Porsche 911 Turbo (993)
Why 3.8: Two small K16 turbochargers instead of one big one, and all-wheel drive borrowed from the 959 programme — the combination that turned the 911 Turbo from a car with a reputation into a car with traction. It is also the last one that was air-cooled, which is what the market actually priced.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
Air-cooled mechanical clatter plus twin KKK turbos spooling and dumping, a layered noise nothing water-cooled matches. But the turbos do what turbos do: the top end is smothered and the flat-six wail never fully arrives.
6-cylinder · turbocharged · 6,700 rpm redline · rated 7.1 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €97k (1996) → €294k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
ISOFIX was spreading through these years rather than fitted across the board — whether a given car has rear anchors depends on its year and market.
Children were expected in the back. Front-passenger ISOFIX effectively didn't exist in this era, and airbag deactivation was patchy — treat the front seat as a no unless a specific car proves otherwise.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
Porsche had spent twenty years selling a Turbo that punished the impatient, and the 993 quietly ended that: the smaller pair of turbos spool early enough to remove most of the step, and the all-wheel-drive system means the step no longer decides where the car points. Around six thousand coupés were built and they spent a decade as fast, slightly unloved used Porsches before the air-cooled market caught up. When it did, it caught up hard — this is now one of the most expensive 993s of all, and the cars have moved accordingly from daily-usable supercar to stored appreciating asset. Owners who bought before the run-up still use them; the ones who arrived at current money mostly do not.