[Overdrive]

And I'm not saying a cup-holder adds weight, NoGa, one can't be that anal about things. My issue is with putting things like that in a car that I honestly feel doesn't need it (just my opinion, not claiming my word is law) and basically making it appeal to people who want to drive their Tiptronic 911 while they guzzle their morning slew of coffee bombing down the highway. To me, a sports car doesn't have the little niceties in it like that. I don't need a radio, I like my engine's sound just fine. I don't need fancy accents and materials on the inside, and I don't need a place to hold the drink I'm not going to be drinking because I'll be too busy driving the car...nevermind that with a car that does have a rather nice interior in it, including electronics, I don't want my morning cup o' joe to go spilling all over the place. The complete lack of a drink, and a place to put it, keeps this from happening.

I've gotten used to having cup holders in my Corolla, and sure, I use them...they're also low enough in the car that they're very unlikely to spill. When it comes to the Boxster, I know I'm not going to be carrying any accessible drinks, so I simply plan accordingly. Even if this car were my daily driver, I could live without them.

I have found that the combination of the front seat adjustment lever, lower seat bolster for the left leg on the passenger seat, and the passenger side of the center console make for a great bottled water holder, though, and without the need to shove it in place. It only dislodged from there once when I really had to jam on the brakes.

I definitely understand the need for more safety and just the eventuality that these things, be they more frame material, a dozen airbags, whatever, are going ot fatten up our cars, but other things aren't being done to keep the weight in check elsewhere, or power increased and tuning done to compensate for the difference depending on whether you're looking for efficiency or performance. Making a big deal of the 981's weight drop is just fluff to me, because I'm sure they could be doing more to drop weight in the car and maybe even squeeze a few more mpg out of the car to keep the finger-waggers quiet...win-win.

Getting a bit back onto the topic, I just don't see why there needs to be a car below the Boxster in the Porsche family. Just let VW make their little mid-engine car with their mainstay 2.0T engine and reap the benefits...I really doubt it's going to hurt the Boxster's sales that much. There doesn't need to be a Porsche equivalent, and no car at Porsche needs to cost less than $50k in today's dollars. Porsche does not need to become a Chevy clone to survive. They're already badge engineering the Cayenne, let's just leave it at that.