The 2025 Porsche 911's price hikes are aggressive even for Porsche

First of all, if you're less than shocked, that's fair. The Porsche 911 represents many wonderful things, but value generally isn't considered one of them. It's also worth foregrounding the fact that a 1997 911 Carrera coupe stickered for around $64,000, which converts to $125,000 at present — $5k more than the 2025 911 Carrera coupe's starting price. "Scheisse," you can imagine them exclaiming in Zuffenhausen, "we're not even keeping up with inflation!"

Having said that, wow, have 911 prices escalated quickly as of late. When the current 992 generation debuted in 2020, a base 911 Carrera coupe would have run you $97,400 plus fees. Back then, the turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-6 pumped out 379 horsepower and 331 pound-feet of torque, whereas in 2025 it makes...drumroll...388 hp and 331 lb-ft. Same engine, then, more or less, and same eight-speed PDK transmission, too. Yet today, you'll pay an additional $22,700 just to get your foot in the door of a 911 Carrera coupe, a 23.3-percent jump in a span of six model years for what is largely the same car.

That's not normal.

Zooming in, though, the 2025 model year is a clear inflection point with the arrival of the 992.2 sub-generation. Let's just focus on that transition, because it presents major price increases without any Covid-era distortions. Yes, the 992.2 has a smattering of upgrades, but for all the commotion about the new 3.6-liter hybrid powertrain with its 54-hp electric motor, it's only installed in the GTS for 2025. The other changes are relatively minor, yet prices have shot up on pretty much every 911 except the carryover Turbo, Turbo S and GT3 RS, as we'll see in the table below.

The 992.2 Porsche 911 Is Just a Lot More Expensive

The numbers are stark. The base Carrera coupe we've been discussing turns out to have the smallest price increase of all, so the five-percent gap between last year's base price and this year's actually understates the magnitude of the changes. We selected five prominent 911 coupe variants for this analysis, including the Carrera GTS, whose fancy new hybrid powertrain somehow doesn't make it the biggest mover in the price column. Not even close.

What jumps out? Yep. No more sub-$200k GT3s for you! Of course, if you follow this stuff, you'll know that 992.1 GT3s routinely sold for tens of thousands more than MSRP, so Porsche's mostly just grabbing a piece of that markup pie for itself. But still! That's a serious raising of the bar for a model that loses 15 lb-ft of torque due to emissions modifications. We'll grant that the shorter final drive ratio for 2025 is a welcome if overdue adjustment to make the 9,000-rpm redline more accessible, but it would have been even more welcome as an a la carte option last year, when the shorter gearing was only provided in the $290k 911 S/T.

Harrumph.

Anyway, the GT3 obviously wins the inflation award, but it's also remarkable that the Carrera S gets a bigger bump than the GTS despite the latter's hybrid-ness. The regular old S makes 30 more hp for 2025, but the torque is unchanged at 390 lb-ft, and it's definitely not a hybrid. Why the $15.1k boost, then, versus $14k for the newly hybridized GTS? "Why not" is probably the better question for all of this.

And then there's the Carrera T, which is the one where Porsche says, "How would you like to pay extra for a base 911 Carrera with less sound insulation and thinner glass?" That proposition made almost no sense whatsoever with the 2024 Carrera T's available automatic transmission (the base Carrera has had strictly two pedals for some time), so it's no surprise that the 2025 Carrera T is manual-only. It's a six-speed, by the way, having shed last year's super-tall seventh cog while keeping the 1-6 ratios the same, which doesn't seem like an improvement. Equipped with rear-axle steering and Porsche's PASM adaptive suspension dampers as standard, the 2025 Carrera T is clearly the sportier of the two entry-level 911s, but is it $9.1k better than it was a year ago? See "why not," above.

So What?

Right. This is hardly a protest piece, despite the kvetching. Porsche knows the 911 is uniquely appealing, and it's going to charge its customers significantly more than ever if they want a piece of the 992.2 action. So it goes. Perhaps we'd do the same.

But damn, those hikes are aggressive. Pro tip? Take your Carrera T money, skip the turbo lag (it's real), and go find the nicest 2016 Carrera S manual in the country — the final year of natural aspiration for the Carrera crew. Now put the leftover cash in a maintenance fund. By the time you're ready to sell it, which might be never, the collector market will have realized that the last of the 3.8-liter Carrera S manual coupes belong at top of the 991/992 desirability chart. Do this, as they say, not that. ⛐ md