Tom De Moor wrote:

I suppose Dan uses his CLio V6 every day too and that car (easiliy
some 20-30 others) will run circles around the Boxster. The new
2007-2008 Elise on its turn will run circles around Dan's car.

Dan may use his V6 every day, but I've met people who actually use their
boxster for repping, up and down the country, hundreds of miles per day,
with samples and overnight bags and things. Not something you can do in many
sports cars (luggage space - you gonna suggest an MX5?)


It can be
set up to be as pointy and nimble as a lotus

No, it can't.

From experience : a Boxster on *slicks* was outperformed by a 2007
Lotus Elise on road tires on a circuit. The 2007 Elise on his turn was
ridiculed by a 4-year old R340.

There are three performance definers: resistance, weight and power.
The Lotus Elise outclasses the Boxster on all three.

The lotus's lower resistance comes from its lower weight, the boxster I
drove (an early S) had that feeling of instant response that is rare in a
car, maybe it was a good one.


yet has ABS, aircon, heated
seats etc and doesn't weigh too much.

The Boxster weighs 30% more than the Lotus Elise S2 who has also ABS,
aircon.

It has also a proper engineered roof, isn't made of plastic, and has a six
cylinder engine and an optional autobox. And I would expect it to be far
more crashworthy though I don't think either have been compared in testing.

It has been said that given the same
power as a 911 the Boxster is faster point to point.What makes it
even more special is that it'll stand daily use as well as any
german saloon would.

Claiming it is a superior car to the competition is rather funny: the
key to the Boxster is shape and desing, it's assembled out of obsolete
Porsche parts, reason number 1 why Porsche makes such interesting
profits out of it. Reason also why Porsche does not race it.


Except the shape is its worst asset, it's ugly.