Boxster as a First Car?

Sub $10,000 986 Boxsters make a super-strong case as not only a first Porsche but also a first car. This is something my wife and I have been pondering as our tweens get closer to driving age.

They are safe, only seat 2, not very powerful, and 99/100 of their friends won’t be able to drive it because it is a manual transmission. So what’s the market going to look like in 4 years when we have a 16-year-old? Is there still more room for depreciation or should we buy one now before they continue to rise?

Like most Porsches over the last 5 years, the original 986 Boxster has risen in price quite dramatically from an average of $10,000 to over $15,000. Our Spotlight car, the 1999 Boxster pictured above, sold for $7,650 on Cars & Bids due to higher miles of 122k. I for one am not afraid of miles on a well-maintained Porsche; I have 144,000 miles on mine. They will go the distance.

Although prices have been flat for a number of months now, we are starting to see the sell-through rate drop dramatically, especially for cars under $20,000. While I don’t think pristine examples will ever see the light of sub-$10k numbers again, I do think that the market is softening. In the next few years, I believe we’ll be able to buy a Boxster with half the mileage of our Spotlight car for around $10,000 again.

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