The Porsche 911 in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ that car geeks are locking onto

In the 1986 flim Top Gun, Kelly McGillis’ character Charlie zoomed around San Diego in a black 1958 Porsche 356. The little Speedster was actually a replica of the real thing, which is now worth more than $200,000 (about R3,109,908) when in the best condition.

Longtime Speedster replica maker Intermeccanica built Charlie’s ride at its headquarters in Canada.

The hero car of Top Gun: Maverick needed no such stand-in. Instead, the 1973 Porsche 911 S Jennifer Connelly owns as the character Penny is a numbers-matching original car. So is the 1973 911 E t director Joseph Kosinski used on camera as a backup model. 

“Penny sails fast boats so I liked the idea that she drove a vintage Porsche as well,” Kosinski said in an email.

“I think the 1973 911 S model is one of their most timeless designs.”

Connelly herself —not a stunt double — drove the factory-correct Silver Metallic 911 S coupe. It was lent to the film by San Diego resident Nick Psyllos. A longtime collector, Psyllos has owned more than 10 Porsches, including a 1972 911 ST tribute car in tangerine orange. 

Best of the best

With the exception of the top-of-the-line Porsche 911 Carrera RS, the 1973 911 S coupe stands alone at the apex of Porsche’s lightweight sports cars from the early 1970s. It is notable especially because 1973 marked the last of the long-hood, thin-bumper 911s that escaped having bigger, American versions affixed to comply with new safety standards.

Keen viewers of the film spotted the detail right away.

“It was nice to see an old 911 in the film — and with the old pre-impact bumper,” Simon Kidston said after seeing the movie on May 25. The automotive broker had just emceed the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este the weekend prior at Lake Como in Italy, where another silver Porsche — a 356 B Carrera GTL Abarth — won its class.   

The high-performance 1973 “S” came from the factory with a 2.4-litre, 141kW engine and the then-novel “Type 915” transmission that offered a simplified shifting pattern. It had now-iconic “deep-six” Fuchs wheels and a new front chin spoiler that reduced front-end lift so effectively that Porsche adopted it across the 911 line.

It was expensive. According to RM Sotheby’s, the 911 S had a base price of just over $10,000 (roughly R155,514 then and about $65,000 – roughly R1,010,848 – in today’s money) before any additional options.

The car has gained value relatively consistently over the years, with the average price of one in good condition up 9% in the past year. Examples in concours-level condition are worth $229,000 (roughly R3,561,430), according to car insurance company Hagerty. A silver metallic one sold three weeks ago on Bring a Trailer for $214,412 (roughly R3,334,556). 

Top Gun: Maverick may also confer an additional price bump on Psyllos’s specific car.

Celebrity ownership of most cars does little to bolster their values, according to Johnathan Klinger, a Hagerty spokesperson, unless that celebrity is Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. But a role in a James Bond film adds more than 1,000% to the value of a car compared with those that didn’t feature.  

Connelly and Tom Cruise notwithstanding, the Top Gun 911 might fall somewhere in between the two. 

The 1970 Porsche 911 S used by Steve McQueen in the movie Le Mans sold for $1.375m (roughly R21,382,556) at a RM Sotheby’s auction in 2011, nearly 23 times what a similar car without screen time would have been worth. But the 1973 Porsche 911 S Coupe appearing in Maverick doesn’t have quite the same resonance as McQueen’s then-new 911, says John Wiley, manager of valuation analytics at Hagerty Automotive Intelligence.

“It would likely follow the typical movie car multiple of seven times,” Wiley says.

That would still make it worth more than $1.25m (roughly R19,438,687) — a not insignificant sum for a little silver Porsche.

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