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The weather was not great during my days with the new 2021 Porsche 718 Boxster GTS, so you will only see the photos of Porsche here.
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Beauty is subjective, but personally I don’t like the look of the 718 from behind as much as from the front.
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When Porsche adds the GTS tag to a car, it means it’s a bit more performance oriented than a normal Porsche, but a bit less hardcore than a GT2 / GT3 / GT4.
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These one-piece bucket seats keep you in place. but they wouldn’t be my first choice unless I plan to spend most of my GTS driving time on the track. Especially when they cost $ 5,900 more!
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Normal sports seats are also available.
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While we complain about the options, I absolutely hated the 20 inch alloy rims fitted to our GTS test.
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Again, other wheels are available, and these look great.
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The red tachometer may not be to everyone’s liking.
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Good sound comes out of these pipes.
Porsche
Accidentally scheduling two different dates for the same time slot is probably something we’ve all done at least once or twice. In my case, that meant mistakenly booking a pair of test cars for the same week at the end of last year. And they couldn’t have been more different cars. I’ve written about the Toyota Venza before – it’s an attractive and efficient hybrid crossover that charmed me much more than I expected after driving from DC to upstate New York and back again. I was already expecting good things from the other car this week – a 2021 Porsche 718 Boxster GTS – but it also passed them.
The 718 Boxster is the entry point into the Porsche sports car lineup, but there’s nothing entry-level about the $ 88,900 GTS. It sits almost at the top of the tree, between the cheaper, more everyday 718 Boxster S and the more expensive 718 Spyder, a car it shares an engine with, which in this case is a 4.0 flat-six. L, an engine that makes Porsche nerds a little weak on the knees.
Most of Porsche’s powertrains have turned to supercharging in recent years – including smaller variants of the 718 – but not that four-liter block, which remains decidedly naturally aspirated. Installed in the GTS, it makes 394 hp (294 kW), 20 hp less than in the stripped Spyder. (GTS and Spyder both do an identical 309lb-ft / 420Nm). While the engine isn’t as happy revving in the GTS as it is in the Spyder, it’s not far off – peak torque is between 5,000 and 6,500 rpm, and peak power comes in at 7,000 rpm. min, with a red line of 7800 rpm to call up the time. on things.
Porsche’s engine experts have great expertise in fine-tuning flat six-cylinder engines, and their bag of tricks here includes a dual-mass flywheel, high-strength forged steel crankshaft, large main bearing, piezo-controlled direct fuel injection and a variable intake system. which increases the torque by changing the frequency of the air pulses that feed the cylinders. There is also cylinder deactivation for low speed, low load situations, which deactivates the spark from one of the two cylinder banks to increase fuel efficiency. (The engine alternates cylinder banks every 20 seconds in this mode, so it’s not just the same three cylinders that are turned off every time.)
The fact that the default transmission is a six-speed manual, with the optional Porsche PDK dual-clutch automatic transmission, underscores the driver-oriented nature of the GTS. Our test car arrived with three pedals in the driver’s floor, and the gearbox is a joy to use. The action of the shifting mechanism is smooth and direct, and there’s a rev matching feature that locks the throttle on during downshifts (which can be turned off if you want to heel and toe on your own).
As you might expect, fuel mileage is not the first priority of the GTS, even with stop-start and cylinder deactivation. The promise of 24 mpg (9.8 l / 100 km) on the highway was one of the reasons the Venza was chosen for this long, boring drive.
The lack of adaptive cruise control also factored into my decision – it’s available as an option, but it’s the one that Porsche didn’t add to the demonstrator we drove. And you can add the lightweight one-piece bucket seats to this list as well. These have been fantastic in keeping me in place on busy pre-dawn walks, but I find they can be a bit too narrow for my shoulders, and the lack of padding has counted against them against the backdrop of a 13 hour journey. If you factor in that bucket seats cost $ 5,900, this seems like an option you should only go for if you plan to spend a lot of time with your GTS on track days.
Boxster enthusiasts lamented that the two-seater convertible left behind Porsche’s iconic naturally aspirated flat-sixs for the turbocharged flat-four when the 718 debuted in 2016. The six-cylinder power returns and the lack of turbocharging adds a feeling of used to what was already a competent sports car. But this also applies to the Boxster Spyder. This car’s MSRP could be $ 7,400 more expensive, but the difference can go away pretty quickly once you start ticking boxes on Porsche’s option list, and the Spyder gets some unique things like a lightweight folding top that only aggravates the drama. For those who can afford it, this must be a nice dilemma to have.
Advertisement image by Porsche
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