Iconic Auctioneers will try to find a new buyer for a comparatively rare and little-known convertible variant of the Porsche 911 (993) Turbo. The automaker’s Sonderwunsch division only made 14 such cars for Fritz Haberl, a Porsche dealer from Munich. It’s the first time one of these cars is being sold via public auction, so those interested should expect to pay £700,000–800,000 (U.S. $928,500–1,061,000).
According to reports, Haberl realized that he wanted to see the 993 Turbo with a soft top when he first saw the regular, naturally aspirated Porsche 911 (993) debut at the Geneva Motor Show in 1994. He contacted the company and was told that an OEM conversion was possible, but only starting from a batch of 10 units.
Back at the time, work on the production-issue 911 Turbo was still not complete, with the actual car shipping around a year after its Geneva debut. Since Haberl wanted his examples as soon as possible, they ended up with an older 3.6-liter flat-six engine rated at 360 PS (355 hp / 265 kW) in tandem with a Getrag five-speed manual.
The dealership owner had enough money for 14 examples back at the time. Out of this batch, he specified five with the right-hand drive and the remaining nine with the steering wheel on the left. Each cost him about twice as much as a standard Porsche 911 (993) convertible with a non-turbo engine. According to the listing, the premium wasn’t just due to the added turbo setup: each car was heavily customized, meaning no two examples in the batch were the same.
The example heading to the auction block this month wears an Amaranth Violet exterior finish and has a grey/black cabin with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. Originally built for a customer in Hong Kong, it currently has 13,300 km (8,265 miles) on the odometer.
