Greg James

Mercer Island, Washington

Model 3.2 Carrera Year 1985

Acquired 2008

Model 993 Turbo

Year 1997

Acquired 2016

Most big cities have their Porsche gurus and marque experts. Seattle has several, but probably the best-known locally is Nathan Merz, who owns Columbia Valley Luxury Cars. The name is a bit of a misnomer, as his speciality is finding high-end Porsche models for clients who retain him to locate cars from all over the globe.

Nathan’s career started out more than two decades ago when he worked at a local Porsche dealership. He eventually left and started his own speciality business buying and selling previously owned Porsche cars. While Merz is best known for his ability to locate – and evaluate – collector-grade cars, he’s also happy to find and sell Porsche that are driver quality, and not destined to be ‘garage queens’. What he won’t do is sell a bad car, or one that he’s not completely sure about. For Merz, reputation is everything. I purchased my 993 from Nathan, and it has been everything he represented it to be: a very well-kept example with medium miles and complete documentation from new. In other words, exactly what I wanted.

Recently, he did a presentation at The Shop for a small group of Porsche fans. The subject of his talk was how cars are graded on the 1 to 5 scale, and how to place value on features like special colours, originality, optional equipment and other factors. Merz also gave his views on auctions, and tips on how to spot the good cars, and the not-so-good ones. One of the things I found most fascinating was hearing about the difference in manufacturing techniques involved in a pre-1998 model, and the cars of today. Merz pointed out that in the days of hand-built and hand-painted cars, there were often fairly big variations in things like paint thickness and quality of the overall finish. In other words, todays Porsche cars are painted by a machine, and the fit and finish is remarkably uniform.

With the older hand-painted cars there could be a surprisingly big variation in paint depth. Merz went through a long list of items he looks at when evaluating a car, from the original window sticker and equipment, to the tyres, wheels, maintenance records and overall condition and ride. It was a fascinating hour spent with a guy who is often retained to find the rare unicorns – grade 1, old Porsche in absolutely pristine condition – and present them as new.

Merz also delved into a lot of his own personal likes and dislikes and talked about his car collection and how he uses them. In the end, Merz spent near an hour going over a 1977 Ice green Turbo purchased at auction. He pointed out everything, from where it had been repainted, factory spot welds, tape lines, colour matching (or lack thereof), engine compartment issues, interior originality, non-stock items and dozens of other details that would have most likely gone unnoticed to most casual Porsche owners. It was an interesting and informative hour, and I learned a lot from an expert who has spent most of his adult working life closely examining Porsche cars for collectors.