The Porsche 718 Boxster heralds the arrival of a downsized engine. Out goes the lovely six-pot, in comes a turbo four. Is it still the benchmark? Chris Harris finds out. Subscribe to Top Gear for more videos:
There’s no easy way to say this the porsche has fitted the boxster with a four-cylinder engine i know i know stay calm though porsche has form here it sometimes makes big changes to its cars that look like they might end in complete disaster but somehow they make it work but four cylinders and a turbo in a boxster if i’m worried this time this is a boxster s it
Has 350 horsepower and 310 foot pounds which means zero to 60 at 4.4 seconds zero to 100 and well under 10 seconds and 177 miles an hour all out that’s seriously fast deliver more weight so new suspension components and everything’s generally firmer than before this really is a very confusing part where i’m sitting on the one hand porsche has undeniably made
Boxster faster and probably objectively a bit better because the schastye comes along a bit more with the extra sauce and it’s just so fun and i can’t deny that word turbocharged engine the throttle response is brilliant and the end result in terms of how it clicks you up the road it’s very impressive you’re just waiting for the part on you there’s an enormous
Part and that is but emotionally this thing doesn’t even operate on anything like the same level of the last car remember that lovely 6-cylinder engine that used to howl and wail and give you nine different sounds depending on the way it was in the rev range all gone sorry lost forgotten in the past this thing is inner there’s so little to be had emotionally and
That means you kind of have to drive it in a way that gives you the speed i’ve never the case with the boxster and what we have any in the car that had a personality transplant i’m not sure it’s a personality necessarily like as much as the old one it’s done from being accel exist sharp mid-engine spin to be with it slump i think this building with m3 is it time
It does have been delicate to being a bit of a bug the problems begin the moment you start the car because you literally think that sounds like a beat when you think that i’m a good sleeper then if you get going you almost lose that flat for character it sounds like any other inline four-cylinder engine which is so disappointing given how brilliantly musical the
Old 6-cylinder engine there are two different sound personality for this dark roof down i don’t really like the sound of it you lose any fun noise you’ll cause a little this ruffle up here and that’s not very enjoyable move up it does sound a bit more angry there’s some more personality and of course for quite hard to inject some more into it so with the sport
Button on or the sport manettino turn you get much more banging and popping but it is kind of falsifying it isn’t real lovely noise after the way it drives being a portion you can’t really falls it can adjust during fantastic they’ve added more support into the shaft is that corner’s flatter but somehow the ride has a deteriorated i can’t really close the brakes
Can you see what i’m getting at here yes they’ve made the boxster worse but it’s still rather brilliant i just wish they haven’t spoiled it it’s the obvious downside for this new engine are a lack of accuracy from throttle response to present on the aspirated motor and the loss of noise well there is no obvious upside to first of all this thing’s loud and proud
I mean stupid e-class if you owner came in gd for i want to do some reconnaissance i wouldn’t get involved secondly have an effect on the traffic since likely have wanted to know how a boxer with a load more powerful would perform now we’ve got it i do feel a bit like the kid in the sweet shop who’s complaining of a tummy ache after the event because yes there’s
A whole load more fun this one’s got a little bit and you can slide it around and it’s great great fun they’re going to be yabo but i’m not so positive to be think you should be vacuously i’m not addictive inaccurately particularly in the first phase of a corner way under fiddling which is even the poor but the rest of it is so damn good that sadly really in pop
Those niggle fantastic the breaker box at the control way to run traffic the cabbage and covering ultimately tcm sucks we think it’s superb i love the fact you can have a manual gearbox and of course it is supposedly more efficient the roof mechanism best-in-class and all in all a great little car just not quite as big as the one you could have bought last year
Transcribed from video
Porsche 718 Boxster | Chris Harris Drives | Top Gear By Top Gear
