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The weather wasn’t very good during my days with the new 2021 Porsche 718 Boxster GTS, so you will only see pictures of the Porsche here.
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Beauty is subjective, but personally I don’t like the appearance of the 718 from behind as much as from the front.
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When Porsche adds the GTS label to a car, it means that it is a little more focused on performance than a normal Porsche, but a little less hardcore than a GT2 / GT3 / GT4.
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These one-piece shell seats hold you in place. but they wouldn’t be my first choice, unless I planned to spend most of my GTS driving time on the track. Especially when they cost an extra $ 5,900!
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Standard sports seats are also available.
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While we’re complaining about the options, I absolutely hated the 20-inch alloy wheels installed in our GTS test.
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Again, other wheels are available, and these look great.
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The red tachometer may also not appeal to everyone.
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A good sound comes out of these tubes.
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Accidentally scheduling two different appointments for the same time frame 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 last year. And they couldn’t be more different cars. I’ve already written about the Toyota Venza – it’s an attractive and efficient hybrid crossover that delighted me much more than I expected after I drove from DC to upstate New York and came back. I already expected good things from the other car that week – a 2021 Porsche 718 Boxster GTS – but it also outperformed them.
The 718 Boxster is the entry point into Porsche’s sports car lineup, but there’s nothing new about the $ 88,900 GTS. It is almost at the top of the tree, between the cheapest and everyday 718 Boxster S and the most expensive 718 Spyder, a car with which it shares an engine, which in this case is a 4.0L flat-six, an engine that makes nerds of Porsche become a little weak.
Most Porsche power units have been using turbo in recent years – including the smaller 718 variants – but not this four-liter piece, which remains resolutely naturally aspirated. Installed on the GTS, it produces 394hp (294kW), 20hp less than the stripped Spyder. (Both GTS and Spyder make an identical 309lb-ft / 420Nm). Although the engine is not as happy on the GTS as on the Spyder, it is not far away – the peak torque is between 5,000 to 6,500 rpm and the peak power reaches 7,000 rpm, with a 7,800 rpm limit to time things out.
Porsche engine experts have a lot of experience in tuning six-cylinder engines, and your bag of tricks here includes a double-mass flywheel, high-strength forged steel crankshaft, a large main bearing, piezo-controlled direct fuel injection and a variable intake system that increases torque, changing the frequency of the air pulses that feed the cylinders. There is also the deactivation of the cylinder for low speed and low load situations, which deactivates the spark in one of the two cylinder banks to increase fuel efficiency. (The engine will switch the cylinder banks every 20 seconds in this mode, so it’s not just the same three cylinders being deactivated every time.)
Underlining the driver-focused nature of the GTS is the fact that the standard transmission is a six-speed manual transmission, with Porsche’s PDK double-clutch automatic transmission as an option. Our test car came with three pedals in the driver’s foot area, and the gearbox is a delight to use. The action of the shift mechanism is smooth and straightforward, and there is a rotation matching function that turns the throttle off in downshifts (which can be disabled if you want to do the heel and toe yourself).
As you might expect, fuel efficiency is not the first priority for the GTS, even when starting and stopping and deactivating the cylinder. The promise of 24mpg (9.8l / 100km) on the highway was one reason to choose Venza for that long and tedious journey.
The lack of adaptive cruise control also influenced my decision – it is available as an option, but it is one that Porsche did not add to the demonstrator we drove. And you can also add lightweight one-piece bucket seats to that list. They were fantastic for keeping me in place during lively pre-dawn trips, but I think they can be a little narrow for my shoulders, and the lack of filling was against them in the context of a 13-hour trip. When you consider that bucket seats cost $ 5,900, it seems like an option you should only choose if you plan to spend a lot of time with your GTS on race days.
Boxster lovers lamented that the two-seat convertible left behind Porsche’s iconic naturally aspirated six-cylinder for turbocharged flat fours when the 718 debuted in 2016. The return of six-cylinder power without turbocharging adds a sense of occasion to what it was already a competent sports car. But that also applies to the Boxster Spyder. The suggested price of this car may be $ 7,400 more expensive, but the difference can quickly disappear as soon as you start checking the boxes on Porsche’s options list, and the Spyder gets some exclusive items like a lightweight folding roof that only adds to the drama. . For those who can afford it, it must be a beautiful dilemma.
List image by Porsche