What's most noticeable in both daily driving and spirited runs is all that new torque. The 2.5-liter four in the S gains 35 hp and 43 lb-ft of torque over the previous Boxster S's six, and the base Boxster's 2.0 four has similar improvements. Twenty-inch wheels and 18-way sport seats round out the options, which push the price to $94,310. Many go-fast boxes are checked: Sport Chrono performance package, sport exhaust, and sport suspension. Our tester has a white body, red roof, and Bordeaux red interior. In that, perhaps there's both something gained and something lost. The Boxster feels less like a getaway car for Sunday afternoons and more like a thoroughly modern automobile. It's a far cry from the idiosyncrasies of the old Porsche systems. I fall into a meditative state, working gently through the gears and following the squiggling path laid out by Porsche's latest touchscreen navigation, complete with Apple CarPlay. The back roads are unfamiliar, and I can focus on only what is illuminated by the sharp headlights. I'm supposed to be 75 miles south when the sun cracks the surface the time when photographers are happiest. LONG BEFORE DAWN, I leave my house in the northeast quadrant of rural Pennsylvania and rocket toward a racetrack in southern New Jersey. The car has always been so good, so simple, it certainly wasn't crying out for a major change. The engine still sits in the correct place, thankfully-at the center-but the naturally breathing flat-six is now a turbocharged flat-four. But this Boxster is a fundamentally different machine than all the others we've loved. The car I'm testing, an S model with a six-speed manual transmission, should be my happy place. The Boxster's evolution is as profound as the turn of seasons, a shift of nature wrought by emissions regulations and a corporate desire for greater torque and horsepower. ![]() Change is hard, especially when it forces us to give up the things that make us happiest. Winter means the end of days at local racetracks and impulsive drives on quiet mornings. These beautiful yellows and intense reds will soon surrender to winter, and the branches will poke bare-fingered into the sky. The trees throughout the Northeast are painted in colors, roads camouflaged by orange leaves. What better possibility to forge a new and beautiful memory?Īlthough the weather points to a perfect summer day, it is a lie, for this is the final gasp of fall. There seems an infinite number of potential moments ahead of me, especially as today's forecast is 78 degrees and I'll use the car as its creators intended, with the fabric roof tucked away and a breeze licking the interior. I've got days to kill and a plan to put a thousand miles on the odometer. The car would perform miracles if you were willing to learn its mysteries, master its charms.įast forward to the brand-new 2017 Porsche 718 Boxster. The Boxster easily shed its speed and slipstreamed up the turn. In my naïveté, I was sure we were going to drive off the end of the track. The instructor commanded me to hold my speed steady as we hurtled toward a sharp right-hander. I attended a Skip Barber driving course at Connecticut's Lime Rock Park almost 20 years ago. It is a car that changed my own perceptions. The roadster's greatness lives in the memories of its drivers. ![]() Internet killjoys love to pit the Boxster against the 911, but devotees know better. Forget the specifications, which have improved only modestly over the past two decades: The results always delivered. A mid-engine convertible barely sized for two, built for pleasure and escape. Yet the experience is forever grooved into your memory.įew cars have been so purposefully designed to produce such moments as the Porsche Boxster. You can't hear your favorite song for the first time twice. You can turn around and run that corner again, but the effect will never be quite the same. The instant you recognize the moment is happening, it is gone. A FLEETING flash when road, driver, and car come together.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |