- The third-generation Porsche Boxster and Boxster S go on sale in the U.S. in mid-summer.
- The 2013 Boxster and Boxster S get new sheet metal and more powerful engines.
- Both engines are expected to return better fuel economy.
STUTTGART, Germany — The redesigned 2013 Porsche Boxster and Boxster S go on sale in U.S. in mid-summer, with new sheet metal and more powerful engines. Stickers in the U.S. will start at $50,450 for the Boxster and $61,850 for the Boxster S. Prices include a $950 shipping charge.
Porsche said the third-generation models will be powered by direct-injection flat-6 engines that can be coupled with either a standard six-speed manual gearbox or the PDK seven-speed double-clutch gearbox.
The standard 2013 Boxster gets a 2.7-liter flat-6 to replace the previous 2.9-liter unit, with output rising from 255 to 261 horsepower. Output on the 3.4-liter six in the Boxster S is nudged slightly from 310 to 311 hp. Porsche says the standard Boxster will accelerate from 0-60 in 5.4 seconds, while the Boxster S will perform the same function in 4.7 seconds. The optional Sport Chrono package provides even better performance and driving dynamics.
A start-stop system and other tweaks also mean the engines will deliver up to 15 percent better fuel economy.
The 2013 Boxster gets new sheet metal, a new power-operated top that stows neatly behind the seats and a revised cockpit with more space for driver and passenger.
The chassis has been redesigned, and the car features lower weight, a longer wheelbase, wider track and larger wheels, as well as a new electromechanical power steering system.
Inside Line says: A dramatic new look for the Boxster, to go hand in glove with more power.
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tbone85 says:
07:21 AM, 01/18/2012
Boxsterfan, you may just want to go clean yourself up after that one. :-)
boxsterfan66 says:
08:56 PM, 01/17/2012
sranger, from your post I am pretty certain that you've never driven a Porsche, particularly the Boxster. All you look at are raw numbers such as 0-60, 1/4 mile times, or even slalom which all could be read from a piece of paper. That tells you nothing about a car because 2 cars could have the same exact numbers on paper but each drives vastly different from the other.
Try driving a Porsche and feel how refined, balanced, and surefooted it is. Don't just sit in a Porsche at a car show or just get a ride--drive one for a few hours over winding roads, through tunnels with the top down, at high speed, etc. Particularly, see how it feels going around corners at high speed (although I wouldn't recommend you doing that with a 911--slow down or you'll wrap yourself around a tree!)
In any case, a front engined car can never fold around corners like a rear engine car because of the weight of the engine in front. The weight of the engine causes the car to dip at the front end opposite your turning direction. This slows down your turn and the whole car feels forced.
This dipping is physics at work and you cannot negate this unless you put the engine behind and as close to the driver as possible.
To illustrate, pick up a dumbell weight with one hand and raise it over your head. Now try rotating it using just your wrist. See how difficult it is to rotate the dumbell, especially when you change direction? Ok, now imagine if you could move the weight at both ends of the dumbell to the middle of the dumbell bar. This is equivalent to just holding a weighted ball in your hand. Now rotate the ball in your hand with just your wrist. See how easy that is?
By moving the heavy engine away from the front and placing it behind and as close as possible to the driver, it's like moving the weight from both ends of the dumbell to the middle. Hence, the Boxster just folds around corners with little to no effort.
Additionally, when I talk about refinement, it means how linear everything feels--from the gas pedal to the steering to the brake pedal--everything feel like an extension of you. In other words, you don't even think about it and things just happen. Indeed, you don't get in the Boxster, you wear it--it becomes part of you.
Let's see how can I describe this...imagine commanding your arm to pick up something small and all it does is move in the general direction of the object but never at the precise location of the object. Not only that, you must constantly adjust your arm and you never know exactly where it is. This is what it feels like when I drive a Mustang or Corvette--they are powerful but not refined.
It takes a lot of work and money to design such a refined car and that's why Porsches are so expensive. This coupled with the fact that Porsche builds tens of thousand of cars per year versus 400,000 or more as in the case of more common brands that use non-sports car parts in their sports cars (i.e. Mustangs & Corvettes). As a result, Mustangs and Corvettes do not feel consistently the same in every aspect.
I could go on for 1,000 pages but I hope you get the essence of what I'm saying. The best way to see and feel the difference yourself is to drive a Porsche.
sranger says:
11:15 AM, 01/17/2012
To the people that think the interior of the Porsche is vastly superior please explain in detail what make them so much better?????? Not subjective touchy feely crap, but specific reasons.... Different materials, etc...
As near I can tell they use the exact same material unless you order the $$$$$ full leather options...
The Domestic HAVE INDEED closed the gap in terms of quality, ride, build quality, handling, etc...
The performance numbers of course DO NOT Lie....
I realize that this is hard for the Porsche guys to accept, but that DOES NOT mean it is not true....
I have owned many of these various over the years and there was a time when this bias was true, but that time has passed. Porsche is resting on it's past success way more than it should in my opinion. I do understand, however, it takes time for people to pull off the blinders and take a real objective look at what is in front of them....
boxsterfan66 says:
09:34 AM, 01/16/2012
Certain cars attract certain types. Mustangs and Corvettes are not in the same league as a Porsche. Porsche has always been for gentlemen auto enthusiasts who place a premium on refinement in addition to performance, whereas Mustang and Corvette owners value rough and raw performance.
I owned the original Boxster and I love the way it goes around corners and its engine sound. The rear mid-engine configuration allows the Boxster to just folds around corners easily as if on rails. The high-pitch whirring sound of the flat 6 reminds me of a jet engine--mesmerizing! Contrast this with the unrefined ba-boom-ba-boom sound of the Mustang or Corvette--very annoying and uncouth to me.
I always wondered why Porsche didn't make the Boxster to look more like the Carrera GT with jet-fighter-like side air intakes and now they do!
Can't wait til it comes on the market!!
bestjinjo says:
09:15 PM, 01/15/2012
hooklyn, spot on with a lot of your comments.
There comes a time in a man's life when he grows up and realizes that 0-60 times mean little in terms of delivering a real world pleasurable driving experience. You can easily take an old car and makes it as fast as a Ferrari, Lambo, etc.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/20/13-year-old-vw-gti-becomes-worlds-fastest-at-208-mph-w-video/
Sure it's cool and all, but other than having a very fast XYZ car, it's still an XYZ car.....
It's interesting how people keep dismissing interior materials quality, comfortable ride, handling and focus entirely on performance for the $$$. Are people drag racing for pink slips? Others feel that a car should have X hp @ certain price of Y acceleration times @ certain price. People look at track times set by professional drivers on a track to compete how good a car is? Really? Give me a break. None of those track times will ever be achievable by a single person on this forum. So trying to correlate how much "better" one car is based on track results set by professional drivers is a useless exercise that's only there for bragging rights/marketing.
If you need to own the "fastest 0-60 mph car for the $" or "the fastest track car in the world for the $$", then go ahead and get that Mustang Boss 302 or a Corvette, Camaro ZL1, etc. In the real world, for 99% of all the time, those cars will be clunky, loud, have horrible interior materials, have manual gearboxes with long gear throws and feel unrefined. And some people just don't care about any of those things as they only care about performance. Great. Other people no longer need to buy a car that has the fastest 0-60 mph time per $ or that has set the fastest track time at Laguna Seca because we buy the cars for us, not to impress OTHERS, to enjoy the driving experience while sacrificing little of the amenities offered by luxury cars. The Mustang, Camaro and Corvette cannot claim any of those qualities. For people that have a hard time "justifying" a $60k+ roadster that does 0-60 in 5.4 sec vs. a $30k Mustang GT, that's understable. For others who want the "feel" of a Boxster, the Mustang might as well cost $10k brand new and it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever.
So world is a wonderful place since everyone has choice.
bestjinjo says:
09:15 PM, 01/15/2012
hooklyn, spot on with a lot of your comments.
There comes a time in a man's old's life when he grows up and realizes that 0-60 times mean little in terms of delivering a real world pleasurable driving experience. You can easily take an old car and makes it as fast as a Ferrari, Lambo, etc.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/20/13-year-old-vw-gti-becomes-worlds-fastest-at-208-mph-w-video/
Sure it's cool and all, but other than having a very fast XYZ car, it's still an XYZ car.....
It's interesting how people keep dismissing interior materials quality, comfortable ride, handling and focus entirely on performance for the $$$. Are people drag racing for pink slips? Others feel that a car should have X hp @ certain price of Y acceleration times @ certain price. People look at track times set by professional drivers on a track to compete how good a car is? Really? Give me a break. None of those track times will ever be achievable by a single person on this forum. So trying to correlate how much "better" one car is based on track results set by professional drivers is a useless exercise that's only there for bragging rights/marketing.
If you need to own the "fastest 0-60 mph car for the $" or "the fastest track car in the world for the $$", then go ahead and get that Mustang Boss 302 or a Corvette, Camaro ZL1, etc. In the real world, for 99% of all the time, those cars will be clunky, loud, have horrible interior materials, have manual gearboxes with long gear throws and feel unrefined. And some people just don't care about any of those things as they only care about performance. Great. Other people no longer need to buy a car that has the fastest 0-60 mph time per $ or that has set the fastest track time at Laguna Seca because we buy the cars for us, not to impress OTHERS, to enjoy the driving experience while sacrificing little of the amenities offered by luxury cars. The Mustang, Camaro and Corvette cannot claim any of those qualities. For people that have a hard time "justifying" a $60k+ roadster that does 0-60 in 5.4 sec vs. a $30k Mustang GT, that's understable. For others who want the "feel" of a Boxster, the Mustang might as well cost $10k brand new and it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever.
So world is a wonderful place since everyone has choice.
mini23 says:
10:01 PM, 01/14/2012
Any new Porsche out there has better steering feel and more polished handling then a Mustang or Corvette. A Boss 302 is certainly a great improvement in handling and it has the cornering stats to match a Porsche. Until it gets IRS it's handling will always be flawed. Steering feel is still not in the Porsche league. Ditto for the Corvette. Sure it will beat a Boxster S in a straight line but not by a huge amount with a PDK Boxster. Again it does not have the steering feel and the absolute confidence at 10/10ths that a Porsche has. With the new 911 and most likely the Boxster this is even more the case.A Ferrari 458 Italia does 0-60 in the low 3's. A Porsche 911S was clocke in the mid to high 3's just recently with PDK. Does that make a Ferrari over priced? A new 911 can corner over 1 G on a skid pad now. Becasue that equals a Ferrari 458 does that make the Ferrari a rip off? The answer has to be no. There is a special drving experience that you get in a Ferrari that you may not get in a Porsche. The same would be true comparing a Porsche to a Mustang or Vette. It's not about what it just does on a race track.
tbone85 says:
04:32 PM, 01/13/2012
"Put gas prices at $4 $5 dollars a gallon due to, I don't know, an escalated conflict with Iran.... and see how nice it will be to have the CTS-V as opposed to something more feasible."
While I think greater fuel efficiency is certainly an important goal, I think it is over-rated in terms of buyer criteria for sporting cars. If gas increased to $5/gallon, it would represent ~ $1500 increase in annual fuel cost. I don't think that will deter very many folks who have $60k to spend on a vehicle if it meets their criteria.
I doubt many people are cross-shopping CTS-Vs and Boxsters. The closest thing Porsche offers in terms of size and performance to the V gets ~ 2 MPG better mileage. To get that mileage requires more than twice as much cash up front. If the V is in danger from activity in the Straits of Hormuz, then Porsche faces a similar challenge with the Panamera.
mr_kq says:
02:00 PM, 01/13/2012
I went to the Porsche website an found that they did not eliminate the active rear spoiler, which makes the rear styling of the new car even more puzzling. The new 911 is beautiful except for the rear end. Did Porsche hire that Bangle guy who made BMW's ugly for a few years and assign him to rear ends? At least they didn't turn him loose on the rest of the car.
06sti says:
09:11 PM, 01/12/2012
This design looks like the original boxster concept before the production model came out in (around) 1996. I was always disappointed with the looks of the boxster, even if it was a terrific car. This redesign is more similar to the original concept and looks great!
Hard to ante up this much for a car that's not as fast as my old subie, but few things are ;) Will be checking this puppy out... I wonder if I could get away with a booster seat on the passenger side?