The Floor Keeps Rising

Thank You to the Kimchi Crew

Before we get into it, a genuine thank you to everyone who listens, supports the show, and keeps this community alive. You know who you are. We do this because we love it, and you make it worth doing. Now let's get into it.

Detroit IMSA: BOP'd Into Irrelevance

The Porsche GT3R at Detroit was so heavily Balance of Performance'd that it was barely a factor, and the prototype entries qualified so far back in such a short enduro format that catching up was a near-impossible ask before the green flag even dropped. But let's be honest with ourselves here: IMSA was on GM's side from the jump. The race is in Detroit, GM's backyard, and anyone paying attention could feel the gravitational pull toward keeping the home team looking good. This isn't new. The frustration with series organizers placating to manufacturers based on geography or politics is real, and it's a recurring stain on what should be a pure competition. When the racing result feels predetermined by the city it's held in, that's a problem worth calling out.

The 911 Market Is Not Coming Back Down

We touched the surface of this last episode when we talked about Mezger-engine GT3s drying up and the 993 price surge, but it's time to go deeper because the numbers are getting genuinely hard to rationalize. 997 Carrera S's: a green manual with 35k miles is asking $108k. Midnight blue, 55k miles, manual, asking $90k. For a Carrera S. Let that sit. 996 Turbos, which we've covered before, are now seeing 95k-mile manual cars asking $90k. The market logic here is that against the backdrop of new Porsche prices, these feel like deals to people entering the hobby. And look, we get it, but that doesn't make the numbers any less wild.

The broader picture is this: if you are chasing a manual 911 of any generation, any configuration, the era of stumbling into a good deal is over. Base 991.1s with 50 to 80k miles are moving at $65k to $80k. Base Carrera, not an S, not a GTS. And before anyone says you can still find a reasonable 996 base 911 for $35k to $40k with 90k miles -- we'd push back hard on that. That is not a bargain. That is a lot of money for a car that will demand attention and investment. The "affordable 911" narrative needs to be retired.

Here's the thing we want to be transparent about: there is zero financial incentive for us to tell you to go buy a car. We don't get a cut. But if you want a manual 911 and you're sitting on the fence, today is genuinely the better bet than tomorrow, because every data point we're seeing says the floor keeps rising regardless of generation. This is not a bubble in the traditional sense. These are driver's cars with a finite supply of desirable manual configurations in a world that stopped producing them. Why do you think this keeps going up? We'd love to hear from the community on that.

What makes this genuinely upsetting, not just analytically frustrating, is that the price appreciation is pricing out exactly the people who should be owning these cars. The passionate ones. The ones who would drive them, maintain them right, and actually care. Instead they end up with people for whom it's a flex or a garage sculpture. That's a gut punch for anyone who's been in this community long enough to remember when that wasn't the case.

JC9 Carrera GT: A Solution Looking for a Problem

The JC9 is essentially a reimagined Carrera GT body with visual cues borrowed from the 917. On paper that sounds compelling, but sitting with it longer brings up some real questions. The Carrera GT doesn't need to be fixed. It is one of the most celebrated analog driver's cars ever made. Slapping a new body on the concept and marketing it to ultra-wealthy buyers who want something exclusive feels like the automotive equivalent of a solution looking for a problem. KISS. Keep it simple. The military drilled that into some of us for good reason, and it applies here. The original formula was right. The more the car world chases bespoke r