[jluetjen]

I live in the Boston area, hardly 3rd world.

I was recently shopping to have some potentially engine out service done on my 986 (posted on a different thread). I called the shop that had done good work on a clutch replacement last year, but due to some illnesses with the shop staff, a departure or two, and also the demands of the other classic sports cars that they work on -- they couldn't do it.

He gave me the name of a couple of other well established Porsche specialists in the area, because he didn't want to send me to a shop where "they were going to be practicing on my car".

I tried calling the first shop. I got a phone intercept. I looked up their website and couldn't find it. I did a quick google maps search, and it said "temporarily closed". I did a google search and after some digging discovered that the owner had died last year, and the shop was gone.

I tried the 2nd shop. Similar story.

I happen to live near BelMetric (uncompensated endorsement!) who is a fairly large distributor of metric hardware. I stopped there to pick-up some hard-to-find bolts for a different project, and ran into the owner. We started talking, and I mentioned my experience. He invited me into the back office and he and his son brainstormed on which of their customers would be able to help me. The conversation went like this...

Company A? Oh, he died a couple of hears ago.
Company B? Oh, he died too.
Company C out in Fitchburg? Oh, lovely couple owned that shop, but they retired.
... and so on.

There were also a number of other shops mentioned, but they could best be described as shops that did oil-changes and regular service. An engine drop was most likely past their comfort zone.

I grew up during the "Air-Cooled" Porsche era, when a number of specialist shops were opened by guys who had been trained during the late 1960's and 1970's. Those shops grew and became well established during the 1990's and early 2000's, and pretty much dominated the Porsche repair shop market. I'm now a handful of years from retirement age, which means all of those guys have either retired or passed on. If there was no heir apparent to take over those shops, they're closing.

Is this just a local trend, or are other people seeing a similar situation?

Are new Porsche specialist repair shops opening?