.0% - figures that could be skewed by the current supply situation - but even before the existing silly season in new car prices, the Stuttgart manufacturer was making some of the healthiest margins in the automotive industry, regularly targeting 15%.

So here we are, with a £200k-plus special edition: the 911 Sport Classic. This is the second time that badge has appeared, as the first was on a 997-generation 911 back in 2010. That version was a run of just 250 cars, whereas this car is one of 1250 worldwide. (There’s no set number for the UK allocation in order to stop speculators, apparently. Reading between the lines, it doesn’t sound like it’s yet sold out, unlike the last one, which was entirely snapped up before anyone even got to drive it.)

It’ll be interesting to see how the sales pan out. You get the feeling that Porsche needed to up the volumes on this car to justify all the extra engineering that went into it (more on that shortly) but the firm itself admits that prices of the last Sport Classic (limited to 250 units, remember) softened after launch and only came back in time.