If you don’t fall into that category, ask about the Porsche Boxster S when visiting your favorite Porsche dealership and leave the new Spyder in the showroom.
To say the Boxster S is more civilized than the Spyder is to say the weather is better in Honolulu than Bismarck. There’s simply no room for argument.
To say the Spyder is a hoot to drive — a machine so wonderfully balanced that the challenges offered by our favorite five-mile stretch of back-road twists and turns deep in the heart of farm country became less challenging and more routine (like, why can’t we find a better stretch of rural test track?) — is not surprising.
Porsche set out to create the ultimate roadster, the open-air car that will become a race-track legend. Porsche says “a pure roadster reduced to the essentials.”
Reduced to the essentials means the Spyder, with a base price of $62,150, derives much of its 176-pound weight savings over the Boxster S by dumping the air conditioning, radio, standard door handles and cupholders. The Spyder’s base prices, sans the basic amenities of life — living without air conditioning in the deep South is akin we suspect to waking up each day in hell — is a whopping $3,250 higher than the considerably more civilized Boxster S.
If you must have the Spyder, but, egad, you need some musical entertainment and perhaps a little cool air in the face on those 95-degree summer afternoons, Porsche will be happy to add an audio system as well as air conditioning and other features found on any car over 15 grand. The radio, door handles and cupholders are free, but be prepared to fork over $1,760 for the air.
And there goes most of the weight advantage.
Weight loss also comes via aluminum doors, a lighter battery, carbon fiber-backed sports seats, and lighter 10-spoke, 19-inch alloy wheels.
But the big Cahoona is the top. In place of the Boxster’s standard one-touch power cloth top comes a thin soft top that must be removed in pieces, rolled up and stowed away by hand.
We didn’t have the courage to touch it — for fear of being unable to get the thing reattached — after watching a nearly five-and-one-half minute instruction video of how to take it down and then put it back up.
Our thought through the entire video — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny8qcnhrkBs — was incredulity that Porsche with its world-class automotive engineers could not have come up with a better solution to save a few dozen pounds.
Imagine a sudden storm approaching. You stop to put the top up, which in the best of times would take at least a couple minutes, but you panic and fail miserably to retrace the steps as your new toy fills with water.
Does a car this beautiful — and it is a stunning machine — this much fun to drive, and this endowed with handling traits have to have perhaps the most clunky drop top in the world?
OK, so we are down 176 pounds (2,908) from the Boxster S and we expect a huge boost in straight-ahead performance. Not quite. But there is some improvement based on times provided by Porsche.
All this configuring, which includes adding 10 horsepower to Porsche’s direct-injection 3.4-liter flat six engine with variable valve timing and lowering the suspension, results in a modest blip in straight-ahead performance based on published times.
Porsche says the Spyder will complete a 0-to-60 run in 4.9 seconds with the standard 6-speed manual and 4.6 seconds with the dual-clutch seven-speed automated manual transmission. Fast, indeed. But the Boxster S, which you can live with seven days a week and costs less, will accomplish the same task in 5.1 seconds with the dual-clutch, Porsche says.
Granted, the Spyder is a handling juggernaut with its multitude of Porsche go-fast suspension pieces. And again we say the Spyder is designed for serious track fanatics.
The 3.4-liter inline six that powers the Spyder makes 320 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque reaching peak output at a high altitude 7,200 rpm, 950 revolutions higher than the Boxster S.
Gas mileage — granted that will concern very few enthusiastic buyers — is 19 mpg city and 27 highway with the manual shifter and 20/29 with the slick automatic.
Despite the sportier suspension as compared to the Boxster, we found the ride during daily driving not overly harsh.
But while the driving position is excellent with the hand falling into the perfect position of the shifter and the feet reaching harmony with the pedals, the seating for wide-bodied middle-agers is less than desirable.
Those of wider posteriors will find the severely bolstered seats too narrow for long-distance comfort.
And the seatback does not recline so the driver must reach an acceptance with the rake offered by Porsche.
As you might suspect from the rather thin, weight-saving top, noise levels are high at highway speeds, and there was some whistling coming from the gaps. As mentioned above, we didn’t partake of the roadster with the top down.
Same as the Boxster S, cargo space is at a premium with 9.9 cubic feet of combined storage front and back. Golfers need not take the car to the course unless their clubs are stored at the clubhouse.
Safety includes reinforced doors and windshield; a stainless-steel alloy roll bar; front, side and head protecting airbags; four-wheel antilock disc brakes; and traction and stability control.
This car is generally head and shoulders above other roadsters in driving dynamics. No argument here.
But while the Spyder is a blast to drive, the more civilized Boxster S is so good that only true driving enthusiasts are likely to discern the difference between the two.
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