It’s no secret that New York funnyman Jerry Seinfeld likes cars, especially Porsches, and that he has a massive collection with dozens of Stuttgart’s finest. Like any big collector, the sitcom star and creator of that weird Pop Tart movie adds and subtracts from his stable, and this week, he got rid of something. His 1971 Porsche 911S modified by RUF sold for $664,500 via online auction, including fees. That’s a massive amount of money—even in the world of early 911s—so the two famous names attached to this car did a lot of lifting here.
According to the seller, Seinfeld bought the car as a standard 911S in 2008, when his show was well into syndication and Bee Movie had come and gone. He promptly sent it off to RUF in Pfaffenhausen for refurbishing and modification. RUF is a manufacturer in its own right, mainly known for the Porsche-based performance cars it has been building since the late 1980s, but the P-car wizards there will do all sorts of work on any kind of 911, including the older ones.
For Seinfeld’s car, RUF installed a twin-plug 3.4-liter flat-six with individual throttle bodies and electronic fuel injection, a six-speed transaxle, RUF exhaust, Bilstein suspension, and 930 disc brakes. The body got flared rear fenders, a power sunroof (sun-RUF?), and a repaint in its original Gemini Blue Metallic, while the interior got Pepita and leather upholstery as well as lightweight door panels. RUF certainly didn’t rush the job, as it reportedly took three years and €257,883.14 to complete. Needless to say, the finished product is a thing of beauty. It’s not clear how much Seinfeld used the RUF-Porsche after it was finished, but the odometer currently shows 2298 miles.
Frantic bidding and tons of commentary, including every hacky joke and Seinfeld reference you could think of, resulted in 493 comments on the listing. That must be a record for the number of comments on a Bring a Trailer, or close to it.
Not that Jerry needs the money, but this car was very well sold. The condition #1 (concours, or best in the world) value for a ’71 911S in our price guide is $240K. Combine that with the shop bills from RUF, and it still doesn’t add up to the sale price. Seinfeld and ex-Seinfeld cars have popped up for auction occasionally, and his name does usually have some cachet in the Porsche world in terms of price. In 2016, he sold several Porsches out of his collection at Gooding & Co.’s Amelia Island auction. The most expensive among them was his 550A Spyder that sold for $5.3M, while his 356A GS/GT Carrera Speedster sold for $1.54M but later got caught up in a three-way legal battle over its authenticity. A 1996 993 that Seinfeld used to commute to filming later seasons of his show sold last year for $169,000, about 30 grand over its condition #1 value at the time.
The only argument that this RUF-tweaked car is a good value is that it sold for much less than certain other resto-modded or “reimagined” air-cooled 911s like Singers or Gunther Works, but that’s a little bit of apples and oranges since those are much more comprehensive builds. If you look at it any other way, this funnyman’s car brought serious money.
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