New Gig Harbor auto shop aims at the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche set
There is a new business in town and it is certainly on the swanky side. Spec German is a car repair shop that specializes in Mercedes-Benz and Porsche automotive services. It opened its doors on March 15 at 3621 Hunt St in Gig Harbor.
It was started by Jacob Coen and Jason Edlin, each of whom brought their own specialized expertise to the job. Coen knows all things Porsche and Edlin knows all things Mercedes.
Coen grew up in Gig Harbor and attended Peninsula high school. Upon graduating, he attended Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix where he received an associate degree in Science and Technology. It was while going through technical college that he worked atPorsche dealer in Scottsdale.
More recently, Coen had been working for five years at Porsche Bellevue as a service ambassador. However, he then relocated back to Gig Harbor with his wife, Jaimee, and two daughters.
Reached by phone,Coen was at his craft, and answered questions on a headset while underneath a car.
“I’ve been a Porsche mechanic almost my whole life,” Coen said. “To be honest, it was just a grind. That’s a completely different world, working 12 to 14 hour days at the dealership at the time.”
Coen said when his first daughter was born, he decided it was time to go in a new direction.
“I just wasn’t happy overall so we decided to make a change,” Coen said. “We were living up in Renton and I was working in Bellevue. We just kind of took this jump and were like ‘hey, let’s move back to where I’m from.’”
There was a desire for a “quieter, more peaceful” lifestyle that Coen was attracted to. He originally was continuing to commute up to work in Bellevue, but then decided to start looking into work closer to home. That was when he connected with Edlin who he would go into business with.
“A good friend of mine Jason, who is my business partner, is a master Mercedes mechanic,” Coen said. “We started chatting and he was looking for almost the same thing I was. The hustle and bustle can be so demanding.”
With both friends facing down multiple hour commutes, they decided now was the time to set up shop closer to their respective families.
“We started putting the business idea together and long story short, it took us a while to find real estate, we finally found a space and put it together,” Coen said.
With only a couple weeks under their belt, business is already booming.
“I’m already booked out til the first full week in April,” Coen said. “The initial response has been great. As a business owner, you’re always hoping that it stays at that level, but right now I can’t get it done fast enough.”
One of the keys to the early success is that Coen was able to carry over his contacts from when he worked at Dundon Motorsports in Gig Harbor.
“We get a big targeted audience with Porsche work. Dundon was gracious enough to let me take that customer list that I built there and let me have it,” Coen said. “I was able to contact my clients and be like ‘hey, I’m over here now.’”
Jamie Bopp, the owner and co-founder of Dundon Motorsports, said he is excited to see Coen going in his own direction after working for him for three years. Coen had started initially as a service technician and then worked his way up to being a general manager.
“He did a great job,” Bopp said. “I was really pleased and happy to see that he started his own company. I’m kind of an odd business owner in that regard, I like to see the people that work for me strive for better than what they have now. I’m a firm believer that entrepreneurship can be a good path to that.”
Bopp started Dundon Motorsports with his friend Charles Dundon and told The Gateway in 2016 he did so because he “felt there was the appropriate demographic for Porsche owners in Gig Harbor.”
He said there has always been a market in Gig Harbor for this type of business as the demographic has always skewed more affluent.
“I’ve lived in Gig Harbor now for over 15 years,” Bopp said. “The demographic in Gig Harbor is generally more wealthy and they drive Porsches, Porsche SUVs. You see a lot of them around. You know, the Macan, the Cayenne, these kinds of things and Mercedes.”
“I think Gig Harbor has always been affluent.”
That a new business is rising to meet this untapped demand makes sense to Bopp.
“Spec German is a Mercedes and Porsche specialty shop. There isn’t another one in the area that’s very German specific,” Bopp said. “They’re already booked out three weeks, they’ve been open a week.”
The number of luxury vehicles is still likely to provide for consistent business as more and more people need to get repairs over the life of the car.
“It’s not typically a car that’s a throwaway car, right? It’s not like a minivan. You buy, you trade it in for a new one,” Bopp said. “You buy it and you keep it for the most part. These are aspirational vehicles.”
Coen hopes to expand the Mercedes side of the business.
“For Mercedes, the biggest thing we’re trying to do is get that side flowing as quickly as we can. We’ve already seen a couple cars, it’s starting to slowly spread that we’re here,” Coen said. “Here on the harbor, there are a lot of Mercedes so we’re hoping to do that more.”
Driving around, Coen said, he’s seen lots of Porsche and Mercedes owners who represent untapped business potential.
“We just noticed that need here. Just going around the harbor, I knew numbers-wise what I had client-wise,” Coen said. “The initial response has been great, absolutely great.”
Coen says have the shop in Gig Harbor cuts out an imposing drive time for car owners who might have otherwise had to go further out to get repairs.
“The people in the harbor don’t like drudging all the way into Tacoma, getting in there and then dropping the car off, coming home, and then they have to go all the way back,” Coen said. “We’re hoping to bring better than dealer quality, in terms of our service, at a convenient local location.”
Laura Pettit, Gig Harbor’s marketing and tourism director,
agrees there is an untapped potential for local businesses.
“There is a demand for businesses here and not in crossing the bridge,” Pettit said. “I think more and more businesses recognize that as an opportunity.”
Coen said he’s invested heavily in the right tools for the job.
“A lot of the smaller shops in the area will do some small stuff on these cars, but we’ve made the investment in some premium, really expensive tech,” Coen said. “They are so heavy on the electronic side. Like I can’t set an oil level on a new Porsche without a Porsche equipment tester. We have to make that large investment, it’s over $10,000, per tool. You don’t see a lot of people do that if they don’t have the background.”
For Coen, there is optimism that the big investment will pay off in creating business in a city that Coen has personally seen the changes in.
“From when I grew up, we’re seeing a large amount of wealth land out here to settle down,” Coen said. “Once you hit that point of raising kids, you want to move out somewhere with a quality of life and small-town living. We’re seeing a lot of other people want to do the same thing and not have to go through the inconvenience of traffic. If we can cater to that and make it more convenient for them, it’s definitely something we’re poised to do. “
Coen played host to a cars-and-coffee event at his business Saturday in the hopes of connecting with the community.
“They do them all over the place,” Coen said. “Everybody will kind of show up, with whatever cars they have, and we’ll have coffee and donuts. We’ll chat, mostly about car stuff.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
