Would You Risk Crashing This $1.7 Million 911 RS 3.8 To Get Your Kicks?

We’ve all got one: a list of rare-groove cars we’ll buy as soon as out lottery numbers come in. Cars like this Porsche 964 RS 3.8 feature somewhere on mine. Imagine lifting your garage door on a Sunday morning, taking it out onto your favorite roads, or local track, and thrashing the life out of what some people would claim is one the most exciting sports car Porsche has ever built.

Sadly, most of us will never get the chance to put a car like this beautiful Porsche in our garage. At around $1.7 million, it’s an unrealistic aspiration for anyone who didn’t get in on Bitcoin when dinosaurs were still a thing.

But what’s even sadder is that even the people who can afford these cars don’t always feel comfortable driving them the way their makers intended them to be driven.

And that’s not necessarily down to a lack of talent. This 964, which I was incredibly lucky enough to drive a few weeks ago for a magazine feature, was once owned by four-time IndyCar Series champ Dario Franchitti, so we can be pretty confident he had the ability to get the very best of it.

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But the fact that it’s one of around 50 made, one of three made in the right-hand drive, and is in immaculate original, un-crashed condition with only 22,000 miles on the clock, meant Scotland-based Franchitti felt uncomfortable enjoying it to the max and decided to let it go.

‘I was very happy with the price I got but who wouldn’t miss taking out for a drive on a crazy Scottish back road, then looking at it in the garage afterwards?’ Franchitti told us.

‘But it was just too original to drive it how I wanted to. I turned it into part of a Daytona Spider.’

The same thing applies to most of the newer hypercars. Working for titles like Autocar, Car and Road & Track over the past two decades, I’ve been lucky enough to attend the press drives of dozens of exotics. I can tell you what it’s like to hit 217 mph on a public road in Portugal in a Bugatti Chiron, to hot-lap a Porsche 918 Spyder at a Spanish race track so fast the pro driver leading us in the 911 Turbo S ahead actually span off, and to my eternal shame, what it feels like to send a LaFerrari into the gravel at Fiorano.

Fortunately the car was fine, and so was Ferrari about it, although they make sure they find an opportunity to mention it every time I visit the factory.

But my point is that those press drive events are often the last time some of these rare cars get driven in the manner they were designed to be driven. When we’ve managed to borrow one down the line, either from the manufacturer, a dealer, or an owner, you approach the drive in a very different mindset, because the car is often more valuable now that production has ended.

And while some owners do really push their cars hard, many don’t for fear of damaging their investment.

So don’t worry if you never strike gold and get to tick off those lottery win cars. There’s every chance you’re having as much fun in the far slower, far less valuable car you’ve got right now. If my numbers do come up, however, you can rest assured I’ll be coming back for this RS.