Well that was nice...

And more grip than a Clio 197 cup.

been in one and driven one don't think it was the 4S (thats the 4wd one i'm guessing) one i drove was the rwd one and it felt lively enough to me! be snug though but i do like porsche proper ones not the boxster the boxster just has a whole different feel doesn't feel special enough.

Agreed. I test drove a Boxster couple of years ago. Didn't really see what all the fuss was about, wasn't that fast, wasn't that comfy, wasn't special at all really. 911s on the other hand are different...

Friend has the regualr 911 2S with the sports pack and flappy loud/quiet exhaust what-not, immensely drivable whether it be 10mph or 100mph it doesnt mind.

And an average of 26mpg isnt bad either considering the go!

Tim..

that's not bad that! only 3mpg's less than i managed in the BM a couple of weeks back :)

Buy one.

TDM

The boxster is special. It has probably the best handling balance of ANY car under 50 grand, maybe even under 100k, that you can use everyday. It can be set up to be as pointy and nimble as a lotus, yet has ABS, aircon, heated seats etc and doesn't weigh too much. It has been said that given the same power as a 911 the Boxster is faster point to point. What makes it even more special is that it'll stand daily use as well as any german saloon would.

A trader I know had a tiptronic '04 plate 911 C2 a few months back. He had a worrying habit of driving absolutely balls out through Sheffield in it whilst chatting away on his mobile and routing through bits of paperwork in this briefcase. He loved the 911, and it was very nice, but the reason he loved it was "This gearbox thing's brilliant, foot t'deck and it'll work like an auto, changes to first when you stop then changes up at red line til you stop again. Quickest way across town, these".

He's also got a Cayenne that he seems to drive the same way.

Must be doing well, driving a Cayenne like that is single digit fuel consumption

Wouldn't mind an aircooled 911, but wouldn't kick a Boxster into touch, and even a fully loaded Cayenne would be a giggle I reckon, fuel covered of course.

That sentence says nothing and the fact that Porsche is milking the Boxster with multiple and "special" versions, shows that it is far from the optimum.

I suppose Dan uses his CLio V6 every day too and that car (easiliy some

20-30 others) will run circles around the Boxster. The new 2007-2008 Elise on its turn will run circles around Dan's car.

No, it can't.

From experience : a Boxster on *slicks* was outperformed by a 2007 Lotus Elise on road tires on a circuit. The 2007 Elise on his turn was ridiculed by a 4-year old R340.

There are three performance definers: resistance, weight and power. The Lotus Elise outclasses the Boxster on all three.

The Boxster weighs 30% more than the Lotus Elise S2 who has also ABS, aircon.

A lot of BS has been said too.

Power being equal leaves still an incredible lot of parameters free. Just to name one: LS-Diff. A LSD-equipped 911 with similar power as a Boxster needs just a twisty road for 10 miles to annihilate the Boxster.

The Boxster is a nice car. Hairdressers and women like it a lot. That was in fact the targetmarket along with the Californian guys.

Claiming it is a superior car to the competition is rather funny: the key to the Boxster is shape and desing, it's assembled out of obsolete Porsche parts, reason number 1 why Porsche makes such interesting profits out of it. Reason also why Porsche does not race it.

Tom De Moor

But if you come from a recent 911 into a Boxster, you would feel like you step into poverty class.

As to a fully loaded Cayenne (even with fuel covered): weight. Porsche would love you for driving it to the limit: your maintenance bills would topple the fuel bill.

Believe me: entering a corner 50 kph too fast with something weighing around 2300 kg high on its wheels is not a giggle, it can make you old before your age.

Tom De Moor

Someone I know got within .25 of a second of a 2001 Boxster S in his

1998 MX-5 at a Sprint I was at a few weekends ago.

This means that Boxsters cost a lot more than MX-5s but are only a little bit faster. (c:

Douglas Payne gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Or it could just mean that the bloke in the MX-5 was better at sprints than the bloke in the Boxy?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.........................................................

The bloke in the Boxster is a retired gentleman who needed something to use whilst his real race car has a new engine fitted.

His normal car is a thing called an Autotune Gemini and it used to have a steel xflow, but that is no longer enough. It's having an S2000 engine fitted.

Well, there's lots of factors. The Boxster was in street trim, the bloke's daily driver. His normal Sprint/Hillclimb car was having work done on it, I think it was some sort of classic, or maybe a Morgan, but the bloke had been doing sprints there since time began although not often in this car.

The MX-5 has induction kit and back box (so ~40bhp up on standard then?[1]), uprated ARBs and coilovers - lowered 40mm or so and on Toyo

888s I think. It was his first time out in the car after the suspension mods bar having taken it to be aligned and corner weighted. He only started competing last year, but there was still a significant power advantage for the Boxster.

Boxster S has a significant power advantage over an MX-5 but are geared differently, I don't think there are any other MX-5s in the championship to compare with, and apart from some stripped out Civic VTis, there wasn't much else putting in similar times.

Anyway, it still led me to the conclusion that for fastness in this sport, you don't have to spend Porsche money.

[1] Hehehehe (c:

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.........................................................

Whoops.

Oh well, he looked like he might have been a Morgan fan. (c:

Don't tell him I said that.

I've not tried a Boxster... or anything else considered to be in the sort of super car territory that a 911 is in for that matter.

All I know is, it's realigned my idea of what constitues a 'decent car' and I'm not so sure I want to get on the property ladder any more. ;-)

I ended up driving it as we needed to get a few cars down to a show that was held at Lydden circuit at the weekend - the 'BHP Performance Show'.

The Porsche ended up lapping most things round the track when driven by the dyno owner, including several Skylines etc.

Even better was when he took out his Radical (1) - nothing could get near that. :-)

It was quite an interesting day anyway - plenty of modded cars, (some even modded in a tasteful way), a few concours Mk2 Escorts etc, that kind of thing and plenty of drifting out on the track.

(1) The Haybusa engined (2) supercharged version (2) ...well, bored out to 1500cc anyway

-- JackH

Aye... I just wish I'd been given more time to drive it.

Indeed - the owner of this one reckons it's good on fuel if driven sensibly.

-- JackH