About Guides

In 1996 I bought my first Porsche, a 944ºS2, from a main dealer and bought it entirely on trust. Fortunately, apart from a blown head gasket covered under warranty it was a sound car. I moved on to a 964 Carrera 4 in 1998 which I had inspected as the only way to be sure it wasn’t a lemon – it looked beautiful, in Tahoe Blue metallic, cream leather sports seats, and again proved to be faultless. There was nothing like our buyers guides around at the time except a book called ‘Buying and Selling Used Porsches’ which was pithy and to the point, but mono and of course out of date as soon as it was written.

After moving away from a business I sold, I contacted the author, Chris Mellor. Chris was Chairman of the Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club and has owned a Porsche 944 Turbo and Mazda MX-5, and is a professional writer, editors and publisher. We agreed to update the book with hugely expanded content in downloadable PDF format, so you can view on screen, save onto your PC or print out Guides covering all Porsche models, from the 356, through the 3.2 Carrera, 964, 993, 996 and now even the Cayenne, Carrera GT and Cayman. Our Guides are now around 20 pages A4 in full colour, updated at least annually and whenever we pick up more tips that make our guides the most up to date and best value on the web. After all, we’ve been doing this since 2002 and everyone else like Adrian Crawford, Peter Morgan and Phil Raby have followed our lead, so our buyers guides must be good.

We also took Chris’s part finished BMW Buyers Guides book and made buyers Guides to sports BMW models like the Z3, M3 and M5, 6-series, 8-series and now Z4, and added buyers guides to the MGF and TF, MR2, Audi TT, Honda S2000 and more, including modern classics like the Alfa Spider, Jaguar XJS and XK8. We produce our buyers guides with the relevant UK car clubs – MG Owners Club, MR2 Drivers Club, MX-5 Owners Club etc. And our Ferrari Buyers Guides are produced with the official sanction of the Ferrari Owners Club of Great Britain – produced with the help of members, owners and trade specialists. We cover everything from the 330GTC through Daytona, 328, F355 and 360 Modena – nearly 20 Guides. We cover 60 or so cars now.

If you’re buying a sports car, a Porsche or Ferrari at £50,000 or more, in the UK or worldwide (we’ve sold thousands of these Guides to virtually every country where they have roads), or a first time early MG at £2,000, you need buying advice that helps you avoid wasting your cash. Our guides tell you which models are best to own, point out subtle changes between model years and places to check on the car that tell you if its been accident damaged, mistreated or neglected.

As a further safeguard, we also run the biggest Pre Purchase Inspection service on used sports cars in the UK, checking around 15 cars every week. Our inspections (click here for more) give you the peace of mind of an expert engineers opinion – he’ll give you a fairly unequivocal ‘ buy this car’ or ‘do not buy this car for that price’ report. Our engineers inspect one marque only and are factory trained – they do not buy and sell cars, are not gentlemen amateurs, they all run Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus or other marque businesses that fix and repair these cars every day. They know if a car doesn’t drive right, and are not expressing an opinion on whether it’s worth buying to shift for a quick buck. We offer a fully mobile service UK-wide in all weathers – which is unique, and our hand picked mobile team are professional and top level car inspectors. One is retained by the BBC for ‘Watchdog’ for example, another designed a car and built a car factory then ran a single marque race series for it, another is the Concours Chairman of the Porsche Club of Great Britain.

If you are new to any sports marque, want to speak to someone about how to go about buying an expensive car – how to negotiate price, pay a deposit safely and whether the car is good value, we are happy to advise. And we’ll even tell you which dealers to avoid !

Mark Wibberley

Director, September 2006