Car and Driver Boxster S
- Thread starter GMS
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Tested: 2007 Porsche Boxster S - Short Take Road Tests
The top-level Boxster is now as quick as a Cayman S as well as the previous-gen 911.April 2007
Running in opposition to the logic that governs the rest of the automotive world, Porsche charges nearly $3500 more for a hardtop Cayman S than a ragtop Boxster S.
Presumably"š with its myriad of electronic servos and labor-intensive cloth top, a convertible Boxster is more expensive to build than a fixed-roof Cayman.
When the Cayman S launched last year we weakly justified to ourselves that the price increase at least bought more power as the Cayman S's 3.4-liter flat-six had 15 more horsepower and 15 more pound-feet of torque than the Boxster S's 3.2-liter. But now we have no defense for the Cayman costing more, because for 2007 both Boxster models share their engines with their Cayman counterparts.
Hidden within the new Boxster S's midsection is the same 295-horsepower 3.4-liter flat-six that powered the Cayman S last year and the 911 series until 2002. Okay, it's not exactly the same as the 911-spec engine"š as the 911 had a higher compression ratio (11.3:1 versus the Boxster's 11.0:1). That bump in compression is the likely reason that the old 911 engine made 300 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque as opposed to the Boxster S's 295 horsepower and 251 pound-feet of torque. For most of you"š we're delving a bit too deeply into the esoteric world of Porsche minutiae (hey, were those pistons made by Mahle?), but that amendment likely saved us a bunch of angry e-mails from Porsche pundits.
With that out of the way"š we can tell you that the larger engine does indeed make a difference in the Boxster S, but the difference would probably only be noticeable to someone who owned the 280-horsepower Boxster S. We'd be willing to subject ourselves to driving blindfolded to see if we could really tell the difference but Porsche's loan agreement specifically forbids driving their cars while having impaired vision. In lieu of driving blind"š we'll have to fall back on the numbers provided by our test equipment.
Our 2007 Boxster S ran from 0 to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 13.4 seconds at 107 mph. Not surprisingly, those numbers are right on top of a Cayman S's as well as a 996-series 911's. The best we've gotten from last year's Boxster S is 5.1 seconds to 60 mph and 13.6 at 103 mph in the quarter-mile. No big deal? Maybe, but in the rolling-start 5-to-60-mph run the superior midrange power of the larger displacement engine makes itself known by knocking a half-second off the old Boxster S's time (5.4 seconds versus 5.9 seconds). And we ran our 2007 Boxster S all the way up to a drag-limited 169 mph, 4 mph higher than the last Boxster S we tested. Pulling power from 2000 rpm upwards subjectively feels stronger and 30-50 mph and 50-70 mph passing times are slightly improved over the smaller six. Another subjective difference is a slightly more baritone exhaust note.
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