Earlier this week, I was hired to complete a pre-purchase valuation for a Porsche Boxster S (987 S). Research turned up some interesting data. The car in question was a very high spec car finished in nice colours, but with higher than average mileage.
A look at the other cars on the market showed that, while the asking price was at the very top of the scale for cars being sold privately, the mileage was in the top 30% of all cars available. The seller had added a sizeable premium for spec items that the average Boxster buyer simply would not value as highly. My advice to the prospective buyer was to keep his powder dry and watch for bargains turning up towards the back end of the year.
Porsche Market Trends 2019
Anyone selling their car at the minute must remember that the car market has been hard work through 2019. Current new car registration figures show a very small lift in September over last year, but the month is down over 27% versus the peak in 2016. The market is not at full speed, reflecting the wider economic picture. The prevailing lack of consumer confidence has a knock-on effect on the used car market.
Sports cars are non-essential purchases and their prices are more subject to external market forces than most other sectors. While 4x4s can get a bit of a lift in winter regardless of the economic picture, and vans get a bit of a lift around Christmas when deliveries are at their peak, sports cars peak when the weather is good and are a fairly low priority for most people through the rest of the year. Not everyone, just most people.
Sell your used Porsche Boxster
My client on this valuation had just sold his previous Boxster: a 2007 2.7 987 with 105k miles. “I sold my 2.7 for £7500: full asking price. I made it stand out, though: painted the bumper, put new tyres on, cleaned it properly. It was a 245hp manual model with a few nice extras, OPC and specialist history. I had it for 5 years and put 30k on it. Paid £10k when I bought it. Possibly the best value sports car ever!”
While all this sounds great, the devil is in the detail. The sale was not easy, as the buyer was the only person who actually came to view the car. The seller had loads of timewasters and dreamers, offering £4-5k or to pay the car off monthly.
A quick look on Autotrader for 2007 Porsche Boxsters with circa 100k miles shows 32 cars with prices running from £7,500 to £17,000. The highest price is an outlier with 11k miles, with the next lowest at just under £15k. The spread of private sales runs from £7.5k for a 99k-mile Tip to just under £12k for a 42k-mile manual.
Retail asking prices for 2007 Porsche Boxster 987 2.7 manuals with 40-44k miles hover around the £11,850 mark, so assuming condition is more or less identical, how likely is a savvy buyer to pay the same price for a private car as a dealer is asking for a car with finance available and a warranty included? When condition is identical, the chances are slim.
The Porsche and BMW classifieds are full of private sellers asking strong money for average cars with the assertion that “if it doesn’t sell, I will keep it over winter and sell it next year” or words to that effect. In this market, with book drops every month and very little likelihood of a bounce over winter, people need to take their first profit.
Many private sellers are going to have to try harder if they want their cars to sell. If they are really not bothered about selling, take their ‘meh’ cars off the market. Low supply of good examples is the best way to help the price of their car over time. If you do want to sell, get with the programme!
(Values correct at October 2019)
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DriveNation’s Andrew Frankel has just shared his impressions following an early open-road press drive in the pre-production Porsche Taycan. You can read his full review here, or scroll to the end. Here are some comments worth thinking about:
“You sit low: 911 low, which is odd in a four-door car weighing around 2.25 tonnes. Yes, it’s near silent but what you notice first is the ride quality. It is ridiculously good, the best of any Porsche I have driven.
“The acceleration is violent, even in the Turbo. The steering was a surprise: weighty, accurate, linear, way closer to a 911 than a Panamera. It is the best electric car I’ve driven and by a mile.”
Porsche gears up for Taycan
Taycan is part of Porsche’s €6 billion gamble on a 50% sales split between electrified and pure ICE vehicles by 2025. Taycan production has carbon neutral ambitions: the goal is a factory with no environmental impact.
Stuttgart’s first full electric production car will add 1,200 employees to the factory-within-a-factory in Zuffenhausen. “The Taycan is one of biggest creators of jobs in the history of Porsche,” said Andreas Haffner, head of HR and Social Affairs. Not all of these new employees will be producing the Taycan; they will also build two-door sports cars. Porsche wants a team blending experienced sports car builders and new staff.
In a programme carried out at last year’s Geneva Motor Show, Porsche apparently measured more than 20,000 people worldwide who were interested in buying a Taycan. Buyers were invited to place a deposit before adding their names to an options programme list. Porsche upgraded its production plans off the back of that information.
The drip feeding of performance data and feedback echoing Frankel’s opinions from first press drives ahead of next month’s launch will no doubt be getting some wallets flapping. Pre-production cars have already been shown at Shanghai, Goodwood Festival of Speed and Formula E season finale in New York to build interest amongst the target demographic.
Taycan covers 2,000 miles in 24 hours
Endurance testing at Porsche’s Nardo facility recently allowed a pre-production Taycan to cover 3,425 kilometres (2128 miles) in 24 hours, stopping only for quick charging and driver changes. Speed tests at Nardo have shown the Taycan to be capable of going from 0-200 km/h (124 mph) 26 times in a row, taking an average of under 10 seconds each time.
The latest testing at the Nürburgring set a new lap record for a four-door electric car of 7 minutes 42 seconds around the 20.6 kilometre Nordschleife lap record circuit. That’s a minute slower than a Porsche 911 GT2 RS, but Taycan used no petrol to do that lap time and the only noises heard came from the tyres and the guy with the stopwatch at the finish line.
Despite owning a Prius for several years and fully appreciating what Porsche is working towards, I’m not an electric car evangelist. I would rather cut my miles and try to drive smarter than pour money into something that is marketed as a zero emissions car but in fact takes substantial energy to produce and needs charging via the national grid every day of its life. There is still financial sense in running efficient petrol engines.
My main thought when I read about the efforts going in to electric cars is that every minute spent developing one thing is a minute that is not spent developing another, which may still have much to contribute. But such is life. Taycan production slots will be released towards the end of 2019, so expect a deluge of press once the kids go back to school. You lucky people!
Interesting news from Le Mans this morning, as the results of the pre-Le Mans test were released. Porsche works and customer racing teams clocked up a combined total of more than 6,000 miles (9,988 kms) at Le Mans last weekend, with the fastest 911 time of 3:54.233 minutes over the upgraded 13.6-kilometre Circuit de la Sarthe.
Porsche set the fifth fastest lap overall, Tandy claiming honours for Weissach in the number 93 RSR. The Corvettes finished first and third, sandwiching the Ford GT of Jonathan Bomarito. Magnussen was quickest overall with a time just two-tenths ahead of Tandy’s best. Bergmeister revealed that the team had not tried a qualifying lap on the dirty circuit.
“As always at the Le Mans pre-test, the track was very dirty compared to the upcoming race weekend, said Jorg Bergmeister. “There was little grip, so it didn’t make sense to simulate a qualifying session. We collected important data during the test day to be as well prepared as possible for the season finale. There’s always something new to learn at Le Mans. We learned a lot – especially that our Art Car is a real head-turner. The astonished fans tooka lot of photos.”
“Aside from the normal set-up work and tyre tests, there was an additional item on the list,” noted Richard Lietz. “Several areas of the track have undergone some modifications. Above all, a very high kerb has been added in the Ford corner, affecting the racing line. You have to tackle this passage a little differently now and you can’t take a shortcut. It was important to check out these changes.”
The 2019 Le Mans 24-Hour weekend starts with four hours free practice at 4PM on Wednesday, June 12 before the first qualifying at 10PM that evening. Two more qualifying sessions take place the following day, with the race starting at 3PM on Saturday June 15.
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I first experienced Concorde, the world’s only supersonic passenger plane, while it was training in Ireland. While lunch was in the oven on a Sunday morning, my dad used to take us kids out for a drive. We would usually head for the end of the runway at Shannon Airport, watching Concorde pilots training over the Atlantic west coast and waiting for the 747 EI-104 to come in from New York.
We owned several music shops at the time and also sold TVs, hi-fi and radios. An air-band radio was always in the car, and several friends’ fathers worked at Ballygreen: a big air traffic control centre for the north west of Europe. Hearing familiar voices talking to Concorde pilots as the aircraft flew take off and landing circuits for hours was always entertaining.
In 1978, we flew to Jersey on a family holiday, which involved a flight from Shannon to Heathrow on a BAC-111, then on to Jersey on a Vickers Viscount. The high point of the Viscount flight was when the pilot invited us all to look out the window and watch Concorde take off: the first time I had seen the plane use its afterburners in anger. My dad bought me a copy of the now very collectable Concorde book by F. G. Clarke at the Heathrow shop on the way home: it’s still in the loft at my parents’ house.
In 1989, I left a mechanical apprenticeship in Ireland and returned to London, where I had spent three months working in 1986. I started playing music with bandmates already here and got a job working with a gang of West African car cleaners: they were fun times. My sister and I were drawn back to the airport on weekends, often getting a pizza and parking on the top floor of MSCP 2 in the centre of Heathrow, just to watch planes taking off and landing. I decided that working at the airport might be interesting and came back to the Heathrow job centre on a day off to see what was about. I found a job working with British Airways at Terminal 4 as a valet parker for Concorde passengers.
The job was predictable, with a lot of activity around Concorde’s flight times and quiet periods otherwise. I got to know many interesting customers, who often had time to chat about flying on Concorde. I started clocking up some overtime in the car parks at T4 and was offered a job as a Duty Manager there, running the short and long term car parks for a company owned by an energetic north Londoner. He eventually sold his company to National Car Parks and I was part of the furniture. They gave me an opportunity to move across Heathrow to the long term car parks on the eastern side, by the Concorde maintenance hangars.
Concorde was maintained to a rigorous schedule and the aircraft was frequently moved across the road from the apron to the hangars, so we saw it a lot. The engines were run up into huge concrete diverters, which directed the air upwards over our offices: that was always interesting in the wee small hours of the morning. Eventually I moved again, this time to the central area long terms, alongside runway 27R. My office looked out on the runway, so again Concorde was a big part of life, setting off just about every alarm in our parks when it took off at 10:30AM.
I stayed in long term for a bit and then NCP tendered for the short term car parks in the centre. I ended up running this contract for several years as General Manager and became the first GM to make one million pounds profit for my employers. We built a great team of people, debuted groundbreaking technology and handled some huge operational challenges, but the constant was Concorde: a mad blast of noise at 10:30 every morning for the eight years I spent working at Heathrow.
Having several thousand car parking spaces at my disposal led to buying a lot of cars while I worked at the airport, and it was an easy place to sell cars from also. Heathrow has a huge working population that likes to buy and sell all sorts of items in its spare time, so I built up my trade contacts over three or four years before leaving the airport in 1997 and running my own thing for a while. Sliding into motor trade purchasing in 1998 led down many other trade avenues, eventually exposing me to a rich education in trade valuations: something I am still involved with almost twenty years later.
Concorde stopped flying several years after I left Heathrow, but it remains a big part of my youth. The entire experience of air travel has lost its mystique since the late 1970s and the access to viewing nowadays is a real issue for aviation enthusiasts, but I remember my days around this great aircraft fondly. It was nice to see Porsche sending photographer Justin Leighton down to Concorde with the 917-001, creating some interesting juxtapositions between these two iconic mechanical achievements.
I spent most of today in a car salvage yard, inspecting a classic Porsche as part of a total loss claim. Being invited to inspect the vehicle for a report I am compiling offered an excellent opportunity to consult with one of the UK’s most experienced insurance investigators on several issues, one of which was keyless security and the part it has played in an alarming rise in vehicle theft across the UK.
Home Office data shows a sharp rise in vehicle thefts in recent years, from the worrying total of 75,300 cars stolen in 2013/14 to a staggering 112,000 cars in 2017/18. Police forces including Manchester and West Midlands Police attribute the epidemic to the vulnerabilities present in many keyless entry systems, where keyfob signals remain active even when the owner is not and permit techniques such as relaying.
Relaying usually involves two people working together. One stands by the targeted vehicle, while the other stands near the house with a device that can pick up a signal from the key fob indoors: some devices will find a signal from over 100 metres away. The device then relays the key fob’s signal directly to the car, allowing the thieves to get in and drive away immediately. The vehicle is only re-immobilised when the ignition is turned off.
Porsche Macan Keyless System Rating
Porsche’s keyless entry systems made the news this week, after the Porsche Macan was upgraded from a ‘Poor’ rating by Thatcham Research for the performance of its keyless system to a ‘Superior’ rating, after Porsche supplied Thatcham with clarifications on system operation. Richard Billyeald, Chief Technical Officer at Thatcham Research, noted that “vehicle manufacturers are beginning to offer solutions and fixes to Keyless Entry/Start vulnerabilities, with Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes and Porsche really taking a lead. We expect others to follow suit quickly.”
With approximately 320,000 UK registered cars now using keyless technology (Fleet News estimates), thieves still have plenty of targets. They are also employing more direct tactics. I recently wrote an ad for a friend who was selling his Tornado Red Golf GTD privately and within three days he had become a victim of driveway theft. A potential purchaser turned up to see the car, was given the keys to start it on the driveway and instantly locked the doors, stuck in it reverse and drove off with the owner desperately clinging to the bonnet. My friend fell off and ended up in hospital: his insurers now say they will not pay the claim for theft.
My discussion with the insurer’s man today shed some light on what the industry is doing to fight back against the £270 million paid out on UK car thefts last year. His team also carries out deep investigations into claims fraud and does some of the basic checks that traffic police used to routinely carry out when more resources were available.
I passed three red Golfs in police motorway stops around Birmingham over several days last week and wondered how many of those stops would involve a VIN check, to see if the car was running on cloned registration plates, as the stolen Golf GTD may be. The insurance man told me how he had visited a car park in London last week and found three stolen cars on cloned plates: ANPR systems only looking at registration plates rather than VIN numbers can never tell the full story of what is actually moving around.
For every car that is stolen, a vehicle manufacturer will likely sell another one, so there is a certain amount of inertia around increasing the security of keyless systems. Thatcham’s decision to rate the vulnerability of keyless systems to easy theft methods (which can lead to some thefts taking place in less than a minute) has not been well received by manufacturers, but it’s one way to accelerate progress in making things harder for car thieves.
Porsche AG announced that it delivered 256,255 vehicles worldwide in 2018. China was the biggest market, taking 80,108 units: a rise of 12% year on year. European sales fell 4% to 77,216 cars, with Germany taking roughly a third of that total. The single-market USA was behind Europe and substantially lower than China at just 57,000 cars in total.
The record number of total deliveries represents a growth of four per cent compared to the (record) figures for 2017. Panamera recorded the highest percentage growth, up 38% to 38,443 deliveries. The 911 (991) also recorded a double-digit rise: up 10% to 35,573 vehicles. Deliveries of the new car timed to coincide with the start of the year should see a rise for the 911 through 2019.
The 911, Panamera and 718 Boxster/Cayman are obviously small fry in the great scheme of things. Macan alone sold more than both 911 and Panamera combined, at 86,031 units delivered, while Cayenne deliveries totalled 71,458. Macan and Cayenne combined is 157,489 or 61% of total output. All four total 231,505, leaving 24750 units: presumably all Boxster/Cayman.
UK new car sales landscape
The UK new car market fell 6.8% through 2018, to 2.37 million cars in total. Diesel cars continue to decline in percentage down from 42% in 2017 to 31.7% in 2018. This shift was largely attributable to the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal, which also involved Porsche and Audi models. As diesel sales fall, total CO2 emissions from the UK new car market have now risen for the second year in succession. The shift away from diesel is having a big effect.
“Diesels are, on average, 15-20% more efficient than petrol equivalents and so have a substantial role to play in addressing climate change,” said the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. “The hard won gains made by the sector since CO2 records began in 1997 are being undermined by the shift away from diesel and disappointing growth in alternatively fuelled vehicles. This only underscores the challenge both industry and government face in meeting ambitious climate change targets.”
Porsche’s green credentials under the microscope
“The switch to the new WLTP test cycle and gasoline particle filters in Europe mean that we faced significant challenges in the fourth quarter of 2018, and these will continue to be felt in the first half of 2019,” said Detlev von Platen, Porsche Sales and Marketing chief.
Porsche cancelled all new orders of diesel models during 2018, so we will see how this plays out in deliveries of Macan, Cayenne and Panamera during 2019. The incoming Taycan electric vehicle range later this year will not have a huge effect on the manufacturer’s overall environmental impact, with another production line added and the workforce now twice what it was in 2012.
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