The Porsche 928 seems to be having a bit of a renaissance moment. As the automotive crowd becomes even more obsessed with seeking increasingly obscure cars and trucks, funky vintage sports cars like the 1979 Porsche 928 Tom Cruise drove in the film Risky Business, which is going to be auctioned at Barrett-Jackson Houston. 

This Porsche 928 sale is actually coming at a good time. Not only are more obscure cars getting more respect (and valuable), the Porsche 928 has seen an uptick in interest after the modern reimagining from a pair of Brazilian designers. 

The Risky Business Porsche 928 that Tom Cruise drove can actually be yours

The collector car market can get a little crazy. Lately, we have seen extremely mundane cars, and sometimes super obscure cars sell for major money just because of super low mileage. However, one thing that will always bring out the bidders are vehicles iconic movies. These famous movie cars and motorcycles are often elevated simply because “it’s the one from the movie.” 

This makes perfect sense. Other than super rare cars and motorcycles, certain movies are what made certain cars collectible in the first place, like the Bullitt Ford Mustang, for instance, the Dodge Challenger from Vanishing Point, or the Trans-Am from Smokey and The Bandit. 

The Porsche 928 is a great example of the other side of these movie cars. The Porsche 928 in and of itself isn’t all that valuable. However, the gold 1979 Porsche 928 that Tom Cruise drove in Risky Business is likely to command a fairly high price. 

Which Porsche 928 is for sale? 

As with most picture cars, multiple gold 1979 Porsche 928s were used to film Risky Business. Don’t worry; according to AutoBlog, this is not the 928 that ended up in Lake Michigan. It was likely that scene was what deterred Porsche from supplying cars for the production after all.

The Porsche 928 headed to Barrett-Jackson in September is actually the one used in the famous chase scene where Tom Cruise has to outrun the Guido the killer pimp and most other driving scenes. 

The Hero Porsche 928 was gold in the film but was originally painted green with a brown leather interior and powered by a 4.7-liter V8 paired with a five-speed manual transmission. On top of this, Porsche being such a famous car from an iconic film, there is the bonus that Tom Cruise couldn’t drive a stick before this movie. Since the Porsche was manual, he had to learn to drive a manual, and this was the car he learned on. 

The Tom Cruise Porsche 928 has an interesting past

As is common with many former picture cars, the Risky Business car was almost lost forever. The previous owner was unaware of its star-studded history had it sitting outside languishing away when it was found by a savvy car hunter. It was reportedly in horrible shape and in need of a great deal of work. 

As is clear now, It has since been restored to its former glory, and after its restoration, it was shown as part of “The Porsche Effect” exhibition at the Petersen Museum, adding to its provenance. 

How much is this Porsche 928 worth? 

Only time will tell. This is without question the most famous 928 in the world, and that will certainly make its price a bit more of a question mark. If this one weren’t in the film, it might be valued at around $15,000-$20,000, and that might be fairly generous. However, given its history and icon status, it’s likely to clear the six-figure mark. 

The Barrett-Jackson Houston auction is set for September. I guess we will find out then how much people care about Tom Cruise’s learner car.