Somewhere in Alaska in 1979, a man walked into a Porsche dealership and bought not one but two 930 Turbos. One to drive. One to keep. Nearly half a century later, the kept one is finally for sale.
The 1979 Porsche 930 Turbo now listed on Bring a Trailer has just 8,000 miles on its odometer, delivered by a single owner who treated it less like a car and more like a time capsule. It’s one of the last 50 930s sent to the United States that model year, finished in silver metallic over light brown leather. It looks like it rolled off the Stuttgart line last week.
That kind of restraint borders on pathological. Buying the most ferocious road car Porsche made in the late seventies and then barely turning the key takes a particular breed of collector — the kind who already had a twin to thrash around in.
The car isn’t a barn find waiting to drain its next owner’s wallet, either. The 3.3-liter turbocharged and intercooled flat-six was fully overhauled in 2024 with new bearings, timing chains, belts, seals, and cylinder head studs. The fuel and oiling systems got additional attention in early 2025.
When new, that engine made 261 horsepower and 291 pound-feet of torque, all delivered through a four-speed manual to the rear wheels in one violent, theatrical shove. The 930’s reputation as a widowmaker was earned honestly. Turbo lag followed by a sudden wall of boost, routed through skinny-by-modern-standards rear tires and a short wheelbase, sent more than a few overconfident drivers into hedgerows backward.
Speaking of tires: the originals are still on the car. They’re from 1979. That’s 47-year-old rubber, and it should be the first thing the next owner replaces, not just for safety but because modern rubber transforms the 930 from terrifying to merely thrilling.
The car’s notorious handling was always partly a tire problem masquerading as a chassis problem. Everything else should stay exactly as it is. The big whale tail, the round headlights, the unmolested interior — this is a car that exists in a condition most 930s left behind decades ago.
The original sticker price was $44,669, which adjusts to roughly $200,000 today. The car will almost certainly blow past that figure. Clean 930 Turbos have been commanding strong six-figure prices for years, and one-owner, 8,000-mile examples with documented mechanical refreshes occupy a different atmosphere entirely.
The auction ends June 12. The buyer will get a car that, with proper maintenance, could easily run another half-century. Porsche built the 930 to be driven, and the flat-six doesn’t care whether it’s been sitting or spinning — once sorted, it just works.
There’s something faintly absurd about a 930 that’s averaged 170 miles a year. This was the car that defined turbo excess in the disco era, the car that scared professional racing drivers, the car that Johnny Cash probably should have written a song about. It deserves road miles.
But the collector market doesn’t reward mileage. It rewards scarcity, provenance, and condition. This 930 has all three in spades, and whoever wins this auction will face the same impossible choice the original owner made in 1979: drive it, or preserve it.
The smart money says the next owner will do exactly what the first one did — park it, protect it, and let the value climb while a lesser Porsche does the actual driving. Some cars are meant to be used. Some become too perfect to touch. This 930 crossed that line a long time ago.
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