Rare wide-bodied 964 Carrera 4
In 1993, Porsche produced a special limited edition 911 to celebrate 30 years of the 911 – the Celebration or Anniversary. The idea was to sell 911 of these specially finished and badged wide-bodied cars but the economy was poor and they ended up selling some off as ‘standard’ 964s without anniversary badging and trim.
One of these is up for sale at Finlay Gorham . It’s Guards Red, whereas the Anniversary cars were Viola, Polar Silver OR Amethyst. Someone has added a ‘911 Anniversary’ badge to the rear but it lacks the internal badging. We know of one other such car in the UK – an Olive Green example that used to belong to the King of Greece and has standard Carrera 4 badging.
This red car’s up for £18.995. We know very little of its history or condition but it sounds reasonably priced – a standard 1993 964 would be in the £17,000 region if it was good.
UPDATE: We’ve just received a letter from Anniversary owner Thomas Englert of Germany that throws more light on this subject:
Hi Phil
You know that I am keeping the 964 Anniversary Register, which currently covers about 420 cars. I think I’ve collected about 350 VINs of Celebrations and about ten to twenty VINs of wide-bodies which are not Celebrations. Usually I report the latter cars to Nobert . I don’t keep them registered for my purposes since I am only interested in the Anniversary (or Celebration) Model, which is to be identified by the M-Code 096 (and the limitation tag beside other insignia). Norbert is the one who’s doing the wide-body (non-celebration) register and I believe that he currently covers at least 85 wide-body-coupes which are no Celebrations. http://turbo-look.de/
It is always said, that the Anniversary did not sell well and that for this reason the final twelve cars were produced in different colours and not issued the limitation tag. One of this cars should be the oak-green coupe of the king of Greece. There are other rumours here in Germany, telling exactly the opposite: Allegedly the Anniversary sold very well and when the production had ended, another bunch of about 20 cars were produced in oak-green or guards red. So what is true?
What I can say is, that my register covers 420 Anniversaries from limitation number 002 to 911. At about no. 620 the VINs switch from “P” to “R” range. If the register covers all these cars, following properly from early “P” VINs to very late “R” VINs. Which numbers should have been left out to produce exactly 12 wide-body-coupes without limitation tag? Is it maybe number 333, or 632 or 876 or….. Or shouldn’t that be the final twelve VINs or at least the final 12 limitation-tags? Why should then the tagging not logically stop with no. 899? But if so, why then do I have No. 901, 910 and 911 in the register? Properly carrying late “R”-VINs?
If there were only 12 wide-body-non anniversaries, what about the 85 (or more) wide-body-coupes in Norbert’s Register?
An official document from Porsche says, that they produced 174 wide-body-coupes. Another official document is confusing cause is says they built 1085 “Turbo Look Coupe”. ( But if you subtract 911 Anniversaries from this number you have again 174! )
The oak-green “car of the king” was , according to my knowledge, produced in June/July 1993. Although it is said to be the last or one of the last ever produced 964s. How comes is has a “P” VIN from June 1993 ? Some other wide-body-coupes from which I know the chassis number were produced in March/April 1993. One even in January 93 ! Several others in August 1993. So, the question in my opinion is: How should Porsche know in January or March 1993 that they would be not able to sell out the Anniversaries and to instead produce twelve wide-bodies without a limitation-tag throughout the year? If they should not be able to sell the specially tagged limited edition cars, which by the way according to an official statement from Porsche officially were theoretically available in any paint from the model-range catalogue for 1993 and 1994, why should they believe to be able to sell the same type of car without a limitation-tag? Does that make sense to you?
After working on the register and wide-body question for more the five years now, I believe that all the stories about 12, 20 or “very very ” rare wide-bodies are very doubtable. I personally have seen at least 20 or more wide-bodies during the years. On any German Porsche Meeting you ‘ll find some. Mostly in Black, Blue, Red, Silver and sometimes Yellow. I’ve spoken to owners and I am regularly in touch with Norbert who now became quite a specialist for this question. He’s being working on his register for something like three years, only but on regular base he finds more and more wide-body-coupes.
In my opinion the story is as follows :
Back in 1993/1994 Porsche decided for any reason to produce a certain number of wide-body coupes. (Some people say they had ordered to many turbo-bodies and assumed not to be able to sell enough Turbos! I don’t know if this is true! Some people say it’s not.) However, they decided to produce a special limited edition which was called the “30 Jahre 911” Limited edition model, or Anniversary. They also decided to limit the production of this special series to 911 cars, which sounded nice and made sense. Assuming, that they would probably still have turbo-bodies available after this 911 cars, they started a parallel production of „normal ” wide-body-coupes without limitation-tags and not labelled with M-Code 096 for the Anniversary Model. This production ran “as long as available” and happened on the special order of customers who wanted a wide-body-coupe but e.g. did not like “Viola” as the standard colour for an Anniversary in the German market. Also if a very special trim (like in this guards red one above) was the custoemers wish, the wide-body-coupe could normaly not become an Anniversary. At the end, about (more or less) 174 bodies were used to produce non-celebration wide-body-coupes and 911 Anniversaries were produced, too.
I personally know two current owners of Anniversaries (members of our 964 Jubi IG, www.jubi.pocg.de) who, when they ordered their Anniversaries back in 1993, could decide whether they wanted the official Limited Edition one in Viola (with tag and M_code 096 ), or whether they wanted another paint and trim. If they’d choose for another paint or trim, the car would not be tagged as Limited Edition Model and called a 964 wide-bodie-coupe instead of Special Model “30 Years 911” So they decided to get an “official” Limited Edition model.
In opposite to this two statements, I have proof that an Anniversary was originally produced in Guards-Red, issued the Limitation Tag and the M-Code 096! The car is currently in Spainand is owned by a member of our group.
As ever with Porsche, it’s difficult to say what happened in the past. It seems to me that everything was possible at that time and you’ll always find some people telling so and others who’ll tell a different story. I’ll keep on collecting Limitation-Numbers and VINs from Anniversaries and Norbert will do the same with the wide-body coupes. Step by step, car by car, we’ll come closer to “the truth”.
Just an additional comment: I am not saying, that “I know it better.” I just want to say what I conclude from the numbers wide-bodies and Anniversaries during my years with the 964 Anniversary Register.
I hope these facts and my opinion are interesting for you.
Cheers Thomas
P.S: Sorry for my English. I am doing my best!
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