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Showroom and Tell: The 2014 Porsche Boxster

ShowRoomandTell

The 2014 Porsche Boxster is in many ways the quintessential Porsche.

It can never, ever be acknowledged as such, however, because it’s a great sports car that just so happens to be in the most famous family of sports cars in the world—the 2009 UNC Tar Heels of sports cars, if you will.

The Boxster was introduced 18 years ago when Porsche was going through a very tough time. Quality issues abounded, production costs were bloated, and acquisition was a real possibility. The company hired former Toyota engineers, razed the metaphorical house the previous generation had built, and said, “The 911 is good, but the Boxster is what will save us.”

The Boxster was the first time the company used a mid-engine design since the 914/916 in the 1960s. A mid-engine placement allows for a low center of gravity and fantastic balance between front and rear weighting. This in turn gives the Boxster an essential but devilishly hard characteristic to capture: handling.

The Boxster’s flat-six cylinder style is wider than a V6 and has the pistons pound toward each other like a boxer pounding his gloves before a fight. The result is a more focused use of energy and controlled handling even while accelerating and turning simultaneously.

These are the platonic characteristics that every great sports car, from the Aston Martin DB5 to the Mercedes Benz 300 SL, Jaguar E Type, and 911, has always pursued. The Boxster is one of the purest embodiments of those values because it adds a crucial ingredient: having fun.

2014 Porsche Boxster

The exhaust note soars through the air and loops around the open-air cabin of the convertible in endless spirals that delight the ears. Following the snow of the last few weeks, the mid-60s temperature was perfect for convertible play. Thanks to a sponge-like suspension that soaks up road impurities, the driver and passenger are dominated by a sense of speed gilded only by the crackling snarls of the engine and furls of sunlight and wind that act like nature’s loudspeakers.

With the sports exhaust mode activated, the engine burbles and seethes even more whether idling or punching through the air. The car essentially spits and raises a racket, pulling off all sorts of grand-standing revs to prepare for a blistering speed run so that anyone within several hundred yards will think that Mario Andretti is coming down the pike. An essential feature? No. Cool? You better believe it.

Porsche knows that driving is a fundamentally visceral experience. The feeling of joy as you roll past a turn and earn a thumbs-up from a total stranger is more likely to happen when nothing but air separates you, and when you’re wearing a big, goofy grin. Sunshine and rainbows do matter when you’re in a Boxster because all the engine warbles, torque-vectoring and cooling circuits work together to get you to a place where you don’t care about them.

A Boxster owner doesn’t have to know how all the technology works, and what the stats and numbers are compared to other cars for one simple reason: a guy on his way to the beach in a fly car is a happy man. That’s what the soul of a sports car is about. And that’s why the 2014 Boxster is one of the best sports cars in the world.