Road & Track Magazine, March 1997, Volume 48, Number 7
Subscription Inquiries: P.O. Box 55279, Boulder, Colorado 80322
(303) 604-1464, telephone
(303) 604-7455, fax

Top Guns, First Time in America!, Comparison Test: BMW-Mercedes-Porsche, Three Teutonic Drop-tops dogfight for your $40,000

By Douglas Kott with Kim Reynolds & Joe Rusz.
Photos by Guy Spangenberg.

Excerpts:

Squint just a little at the peaks of the Boxster's rear fenders and you're whisked back to the Targa Florio, riding alongside Jo Bonnier in a small-bore Porsche RS 60, a giant-killer amid a screaming pack of Ferraris...

...we decided that Arizona was an ideal place to accrue some quality seat time. We chose Tucson as our home base, traveling south to the spectacular Pima Air & Space Museum, where World War II bombers, General Eisenhower's personal Lockheed Constellation and an SR-71 Blackbird mingle with more than 200 other aircraft of every description and configuration...

...he casually remarked, "The more you look at this car, the more you see." I graciously concurred, not because I'm the resident keeper of the Porsche flame, but because, during our two-day Tucson trek, I found myself discovering (and liking) things about the Boxster I hadn't noticed before. A different styling line (hmm, is that 550 Spyder or RSK?). An artsy artifact reminiscent of the 1993 Detroit show car (huh, a peephole over the instrument cluster). Then the engine fired up, and standing alongside the car I couldn't help noticing how much it sounds like a typical Porsche flat-6 when, in fact, it shares nothing with the venerable air-cooled 911 power-plant...

...And I love the engine, especially when Variocam kicks in - at about 5000 rpm... Nor does it take much doing... to reach the Boxster's 149-mph top speed...

...Why buy a Boxster when the Bimmer is cheaper and the Benz (dare I say?) is more chic? Because it's a purebred, not a mongrel...

...For the purist, the pick would have to be the Boxster.

Berkeley | Boxster | Mags