For many Porsche owners, buying and selling a car is a business investment as well as a reflection of personal taste. When it comes time to sell your beloved car, your justifying statement may sound like, "I'll find another one."

However, that statement is harder to reconcile if you're trying to part ways with a 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera Club Sport.

By the mid 1980s, the Carrera had evolved into a bulky sports car with an enlarged 3.2-liter flat six and complete with all the bells and whistles, such as plush interiors, electric seats, power windows, air conditioning, soundproofing and headlamp washers. As you might expect, some Porsche fans' expectations were let down. They wanted Porsche to remain true to its heritage of making humble yet high-performance sports cars.

To compensate for the bulky Carrera 3.2 — which weighed more than 2,700 pounds in its early years and approached 2,900 pounds later on — Porsche decided to release a lightweight version: the Carrera Club Sport.

The Club Sport was designed to mediate with disappointed Porsche enthusiasts by offering a more visceral car with fewer creature comforts. Porsche reduced its weight by about 110 pounds to increase performance and make it feel sportier. But not many people bought the car on this side of the Atlantic.

While exact production numbers are not known, it is commonly believed 340 Club Sports were produced between 1987-89. 1988 was the first year it was available in the U.S., and it is believed 28 were imported. Numbers like that make the Club Sport rarer than most special-edition 911 releases.

One of the biggest alienations for consumers was that it lacked a radio. Drivers and passengers enjoy cruising down the road with music, but the Club Sport couldn't offer that.

Instead, this Porsche edition felt more like a race car. It was made to be a simple, driver-oriented sports car. And because of its simplicity, traditional Porsche customers in the U.S. didn't want it.

As generations passed, current Porsche enthusiasts may find it ironic that the Club Sport wasn't received well. In today's market, people will pay more to have fewer additions to their car. Perhaps that adds significantly to the Club Sport's current appeal.

Because it wasn’t successful in its day, Porsche was hesitant to produce another lightweight 911 for the North American market, which we now know as the 1993-94 RS America. Would another car with deleted options really have a chance of succeeding in sales?

Porsche, not surprisingly, wasn’t sure. The stereotype surrounding American drivers was that they wanted all the extras. Adding to the Club Sport's dismal sales, the failure to launch the 1992 Porsche Carrera Cup USA had the automaker seriously concerned about its ability to sell the simplistic 911 RS America and also questioned whether lightweight specials were ideal for the American market.

Fortunately, the RS Americas turned out to be wonderful cars, and Porsche sold 701 of them. RS Americas, the handful of Club Sports and subsequent lightweight Porsches are highly sought after today.

What exactly made the Club Sport undesirable when it was new and classic decades later? Here are examples of some of the accessories that were cut from the Club Sport: air conditioning, passenger's sun visor, clothes hooks, rear seats and even the Carrera emblem on the rear end.

If you were driving in winter, however, heat was still an option, though it wasn't automatic. Both driver and passenger had manual levers between the seats that can be used to open the heating ducts. Porsche also removed all electric motors. The windows and the seats have to be moved manually.

Because the car was lighter, some people saw it as a brilliant prospect for autocross and racing. However, others were upset it did not have the 911 Turbo's wider fenders and bigger tires and felt it would have performed better as a "Turbo Look."

The Club Sport script on the driver's side front-quarter panel is a piece of art. If you look close, you’ll see it’s an intricate pattern seemingly dictated by contemporary technology. The design was as if a dot matrix printer had printed it onto the fender. When viewed from far away, the script looks like a cohesive image. But by leaning in for a closer look, one can see the thousands of tiny dots that make up a dot matrix printed image.

One person's former Club Sport is another person's dream come true. Working side by side with a client, my father Cole Scrogham helped a customer purchase a Carrera Club Sport. It was a surefire investment with approximately 6,000 miles on the odometer. The car even had its original wheels.

My brother Luke Scrogham got a chance to ride along in the sleek, white Club Sport. He thought the car would be louder than a normal Carrera due to its lack of sound-deadening, but that wasn’t exactly the case. The engine sounded, in Luke's words, "Not louder, but you can actually hear the engine whir instead of just roar."

Cole will continue to help his client ready this Club Sport for the road, and, once completed, I hope he decides to add a few (thousand) more miles to the odometer. Cars like this are only getting rarer, as are the people who get to enjoy them.