The Kind of Guy You Want to Sell Your Porsche
Selling an old Porsche is easy. Finding the right person to sell it for you is not.
by Mads – September 1, 2026
Field Note
There is a particular kind of person who appears when you put an old, valuable Porsche up for sale.
If you’ve ever sold one, you know.
The test-drive tourist. The time thief. The guy who wants to borrow your car for twenty minutes so he can feel rich. The five-minute millionaire. The guy with the Cayenne who suddenly becomes a lifelong Porsche collector the moment he sees your 911 sitting in the garage.
I’ve sold a few old Porsches over the years.
And with every one of them, I became a little less interested in selling cars.
Not because I didn’t want to sell them. Usually, I did. There was always something else coming along. Another car, another project, another stupid idea that seemed considerably more important at the time.
What I didn’t want was everything that came with the sale.
People who make an appointment and then leave you sitting there for hours.
One particular gentleman was supposed to arrive at a certain time. He didn’t.
Eventually, I got a message: he’d missed his flight.
Fine.
The next morning, another appointment.
Another three hours.
He finally turned up, took a look at the car and made an offer so ridiculous that I politely showed him the way out of my garage.
There are people I simply don’t sell cars to.
Then there was the Cayenne guy.
He jumped out of his car, looked at my Porsche and shouted:
“Hey, there’s already my name on that one. I’m giving myself that for Christmas.”
I asked him whether he already owned an old Porsche.
“Yeah. Five or seven. I don’t really know.”
Right.
Five or seven.
Probably somewhere in his imagination.
He drove the car, told me how much he loved it, told me how serious he was, told me all the usual things.
I never heard from him again.
But here’s the thing:
They’re not all like that.
I once sold a Porsche entirely by email.
I was in California. The buyer was in Japan.
I made a video of the car. We exchanged emails. We talked on the phone.
He was drunk.
He made an offer.
I accepted.
The next morning, he may or may not have remembered the entire conversation.
There was also a small numerical error in the payment.
We sorted it out.
The money arrived.
The car was sold.
I never met the man.
I only ever saw his money.
It worked perfectly.
But I still didn’t want to do it again.
So when my patipatina Porsche was finally finished – every screw turned, every detail gone through, the carburetors rebuilt and the whole thing exactly where I wanted it – I knew I wanted to sell it. The story of why is even longer than this one.
I just didn’t want to sell it myself.
And this is where Dieter came in.
A few years earlier, Benjamin had bought a couple of steering wheels from me. Then a few more.
By then he’d moved from California to Spain, then to the Netherlands, and was already preparing to move on to Japan.
We talked about cars.
He told me he’d handed his own cars over to a guy he trusted to sell them for him.
“You should talk to Dieter.”
So I did.
And sometimes you know pretty quickly when you’ve found the right person.
Dieter was a great guy by email.
Even better in person.
He came over, looked at the Porsche, asked the right questions, understood what it was, and simply said that he’d be happy to sell it.
We talked through the details.
We agreed.
And I felt an immediate sense of relief.
Because I didn’t have to deal with the half-serious collectors, the fantasists, the professional negotiators, the five-minute rich guys and the dental-wolf-looking gentlemen who seem to materialise whenever an expensive old Porsche appears on the internet.
Dieter dealt with all of it.
And he did it properly.
He had the car photographed in an absolutely incredible hall, presented it beautifully and handled the whole process from there.
No circus. No drama.
Just a car that deserved to be presented properly, and someone who knew how to do it.
And eventually:
Sold.
That’s it.
The funny thing is that I’m already thinking about old cars again.
Maybe I’ll buy another one.
Maybe I’ll finally pull one of the cars out of the barn and actually restore it.
The problem is time.
There never seems to be enough of it.
Not mine, anyway.
And somehow, increasingly, that’s the thing that matters most.
So if I ever find myself standing in front of an old Porsche again, wondering whether it’s time to let it go, I’m no longer thinking about the people who will answer the advert.
I’m thinking:
At least I know Dieter.
And that changes everything.
I don’t get paid for saying this.
Not a cent.
This isn’t sponsored. It’s not an affiliate thing. Dieter didn’t ask me to write it.
I’m writing it because he earned it.
Not because he sold my Porsche.
Because of the way he did it.
He’s honest. He’s straightforward. He’s a good guy.
And in a business where trust is worth considerably more than a polished sales pitch, that’s about as good a recommendation as I can give.
Everyone should have a Dieter.
If you’re looking to sell an old Porsche, a classic sports car, or something else that deserves a little more care than “just put it online and see what happens”, get in touch with Dieter Tielman from DTM Collectibles.
And if you do, tell him the guy from patipatina sent you.
He’ll probably enjoy that.
