This Week on Hagerty Marketplace: American Luxury and Teutonic Touring
Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.
For this week’s selection of sales, we’ve got two eras of classic American luxury and a 911 from the penultimate air-cooled generation.
1955 Chrysler Windsor DeLuxe Newport
Sold for $12,840
Before Virgil Exner went wild with Chrysler designs in the late ’50s and added radical fins to the lineup, Chrylser had some fabulously elegant designs like this beautiful Windsor DeLuxe Newport hardtop. This understated Mopar wears a black exterior with a red interior, giving a slightly sinister hint that there’s something more lurking under the hood.
By 1955, Chrysler was transitioning away from its early Hemi V-8 and introducing the Polyspheric V-8s, which served as the predecessor of the LA V-8 family that spawned the 340 of the muscle car era, among others. This hot-rodded hardtop skipped the small-block altogether, opting for a larger, more powerful, and more modern powerplant: a Mopar 383 big-block. It features a couple of later additions, including chrome valve covers and an open-element air cleaner. It fits the mildly hot-rodded exterior of the car, which wears Torq-Thrust-style wheels, and makes for an interesting ride that would stand in contrast to the typical Tri-Five Chevy.
1968 Cadillac Eldorado
Sold for $21,400
Cadillac was on a roll in the 1950s and 1960s, spearheading American car design with ostentatious fins, loads of chrome, and acres of sculpted body panels. The Eldorado was no exception. The radically redesigned 1967 model took the brand’s styling in a new direction and also made the change to front-wheel-drive, placing an automatic transaxle behind a longitudinally mounted V-8. This generation of Eldorado also has some of the coolest taillights in American car history, with knife-edged bezels that slash down the car’s angular quarter-panels.
This long, low-slung coupe features a monster 375hp, 472-cubic-inch V-8, new for 1968. That powerplant will have no trouble pulling the coupe down the highway, and its long wheelbase surely makes for a smooth ride. Refinished in striking Shalimar Gold with a white vinyl top, this luxurious cruiser has a new lease on life after a significant refresh completed in February 2024. Its sale price reflects a solid #3 (Good) condition.
1991 Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Coupe
Sold for $82,500
The 964 generation 911 would be the second-to-last of the air-cooled Porsches, and it debuted in 1989 with the Carrera 4 model. Claimed to be 85% new, the 964-gen 911 wore freshened styling on a familiar silhouette. Anti-lock brakes and power steering were added as standard features on the 964, helping make the model a little bit friendlier than its predecessor.
Despite having more than 100,000 miles on this clock, the paint on this stunning 964 still looks great. Inside, the tan interior shows just a bit of wear on the driver’s seat upholstery. Even more important, the 3.6-liter engine has recently had a leak-down test, and all of the cylinder bores and piston rings seem to be getting along nicely, hinting that this black beauty has plenty of life left.
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I always liked the late 60s Eldos. The styling in the 70s seemed to be a lot about clobbering you with the fact that they are big. The late 60s ones looked sleek and you could almost forget they were the size of an aircraft carrier. The horsepower numbers would also embarrass some of the muscle cars out in the day and wouldn’t be considered too shabby by today’s standards
I’ve always wanted a 911, but not 80K worth of want. I am not an investment collector, and for 80K, I could buy a lot more fun behind the wheel
Agreed, TG. Early Eldorados are the bomb. Air-cooled 911s are cool, but they went away as a good value back in 2018.
I like that Chrysler. Looks good.
I had a 67 Eldo when we lived in CA. Going skiing at Lake Taho with chains on the front wheels was a dream.
Compared to a lot of things up for sale these days at some prices that make me cringe and long for the ‘good old days’ of more reasonably priced old cars that were more for enjoyment than ‘investment’, that 55 Chrysler looks like a relative bargain, especially with the hard part of quasi-resto-modding the more modern engine (assuming a matching 3 speed Torqueflite trans?) and A/C for summer in a black car. Probably hard to build that car today for $12K.