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As many of you know I owned, drove, and competed in a 2.5L Boxster for 10 years and participated in discussions here for nearly as long. I sold the car to my insurance company after I lost her in an accident and used the proceeds to fund a 2009 2.9L Cayman PDK. I have owned the Cay since April and will offer a brief observation of the similarities and differences for those considering a similar move.

The Boxster- A one owner creampuff when I bought her, she was a lightweight strippy with very few accessories. A pure sports car with no nannies yet had just enough creature comfort to drive all year in SoCal. Heater and AC were excellent and while fun in stock trim, several performance and reliability enhancements were added along the way:

PSS9- good choice for my purpose
M030 Sways- Excellent sport balance. Recommend for a street/track car.
New top with glass window- LOVE- My favorite mod of all.
GT3 and Tarrett sways- Very good but maybe overkill considering the tires I ran.
Underdrive pulley- Saved my PS pump
X51 pan- 100+ track days with zero oil starvation issues. Highly recommend.
Racing seats- Must have for TT competition.
IMS retrofit- Good peace of mind while doing the clutch.
Shorai 5lb Battery- finicky care and feeding but shaved 35 lbs off the car.
BK Roll bar extension- I recommend for anyone running on a race track.

In the end she was a street legal track rat. I enjoyed competition but also canyon runs with the top down and my brother running just behind. Certainly this was the most fun car I ever owned and I have owned probably 80 cars over the years. A lotta bang for the buck.


Enter the 2009 2.9L Cayman PDK. The first questions that come up are "Why not an S model and why PDK?" Quite simply an S in that year is another $10k and it is more car than I really need. I drove a bunch of them including a Cay R. Too much car and too much $$ tied up in my weekend joyride. As to the PDK, I drove several and was intrigued by the technology. My heel toe is still pretty good but I wanted to own one of these for now. I may not keep it another 10 years but it's pretty fun and way better than I am.

This car is more fully optioned with full leather int and lots of electronic gyro-wizardry. I find most of the electronics interesting but unnecessary. My phone talks to the car and it charges, the Nav is pretty good but so is mapquest. Too many nanny controls to protect us from ourselves.

The drive is sublime. This car is really good at what it does. Highway, city streets, canyons, or race track, this car is ready to go and performs brilliantly. I do notice the bump in HP but also the extra 300 lbs so it's not that much faster around a racetrack. (about 1 second at AAA speedway so far bone stock) A few suspension tweaks and weight reduction are in order but I don't want to lose that marvelous ride everywhere off the track so I have to be careful here.

This is a lot more car than my 2.5L Boxster with more creature comforts and it is a great deal of fun to drive. Is it more fun than the Boxster? Nope, it isn't any more fun than Lil Red was. Just newer, less miles, more sophisticated, and ever more refined. An excellent look at how Porsche makes gradual changes over time but retains the sports car pedigree.