2010 Porsche Boxster Spyder

Over the years we’ve seen a multitude of changes and upgrades first made to the regular Boxster and then to the Boxster S when it became available. Now Porsche is revisiting its roots. The all new minimalist designed Boxster Spyder is an upgrade – or downgrade, whichever way you choose to look at it.

Porsche has redefined the term “Purism” in that this car has no luxurious extras. Really just a body bolted onto a drive train and chassis. This version of the Boxster is in fact a pure roadster and that was Porsche’s main aim during the design phase. It has no cup holders, no air conditioning, no radio and a manually operated convertible top. It does not even have interior door handles! Instead, you pull on a red tether to open the door. All of this shaves off 176lbs in ballast and the lightweight sport bucket seats with Alcantara centers take off another 26lbs.

The Boxster Spyder adopted specially designed lightweight (the lightest Porsche makes in 19″) 19″ multi-spoke wheel which reduces unsprung mass and increases braking, cornering and acceleration performance. To ensure that the light weight theme was completely carried out on the Spyder, Porsche also added aluminum doors to save another 33lbs.

A throwback from the past, the Spyder sports the 60’s style door logo reiterating that face that Porsche is returning to its roots. Another interesting design cue is that they have placed the front marker indicators within the front intake air dams in the form of an LED light bar. The body of the roadster sits a total of 20mm lower than its sibling models adding to its over all agility gain.

Now The Good Stuff

The Spyder uses the 3.4L 6 cylinder motor typical of that to the other Boxsters. However it produces a beautiful 320hp at 7200RPM (10 more HP than the Boxster S) and 273 lb-ft of torque at 4750RPM. At its lightest (with only the 6 speed manual transmission) the car only weighs in at 2811lbs and 2866lbs with PDK giving it a power to weight ratio of 9lbs/hp. It will accelerate from 0-60 in 4.9 seconds with the manual gearbox and 4.7 seconds with PDK and a top track speed of 166mph/165mph respectively. The largest wheel package option you can have are 19″x8.5″ ET +55 fronts wrapped in 235/35/ZR19 rubber and 19″x10″ ET+42 wrapped in 265/35/ZR19 rubber. These house front and read 4 piston aluminum mono block brake calipers. For all of this, you can expect the Boxster Spyder to start at $61,200 USD.

Photos courtesy of Porsche USA