That's what I guy who knows nothing about DRIVING sports cars would say.
A poser.
In sports car world there are roadsters, convertibles, targas, true exotics, GT's and regular old sports coupes.
The poser has no understanding of this. He will compare a roadster to a GT failing to understand that different sports cars have different purposes.
A roadster tends to smaller, lighter since it only has two seats and limited storage capacity. Thus it requires less power to go fast. As a result the car maker will put a smaller engine in it. Smaller car, smaller engine, smaller price. Roadsters have always been popular, the best selling sports car in Guiness Records is a Roadster (Miata) and in order to make them so popular, a not very practical car like a two seater has to be priced so that the wife will not deny the request for a weekend toy. The wife is ALWAYS a factor when buying a luxury that is not a hand bag or diamond ear rings. Some argue that the roadster is the purest type of sports car because its made only for driving pleasure.
The poor man's Porsche nonsense was a line I first heard back in the 80's when the 944 was introduced. Maybe they even said it about the 912 or the 914 years before the 944. I guess the line gets stapled to the lowest priced car in a line up.
I guess you have to know who you are talking to, a person that doesn't know trail braking from trail mix will look at a Boxster or Cayman and say, "nice but its no 911". A guy who knows a thing or two about driving a car on track, racing, autocross, etc. knows the mid engine P-cars are world class, just artificially held back in power by marketing people at Porsce Auto Group.
I remember once hearing a Carrera GT ($400K) owner tell a C4S ($90K) owner
that the C4S was "the poor man's porsche".
I guess it all depends what you consider to be "POOR".