Quote:
Originally Posted by Laflamme02
My question is, why does the Porsche community look down its (collective) nose at Boxster owners. From my in-depth research the Boxster is a fantastic car and superior to the 911 in handling, though not in power. Where does this snobbery come from? Any thoughts on it?
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Because Porsche are the masters of two things:
1-Marketing
2-Up selling
You see 99.9% of drivers out there don't know that the Boxster and 911 Cabriolet are different cars. Those who do know the difference mainly fall into the camp of not knowing much about Porsche's history, have never driven ANY Porsche and will most likely repeat something that someone they know said about A or B Porsche (whom also never drove any Porsche).
Then there is what you ran into, the guy who thinks Porsche didn't exist before 1964. LOL. The guy who has no idea that the very first Porsche 356 (the 911's daddy) that rolled out of assembly was essentially a Boxster by functionality: it had only two seats, it was a convertible and the engine sat in the middle:
BUT.... They really couldn't sell as many 356 with only two seats as they could sell with with room for four so they threw the engineering plans out the window and went with the sales plans instead. A,B,C : Always be closing Heinz! When it came time to try and win some races, the 550 (the Boxster's grand daddy) was the winning choice. The 911? Not even an idea in someone's head yet. And like the 356, the 911 Carrera as far as racing, was not ready for prime time. It would take a LONNNNG time before it was, and by then the mid-engine, two seats and no top Porsche had won all the big races.
Your friend suffers from the affliction brought on by excessive kool-aide drinking courtesy of Porsche's marketing department. It's the same marketing that has convinced so many that the Cayman and Boxster are actually different cars (they are not, Porsche don't even report their numbers separately). That a car with a fixed roof actually handles better than an already stiff purpose built roadster (more ridigity at the cost of higher COG? nope). That the 911 Carrera is not really a plush grand touring car now. And you know something else, from the doors to the front license plate your Boxster is a Carrera. If you consider the engine to be one part, more of your car comes from the shared 911 parts bin than the exclusively Boxster parts bin. Any other brand would have sold the 986 as the 911 Roadster and not bothered with deliberately de-tuning, or scaling down, the same engine in the 996 911 and inventing this name of "Boxster". It seems like it would have been more cost effective to just mass produce on base 911 motor than to go through all the trouble of re-inventing it as a 2.5 motor. And in those days Porsche needed every nickel in cost savings it could muster.
p.s.
I wish the 918 Spyder came with a whole lot less carbon fiber and a conventional, naturally aspirated flat 8 (or choice of flat 6) priced similar to a Carrera S.
But Porsche are afraid of their own potential.