"....but if you're buying cars like this it is for the enjoyment of owning/driving them and you can afford to lose the money if you do not keep the car for long."

Well said

The advantage I see in the Porshe is that it is a great "daily driver", which can't be said about all these other cars in other people's garage . All these cars loose value over time , especially if you drive them. Ferrari holds value if you keep them under 5,000 miles forever, you have to keep them for a looooong time in order to make money.

The beauty of Porsche, which I didn't know until I bought one , is that you can daily drive a monster

Actually, if you were just high on the list and got say an F430 Spider, you could make a hefty profit by selling it immediately.

It's a fine line isn't it, this dichotomy between exclusivity and profitability?

Porsche's beanies sometime ago ought to have worked out that model and product diversification was the key to better profits. So it's to be expected that a proliferation of models and the versions thereof was on the cards.

The concept of value retention is obviously a simple one of supply vs. demand economics. It's a well known fact that Porsche views left-hand drive markets - notably the US as a single country - as vital to sustainable sales volumes:

Sales Activity per Market - 2005
Europe: 58%
North America: 34%
Rest of the World: 8%

Given the intensly competitive automotive market in the States (one has to admit that there simply isn't another car market like it...) it's plausible that Porsche are over-supplying the US with models and that, in the current subdued economic climate, this supply is exceeding demand. To the detriment of resale value.

Then again...

This is a new age of motoring where car value appreciation is nigh unheard of save for highly exceptional cases involving in-fashion exotica for a finite period of time. Porsches depreciate just like every other car out there. Ferraris and Lambos depreciate too... drive a new F430 off the showroom floor and don't expect to sell it in six months for 75% of it's original price let alone what you bought it for.

In South Africa, Porsches hold their value pretty well from a second hand sticker price point of view but owners do take the knock on trade-in. But then, the market here is so small that typically supply and demand are evenly balanced and carefully regulated by Porsche SA.

Of course, a serious buyer for a mint GT3 RS is going to cough up.

This proves little though as car depreciation is incredibly difficult to measure scientifically when it comes to trade-in values.

Nevertheless, Porsche's share price is through the roof, headline earnings per share year on year are up 50% from 2001. I wonder if the same performance could be said of Ferrari or Lamborghini as they stand, peeping from behind mother companies Fiat and Audi's aprons. I sincerely doubt it.