I flew into Vegas last weekend for a work conference, and didn't want to waste a Sunday gambling like I usually do, so I thought I'd rent a cool car and explore outside of Vegas. It was a last minute thing, so there weren't many cool cars available without renting from some shady supercar place (still might do this soon). It was also 4pm on a Sunday so didn’t have much time to get the car and see the desert while it was still light out.
Love German cars so picked Boxster over convertable Camero SS. Maybe I should have gone with the Camero - maybe I’ll do this next time. I wish it was the Boxster S, but no luck. Had an awesome time though, pretty fun car to drive coming from a long line of sedans, and never having driven a mid engined car before. Car is really well balanced. As you can see below I went to Red Rock National Canyon, which has a 12 mile scenic drive with a number of really nice twists and turns. Pretty low speed limit of 35mph, but I kept it in 2nd gear most of the time to listen to the exhaust, which sounds pretty good. Even at 35-40mph I was yanking the thing around some pretty tight corners in the park and it felt amazing. Sounded great in 2nd gear as well - I didn't turn on the radio the entire time I was in the car.
Pretty different cars the Boxster and S4, but worth comparing nonetheless. I already mentioned handling which was very planted, but one thing that disappointed me was the acceleration. It is the base model, but even so it was pretty slow. It didn't have the urgency that I feel in the S4, and given it is naturally aspirated you had to really crank it up to get any real sense of acceleration. No surprise for some of you, but this came as a little bit of a shock to me when I was passing cars on the two lane road back to Vegas...
I did love the car, but shifter (non) paddles, whatever the hell their called, suck royally. In the pic below you can see them. They are maddening for someone coming from the S4’s DSG. For the 5 hours I drove the car - more than a couple times I downshifted when I meant to upshift. A stupid design I think. Regardless of which side of the steering wheel you used - pulling towards you downshifts, pushing away upshifts. As an owner I'm sure one would get used to it, but even so I couldn't see a way to comfortably position my hands and still upshift easily.
That said, the transmission was also one of the highlights of the car. In my DSG S4, if I shift from first to second below 2500rpm or so, in manual mode, the car stutters a little, above that it's solid. In the Porsche no matter what gear or speed, shifts were lightening quick and without fuss. The DSG is quick, the Boxster is even faster. And the transmission just felt bulletproof. Will attribute this to the rental car “I don’t really give a shit” scenario, but it was still great. Another plus was a huge dedicated gear indicator screen helped a lot - S4 needs this bad.
On to the pics and movies.
Wheel with stupid shifters
Acceleration from standstill - topping out in 2nd gear
Driving by Red Rocks...
The Road ahead
http://imageshack.us/a/img844/4523/20130414185023.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img838/9366/p...background.jpg
- love it, but it hurts my neck
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Moose201
Bookmarks