Quest for motoring nirvana
The Porsche 718 Spyder brings you as close to motoring nirvana as any car can, especially with a mountain track in front, California sunshine on your back and the gush of wind in your hair!
Forget about the way it looks. Forget about what the interiors are like. Forget about everything else but the road in front of you as you ease the clutch. And I thought the Spyder would just be a glorified Boxster. Needless to say, my absolute favourite car to drive on the Angeles Crest Highway was the 718 Spyder!
But let’s get to the heart of the matter. The Spyder is now powered by a newly developed 6 cylinder boxer engine that breathes naturally, redlines at 8000rpm and is good for 420bhp of max power as well as 420Nm of peak torque that comes in at 5000rpm. And that’s where the magic begins. And the symphony starts!
Porsche has had a habit of detuning the GT4 version of the Boxster as compared to the Cayman with the belief that while the Cayman derivative was intended for the track, the Boxster one was for the road. Not anymore! The Spyder’s chassis is as taut as any sportscar’s and the adaptive suspension as stiff as a track car. The steering is as good as any I have experienced in my 25 years of driving for a living, direct and precise and providing constant feedback. Braking is confidence inspiring especially with the optional ceramic composite brakes as is the way the car hugs the road, thanks in part to the lowered suspension and thereby a lower centre of gravity. For once a Boxster derivative now has a spoiler at the rear which generates additional downforce and deploys automatically at speeds of over 120kmph. So the new Spyder is not for those who just want the thrills but for those who want an engaging and rewarding drive experience. That couple with the manual gearbox make it more for the purists rather than the thrill seekers. Not to say that with extremely short throws and precision inducing shifts, the gearbox is also quick and it is easy to slam one gear after another even though on the mountains where I did most of my driving of the 718 Spyder, I was using only half the available ratios!
Although the top speed of the Spyder is now above the respect-inducing triple century mark, the zero to 100kmph times may not be as awe inspiring because of the weight of the car and that it’s a naturally aspirated engine.
Well there are some drawbacks though! The roof has to be manually deployed even though the boot-lid for its storage is electrical. And though the starting price is pegged at under a hundred thousand US dollars, the options add up and the one I was driving would have cost about a hundred and fifteen thousand.