The Perfect Sports Car? 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

I'm guilty of wanting a bit more luxuries... Am I spoiled?

Perfection... Only if it was priced a bit closer to 40k.

it's a Porsche, not a Nissan.

JRobUSC, I fail to see your point? Is Porsche entitled to their 20k profit per vehicle? The only way I see yes is that they somehow manage to get their margins that high so good for them.

Joe, if you're going to throw numbers around it helps if you know what they mean. The $20k/unit figure was not how much profit Porsche made on each vehicle they sold. The profit from actual vehicle sales was nowhere near that, the bulk of their profits in the one big year you're talking about was from return on investments, primarily VW stock. If you took ALL Porsche's profits from everything they were doing and divided it by the number of cars they sold, you got that $20k/vehicle figure. But it had very little to do with selling cars, and that figure, incidentally, was smoke and mirrors, as Porsche leveraged themselves to the hilt with that VW stock trying to take over VW -- how'd that turn out again? Oh yeah, they basically went bankrupt and VW now owns them instead.

Anyway, my point is that a Porsche isn't going to cost less than a 370Z convertible. You might as well wish for it to be made out of unicorn horns while you're at it. If you want one for $40k, get a used one.

oh? So you're comparing the 370z convertible. Those aren't comparable :-/ One is an everyday sporty car and the other is a sports car lacking amenities. I was simply stating that people pay for badging. And if you truly want me to agree with your statement over Porsche's investments. Please provide numbers to prove how little Porsche makes per vehicle then.

Goes like stink, looks great, roof to fiddly.

I would venture to say that it is a good argument. Really nice car. A car that is made better by deducting stuff? A sportscar is the kind of car that you get up at 5:00am to drive while the roads are empty. This is one of those rare cars.

Value is relative. All depends on what features you value in a car. The Boxster Spyder is priced at roughly the price of an M3. While faster on the track and more fun to drive on twisting mountain roads then an M3, it lacks the space, amenities and daily livability of the M3. Choose your medicine.

Let's also not forget that the Cayman (base/S) and regular Boxster (base/S), are all the identical vehicle platform. Porsche's brilliant marketing has sold these variants up, down, and sideways through pricing strategy so that most people think they are markedly different.

Boxster verse 370Z
7 Speed dual dual clutch gearbox verse 7 speed automatic slushbox
Brembo brakes that have cooling ducks, Akibono brakes without cooling ducts
Mid engine, Front Engine
Bilstein Dampers, Tocico dampers
Ok the Nissan has a better Bose stereo and better nav system!!

and yet the Nissan outperforms the Porsche. go figure. would you say now that the extra money that one pays for a Porsche is to be able to keep up with Nissan's? after all, we are talking sport cars and we are talking specs. don't be mad.

You know back in the day true sports cars did not have a lot of ammenities other then a radio and a heater. Some had crude A/C. Today sports cars offer all of this fluff for the sole purpose destracting you from the art of driving. Further many of these old cars were driven on a daily basis.It's amazing how well people did without "Ipods" and climate control,sophisticated stereos,sat nav(which is a total rip off when a decent Garmin from REI would suffice just fine),power tops etc.. It is refreshing to have a company willing to decontent all of this ammentities to bring back the good ol days when sports cars were more about driving.To me I only need a semi decent radio and A/C and I am quite content to then enjoy the car I'm driving.