Legend Of The Fall

A New Turbo Four Ushers in a Change of Season for the Mid-engined Porsche.

- Jason H. Harper

A SINGLE MOMENT. A FLEETING flash when road, driver, and car come together. The instant you recognize the moment is happening, it is gone. You can turn around and run that corner again, but the effect will never be quite the same. You can’t hear your favorite song for the first time twice. Yet the experience is forever grooved into your memory.

Few cars have been so purposefully designed to produce such moments as the Porsche Boxster. A mid-engine convertible barely sized for two, built for pleasure and escape. Forget the specifications, which have improved only modestly over the past two decades: The results always delivered. Internet killjoys love to pit the Boxster against the 911, but devotees know better. The roadster’s greatness lives in the memories of its drivers.

It is a car that changed my own perceptions. I attended a Skip Barber driving course at Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park almost 20 years ago. The instructor commanded me to hold my speed steady as we hurtled toward a sharp right-hander. In my naïveté, I was sure we were going to drive off the end of the track. But on his cue, I stomped on the brakes. The Boxster easily shed its speed and slip streamed up the turn. Just one moment, but I was smitten. The car would perform miracles if you were willing to learn its mysteries, master its charms.

Fast forward to the brand-new 2017 Porsche 718 Boxster. I’ve got days to kill and a plan to put a thousand miles on the odometer. There seems an infinite number of potential moments ahead of me, especially as today’s forecast is 78 degrees and I’ll use the car as its creators intended, with the fabric roof tucked away and a breeze licking the interior. What better possibility to forge a new and beautiful memory?