| 777 | Date: Saturday, 30 Oct 2010, 14.21 | Message # 1 |
|
Like Sharing
Group: User
User ID: 777
Joined: 18 Oct 2010
Messages: 1035
| With sports-car makers unable to outrun the recession, they might as well have some fun – and drum up a little business while they’re at it. For Porsche, the latest lure is the Boxster Spyder. It’s a lighter, stiffer and faster Boxster than the standard version – and more eye-catching to boot, with its hubba-hubba pair of aluminum humps swelling behind the cockpit. And after back-to-back laps in the Boxster Spyder and the standard Boxster S at Monticello Motor Club in New York, I was mighty impressed by the Spyder’s clear performance edge – and that’s saying something, considering how the standard midengine Boxster remains one of the world’s most balanced, sophisticated and entertaining 2-seaters.
Weighing a svelte 2,811 pounds, the Boxster Spyder is in fact the company’s most featherweight machine: The Spyder strips a significant 176 pounds from the Boxster S, ditching the standard radio and air conditioning, bolting on Porsche’s lightest 19-inch wheel and tire package, and trimming a key 46 pounds with a fully manual, 2-piece fabric and carbon-fiber top that replaces the semi-automatic cloth top of the typical Boxster. Outside, there’s that unique rear decklid, revised front and side air inlets, a graphic stripe and black-painted tailpipes. Inside, the big difference is a pair of ultralight, aggressively body-hugging sport bucket seats. Red fabric pulls – to my mind, a silly retro-primitive touch – replace the interior door handles, and seat belts are red as well.
Porsche executives did acknowledge an amusing point. The vast majority of buyers don’t seem to be entirely grateful for the Spyder’s high-performance diet: They’re immediately checking off air conditioning and the audio system from the options list, putting some of that lost weight right back on in the name of comfort and convenience.
Yet weight aside, the Spyder’s ride height is also lowered nearly an inch, and the suspension is stiffened, including thicker anti-roll bars. The Spyder also spools up 10 more horses, with 320 horsepower from its 3.4-liter direct-injection six. The result is a Boxster that howls from zero to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds. That’s 0.2 seconds quicker than the base model, yet the Spyder is just getting started: Its zero-to-100 mph time of 10.8 seconds is nearly a full second faster than the Boxster S. And equipped with Porsche’s brilliant PDK automated manual transmission, the Spyder returns 29 mpg highway, or 28 mpg with its seamless 6-speed manual shifter.
| HTML code to this post |
|
| BB code to this post |
|
| Direct link to this post |
|
|
| |
| |
Member: 5095 
Forum: 2322
News: 27
Blog: 16
Downloads: 18
Comments: 5