Porsche Boxster Spyder
The roadster the purists kept asking for.
DFI 3.4, A/C deleted, top raised by hand.
1 reviewer · 2 videos
Performance
4.0/5“The 3.4 liter in this car makes 320 horsepower so it does have a different state of tune.”
positive · Zygrene · ▶ 3:50Handling
5.0/5“the way it turns in the way it holds on mid corner i would say the front end of this car feels almost as sharp as a 997 gt3”
positive · Zygrene · ▶ 6:05Fun to drive
5.0/5“this thing just comes alive it's very much a fingertips driving experience”
positive · Zygrene · ▶ 3:47Daily drivability
2.0/5“this technically isn't a car that's designed to be driven every day it's more of a nice take it out once a week on a sunny day kind of car.”
critical · Zygrene · ▶ 1:59Value
4.5/5“I would say the lower cost of entry makes it a very enticing proposition”
positive · Zygrene · ▶ 6:40Mechanically, the first Boxster Spyder ran the 987.2's MA1.20 3.4-litre DFI flat-six, lifted 10 hp over the Boxster S of the day and — because this is a direct-injection MA1 motor — free of the intermediate-shaft worry that haunts earlier M96/M97 Boxsters. The point was mass, not power. Porsche stripped it to the lightest car it sold: aluminium doors, lightweight buckets, A/C and radio deleted as standard, and the now-signature manual two-piece top — a tent-like shade you raise by hand rather than a powered roof. In the lineage, the 987 is the purist's prototype: 20mm-lower sport suspension, the humped twin-fairing deck every later Spyder would inherit, and a kerb weight that undercut the S by well over 150 lb. PDK was offered, but the manual is the one owners chase. It reads today as the moment Porsche decided the Boxster could be a deliberate lightweight rather than the entry car — the idea the 981 and 982 Spyders would later take to the GT-engine extreme.
Hear it in the reviewer’s words
No primary articles scraped yet for this nameplate. Check back as the pipeline crawls more publications.
Signature manual two-piece fabric top — raised by hand, not powered. A/C and radio deleted as standard for weight (re-addable as no-cost options). A DFI MA1 engine, so the intermediate-shaft (IMS) bearing concern of earlier M96/M97 Boxsters does not apply.