Hi all thanks for stopping by.
I'm new here & to the porsche world, this past December while sitting around in subzero temps & working way to much I decided it was time to buy a roadster. I wanted 2 seats great looks & it has to be fast. Not crazy bhp, super tuned, sub 9 sec 1/4 mile or 0-60 in 4 second speed that you have to spend all your time & money keeping it running fast, but plenty quick enough to get your pulse up. Wanting to spend in the neighborhood of 10k I quickly ended up with a short list
Audi TT
BMW Z4
Honda S2000
Porsche Boxster
Spending my evenings surfing the interwebs, I came to prefer the porsche on paper & fond memories of driving my friends dads 944 turbo & 911 targa when in high school back in the mid to late 80's. I still needed to give the others a fair shake. Yesterday it rose to the upper 20's here in the NW burbs of Chicago so I found some samples of each & spent the day driving a few & seeing some amazing cars, including A Ford gt40 rows & rows of Maserati's, a couple Astin Martins some 911's & more. Anyway.
-Audi TT
First drive was an 04 Audi TT 1.8 fwd. I gotta say this car was pretty good, exhaust sound was great & they get a lot of pep out of that little engine. I think a 2.0 turbo w/awd would probably be a blast if your under 6' tall, which I am not. It also likes to understeer. For me they styling is cool for now but I can see I would tire of the modern tech look.
Next shop had both the BMW & Honda. I wasn't aware of this before yesterday but the car dealerships in the area I was in (Addison, IL) tend to be inside old commercial warehouse office buildings. The cars are buried 6-8 deep in rows, to test drive one they may have to move a dozen cars in & out of the indoor space. Here is where I sat in & gawked at the Ford GT40. That thing exudes power just sitting there, if you have half a million to spend give it a go
-Honda S2000
All I had to do was sit in it & I knew it was to small for me. (6'3" 190#) didn't bother to drive it.
-BMW Z4
This one was comfortable with plenty of cabin room, doesn't have the sports car feel I'm looking for, but if it drives well may be worth considering. However since it would've taken all afternoon to test drive it at this dealer I decided to wait to drive one elsewhere, I'll update later after a test drive.
ON TO THE PORSCHE
-99 Boxster base w120k (manual)
First time in & driving a Boxster, this one was showing its age & pretty ratty in & out, but the drive! & the sound, good lord the sound. definitely the experience I'm looking for. Drove great & quite well behaved when at low RPM's but get on it & its was just awesome. I'm not sure what tires were on it but I did get into oversteer several times.
-00 Boxster base w/63k (manual)
Same driving experience as the '99 except it behaved better at speed in corners & the car looks no more than 2-3 years old. dealer has no records except for carfax. One owner, previous owner bought at porsche dealer on north shore & traded in @ porsche dealer in NW burbs by me. that dealer did inspections & had on lot for only 40 days & then auctioned it off to the secondary dealer I was at. car fax has no other service entries. I need to make some calls, but I suspect that it was serviced at an independent & traded in instead of doing the 60k service. If no additional info can be found would you pass on it? Or base the decision solely on a PPI? If its listed @ $10,500 what would be a price where it would be worth the unknowns?? Here is where I could use the advice of some of you with ownership experience. Thanks.
-02 Boxster S w/64k (tiptronic)
This one was a bit ratty inside & the color was yellow (not my fave). I really wanted to like the extra power & it must be the transmission, but I preferred the base in manual. This felt no quicker at all & much less exciting or connected to the road to drive. Probably just need to find a better example with a manual trans, but unless its significantly better than this I think I'll be perfectly happy with the 2.7l.
I have a couple other 2.7l's I'd like to see & would still like to drive a manual S & the BMW Z4. One problem I'm seeing is most cars I find are at second tier used car dealers who have bought at auction with no records. I could also decide to spend another 5k or so to buy newer (condition is important to me) but I would rather not. Very frustrating, share my pain & any advice is appreciated.
Extra question for tall drivers. The Boxster at first seems a bit small tom me (6'3" 190#), I don't really notice this once driving but when getting in & making adjustments. I have to have the seat all the way back & down, then recline until the firewall presses into my lower back through the seat. I could use another inch or so of legroom. Are there any hacks or mods that you've found to improve this?
Paul
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