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Just returned from the PCA Porsche Parade Concours held yesterday in Palm Springs. The overall winner (not just in his category) was a Boxster owned by Nathan Merz. The car is 15 years old and only has 1300 miles on it, but still, ITS A BOXSTER!
Fun to see my car posted up here and I was thrilled to win! Thanks for all the kind words as well! I don't disagree with the sentiment that 1,300 miles is a waste, there is a backstory as to why it has such low miles but out of respect for the original owners family I will not share it here. Suffice it to say that I honored his wishes with the car and have been thrilled to be be its next custodian.
The most fun thing about the car is that I was able to execute on a vision that I had for the Limited Edition. I have always felt that Porsche stopped short of perfection with this car and there was some missed oppurtunitiy, so I put on my "What Would Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur Do".... so here is a list of the various changes I made:
Exterior Elements in Gloss Black: A-Pillar, OEM Hardtop, Headlight Washers, Boxster Spyder Exhaust Tips
Techquipment All Red Tailights
Brake Calipers Refinished in Orange to Match. Brake Rotor hats refinished in Black, 15mm spacers all around, black titanium lugnuts
OEM 987.2 Boxster Spyder Springs, shocks and sway bars
Interior Elements in Gloss Black: Door Pulls, Airbags warning emblems, HVAC controls, Radio delete panel, console horseshoe, center console, globe box pull, instrument binnacle surround
Removed Boxster Door Sills and Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur Door Sill Graphics
Exclusive Storage Bin cover with embossed Porsche Crest
Many more small changes I can't even recall, I think 53 changes in total.
It was an amazingly fun project that I think really achieved my vision of what this car should have been. More that anything it was great to win with a Boxster. Fair or not in Porsche circles the Boxster has a hard time competing for the hearts and minds vs. the various 911 GT variants. The car won it's class against some AMAZING cars, won in Group (which means competing against all other cars in the same group but non Boxters) which only 3 Boxster/Caymans have ever won in the last 26 years and the best award IMO is that the kids voted this their favorite car out of ALL the Porsche's at the event! I think this bodes well for all Boxster owners!
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Nathan at last years Parade in Pocono and he is an outstanding person. The guy evaluated my car on THE SPOT. I enjoy his reviews very much. Can't say enough about him.. Super dude.
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Nathan at last years Parade in Pocono and he is an outstanding person. The guy evaluated my car on THE SPOT. I enjoy his reviews very much. Can't say enough about him.. Super dude.
I totally agree. I met him at French Lick 2 years ago and again at the Poconos last year. He remembered me and our conversation picked up right where it left off! He had just purchased this Orange Limited Edition at the time and was showing me pics of it. Congrats to him!
Just returned from the PCA Porsche Parade Concours held yesterday in Palm Springs. The overall winner (not just in his category) was a Boxster owned by Nathan Merz. The car is 15 years old and only has 1300 miles on it, but still, ITS A
What a waste. 1,300 miles in 15 years?? Drive the damn thing instead of parking it on (or trailering it to) a lawn and talking about it...
What a waste. 1,300 miles in 15 years?? Drive the damn thing instead of parking it on (or trailering it to) a lawn and talking about it...
I wouldn't argue against you.
However, there are those that treat their cars as commodities and rarely drive them. There are also those who have a passionate relationship to the marque, have a thing about perfection, and rarely drive them.
IMHO, Nathan's profile is the latter, not the former. Of course, his business is selling, but I'm referring to his personal collection.
Who cannot be astonished by the condition of the two 3.2s that he showed in his most recent vid. Equally stunning is his green 987.1 CS with a red interior.
I met him last Feb at "Tech Tactics East" in PA and we chatted briefly. Terrific person!
However, there are those that treat their cars as commodities and rarely drive them. There are also those who have a passionate relationship to the marque, have a thing about perfection, and rarely drive them.
IMHO, Nathan's profile is the latter, not the former. Of course, his business is selling, but I'm referring to his personal collection.
Who cannot be astonished by the condition of the two 3.2s that he showed in his most recent vid. Equally stunning is his green 987.1 CS with a red interior.
I met him last Feb at "Tech Tactics East" in PA and we chatted briefly. Terrific person!
All fair points, The Duke. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I'll never understand why someone wouldn't use a car as intended, but to each his/her own. Regardless of my opinion on car shows, concours events, etc., Nathan sounds like a valuable community member and a real asset to this forum. Good on him.
Last edited by Dietrich72; 06-22-2023 at 09:44 PM.
All fair points, The Duke. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I'll never understand why someone wouldn't use a car as intended, but to each his/her own. Regardless of my opinion on car shows, concours events, etc., Nathan sounds like a valuable community member and a real asset to this forum. Good on him.
I completely agree with you Dietrich. I thought the exact same thing, when I saw 1300 miles.. I suppose you're simply in a whole other tax bracket, when you can have pristine 1:1 scale models of a really cool car!!
Nathan is a true gentleman and an asset to the Porsche enthusiast community. I spent a couple hours speaking with him this past week and as always he’s a wealth of knowledge and he has a few ideas up his sleeve which will continue to help current and future owners.
As far as concours goes, there are low mileage garage queens and high mileage prestine examples that all compete in the same space. There were plenty of cars that were driven long distances to the show and not only looked amazing but also scored very high with the judges. To put things in context there were six cars competing in the mid engine Boxster/cayman group. I competed against Nathan’s car and his score was 139.9. My Spyder took second place and scored 139.6, has 22k miles and was driven 60 miles to the event. Third place went to a White 08 Cayman with triple the miles of my car (driven from Ohio!) with a score of 139.6 so yeah technically we tied but judges favored the Spyder….likely because it is black and we all know what a pain that is. Experience, skill and money all obviously play a role in the results. A 15 year old car that has been driven and enjoyed can and very frequently will beat a 2 year old car.
Two days after the concours my daughter and I spent the day hammering the Spyder in the canyons. 185 miles later you would never know it had just been in a concours
Last edited by Spyder_2011; 06-23-2023 at 12:21 AM.
Well that's cool. These are awesome and very special cars.
I recently acquired #74/250 in the S variant.
I've seen this LE hard top in a PCA video of Nathan's but didn't realize it was his. He's a wealth of knowledge.
Fun to see my car posted up here and I was thrilled to win! Thanks for all the kind words as well! I don't disagree with the sentiment that 1,300 miles is a waste, there is a backstory as to why it has such low miles but out of respect for the original owners family I will not share it here. Suffice it to say that I honored his wishes with the car and have been thrilled to be be its next custodian.
The most fun thing about the car is that I was able to execute on a vision that I had for the Limited Edition. I have always felt that Porsche stopped short of perfection with this car and there was some missed oppurtunitiy, so I put on my "What Would Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur Do".... so here is a list of the various changes I made:
Exterior Elements in Gloss Black: A-Pillar, OEM Hardtop, Headlight Washers, Boxster Spyder Exhaust Tips
Techquipment All Red Tailights
Brake Calipers Refinished in Orange to Match. Brake Rotor hats refinished in Black, 15mm spacers all around, black titanium lugnuts
OEM 987.2 Boxster Spyder Springs, shocks and sway bars
Interior Elements in Gloss Black: Door Pulls, Airbags warning emblems, HVAC controls, Radio delete panel, console horseshoe, center console, globe box pull, instrument binnacle surround
Removed Boxster Door Sills and Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur Door Sill Graphics
Exclusive Storage Bin cover with embossed Porsche Crest
Many more small changes I can't even recall, I think 53 changes in total.
It was an amazingly fun project that I think really achieved my vision of what this car should have been. More that anything it was great to win with a Boxster. Fair or not in Porsche circles the Boxster has a hard time competing for the hearts and minds vs. the various 911 GT variants. The car won it's class against some AMAZING cars, won in Group (which means competing against all other cars in the same group but non Boxters) which only 3 Boxster/Caymans have ever won in the last 26 years and the best award IMO is that the kids voted this their favorite car out of ALL the Porsche's at the event! I think this bodes well for all Boxster owners!
06-20-2023, 06:28 PM
And the Concours winner is…
Experience, skill and money all obviously play a role in the results. A 15 year old car that has been driven and enjoyed can and very frequently will beat a 2 year old car.
