Porsche Boxster Spyder

This is the new Porsche Boxster Spyder and, as the arrival of any new Porsche tends to be a polarising event, you’ll either be sighing in disgust or yelping in delight. The bare facts? This Boxster Spyder is Porsche’s lightest and quickest current-gen roadster yet thanks to the folding roof being junked.

The Spyder will be unveiled at the LA Auto Show in December 2009, and it’s not a run-out limited edition like previous Spyder-tagged Boxsters, but the third (and most expensive) permanent addition to the roadster range.

So the new Porsche Boxster Spyder doesn’t have a convertible roof?

Well it does. Sort of. To create the Spyder Porsche has binned the folding roof and all its associated mechanics, and in its place comes a bit of cloth that attaches to the windscreen and hooks onto the new rear deck. Even with the side windows up and the glass wind deflector in place, there’ll still be a few gaps letting the wind in. It’s only meant for low-speed driving – Porsche quotes the 166mph top speed without the roof. Shouting to be heard, we presume.

And that new rear deck?

It’s the most noticeable difference between the Spyder and a standard Boxster – there’s now a big pair of power domes behind the rear seats and a larger rear spoiler. Other tweaks include revised side intakes, a new front bumper and those retro stickers.

What about inside, or under the (mid-engined) bonnet?

The interior gets some fancy door pulls from the GT3 RS and weight-saving carbon buckets. Sports suspension, a lower centre of gravity and – at a relatively trim 1275kg – an 80kg weight advantage over a Boxster S should make the Spyder the sharpest Boxster yet.

And with an extra 10bhp from the engine – taking the total from the 3.4-litre flat-six to 316bhp – and the Spyder is also two-tenths quicker to 62mph than a regular S, knocking the benchmark sprint out in 4.8 seconds.

Normal Porsche options like PDK, sat-nav and ceramic brakes will be available, the stickers will be a delete option, and customers should also be able to swap the hardcore seats for more comfort-oriented items. UK sales start in February 2010 with prices set at £44,643, just a few grand more than a Boxster S. Want one?

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Forgetting the Panamera, Cayenne and Macan, Porsche offer a pretty well-rounded sports car range. Starting with the Boxster and Cayman, and moving up the multitude of variations of the Porsche 911, all the way up to the 918 Spyder supercar. But there is a HUGE price gap between the top of the range 911 Turbo ($250,000 will all the options ticked), to the 918 Spyder ($800,000). Somewhere in that range Porsche could surely offer something to compete with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. Something like the 913 possibly? Conceived by the fertile mind of Rene Garcia, a professional 3D modeller who has created conceptual vehicles and highly detailed models for some of the biggest movies of the past decade, including the Matrix Trilogy, Transformers, the latest Star Trekthrillers and The Avengers, the Porsche 913 is an exquisitely rendered design in every detail. It has a bit of the 918 Spyder about it, but there’s also a lot of originality to the design. It looks like a Porsche, but a

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