Behind the Scenes of the Porsche Purity Video

Tour San Diego, California, and you’re bound to run into one of Jonathan Segal’s sixteen personally designed, constructed and managed buildings. All are residential complexes with a ground floor retail/commercial space and all are inspired by his obsession with pure design. If you were to ask Jonathan about purity in design, you’d better be prepared to take notes, or at least have a camera ready, as we did in our most recent video, Porsche Purity.  A little Bauhaus here, a dash of mid-century there and sprinkle some futuristic material choices and you’ve got a structure that is bound to earn you an award or two…or over thirty, in Jonathan’s case.


For the past few decades, Jonathan has applied his love for architecture to the cars and objects he surrounds himself with. He decided to turn his hobby toward automobiles when he purchased his first Porsche from the factory, a 996 cabriolet. After picking up the car in Los Angeles, he finally understood what his motorhead friends had been talking about all these years: the look of the car, the sound of the engine winding out and, of course, the feeling the car gave him turning into a tight canyon road hairpin.

As he became more educated about how his new Porsche came into existence he learned about the famed and coveted ‘73 911 2.7 RS. Over the course of a few years, Jonathan bought and sold various 911s, and the time finally came to jump into the RS pool.

His first was a white-and-green RS, but he was soon offered a price on the car he simply couldn’t refuse. The next to come into Jonathan’s collection was a black, track-built 2.7 RS. After throwing it around the track a few times a year, the car was torn down and sent off for a full restoration, again with a white-and-green color motif in mind.

Something changed in the process of converting the car back to its original state and Jonathan simply couldn’t see himself owning the car any longer. No sooner had he sold the car did he come across the example you see before you today.

This Signal Yellow 2.7 RS is one of 75 to ever leave the factory in this color. The car had come fresh from a Best RS, Best 911 and Best in Show win from the respected Porsche Parade in 2010. Since that time the car has had a sport exhaust installed and aside from the newer Pirelli P600 tires (that are slayed in the end of our video) keeping the car glued to the road. Luckily, Jonathan knows when a car has had just the right amount of attention paid to it. So today, the car has remained as much in its original state as it did when he bought the car.

When it comes to restoration project cars, Jonathan and his son, Matthew, spend their time together meticulously tearing down the cars and plugging themselves into the restoration process. They aren’t just a pair of fortunate individuals that wait for their car to arrive on their doorsteps. Jonathan and his son spend hundreds of hours pouring over design details and consulting with the right people to tackle each part of the restoration.

Their 1956 Maserati A6G-2000 Allermo was in shambles when they took ownership of it. From that point on they knew if they were going to bring it back it needed professional attention to detail. So they consulted with Nissan North America to develop the car’s unique paint color and  designer Freeman Thomas to develop the car’s unique leather interior color. After the restoration was complete, the car was shown at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance where it took first in class. Proving that those hours spent getting the details right, weren’t wasted.

Taking on a car collection is something some start in order to own a few cars that really get their hearts pumping. For Jonathan Segal, his love for Porsche, and the rest of his collection for that matter, take ownership to another level. One that includes meticulously curated automotive art that rivals some of the the best collections in the world. So as Jonathan finishes up his latest project, a Ferrari 330 GTC, his passion for finding purity within a car’s soul will no doubt shine through—just like his Porsche 2.7 RS.

Photography by Ezekiel Wheeler for Petrolicious