[jluetjen]

The hardtop is a very desirable option if you can get one. With it on the car, a Boxster is just like a coupe as far as wind-noise and road noise. It is noticeably quieter than with the soft-top up. I have the hard-top on my 986 from November until about March or April depending on temperatures. Since the hard-tops are often stored over the summers, the seals may be better than you expected.

Surprisingly with a little bit searching you can sometimes find them included with a car for no extra dollars compared to a Boxster selling at the market price without the hardtop. In some respects I think that they are kind of like houses with swimming pools. If you want one with that feature they are very desirable. But if a buyer is looking to park the car over the winter, the hard-top doesn't really provide much additional value, and is a bit of a pain in the neck since you have to store the hard-top, which takes up a bunch of space and is awkward when not installed on the car. So they're not really going to pay extra for one. The net result is that you can often get a Boxster with a hard-top for the same price as a Boxster without one.

When I bought my car a few years ago, I was looking at cars in the $8000 range -- which was really the floor for Boxsters at that time. One of them was nice and had the hard-top, and that's the one that I bought!

By the way, I bought a trolley that was pitched to Jeep CJ owners for storing their hard-tops, and it works perfect for the Boxster hardtop. It holds the hard-top vertically, and came with a cover. It's easy to roll around the garage to wherever it's out of the way.