What’s up gents? Been a regular poster on Bimmerpost for time immemorial, but have been less active lately. I’ve had a lot of BMWs, including numerous ///M cars, but the newer variants haven’t interested me as much as the older stuff. We still have a BMW (X1M35), but I’ve been in Porsche land consistently for my “fun” / performance based cars for a while now. Had a couple of 981s (CS and BGTS), and really got addicted to the mid-engined platform, especially in the topless variety. I can appreciate that the 911 is the flagship, but I’ve always liked the size of the mid-engined cars, and they’re a lot more “reachable” financially.
As Porsche has been steaming ahead on the electric front over the last several years, I knew that getting the last, best Boxster before the platform went full EV was going to be my “keeper” car for a very long time. I was lucky enough to get a 2022 Spyder allocation, and built out a very fun and beautiful car. I never quite jelled with the car, however. My 981s were “worse” on paper, but had created a significantly more emotional and personal experience for me. A lot of that came from the responsiveness of the throttle and the fact that the stock PSE sounded incredible.
The 718 Spyder had a lot of nice updates, compared to the 981s I had previously. LED headlights, a better PCM, CarPlay, etc. It’s also the first Spyder to be a legitimate GT product, unlike the 987 or 981 variants. And all of those things were awesome. The steering was better, the car was more capable and planted, and felt only slightly ancient from a technology standpoint (the 981s had felt truly ancient lol).
But it sounded terrible. No rasp from the engine note and the exhaust sounded like a hollow drum, with the added bonus of a lot of drone. I think the majority of the blame could be placed on the OAPs and the gong-like particulate filters…but the US doesn’t require that level of environmental friendliness, so Porsche could have had two versions of the OAPs to save those outside the EU from a horrible auditory experience, but they didn’t do that.
Thinking that the Spyder was indeed the last, best Boxster ever, I went all in on the exhaust to try and make the car elicit the same excitement I had experienced with my 981s. I got a full inconel system from Kline, and it really, really helped. But that 4L started out life as a 3L turbo in the base 992 Carrara, and it just sounds weird. It’s not very Porsche-like in my opinion. It also seemed to run out of oomph in the higher revs, rather than building for the crescendo. I guess I love the Metzger era engines too much. Bear in mind that the car is still awesome, but I had not ended up with what I wanted. And there weren’t a lot of options in the same price range with the same sort of package that the Spyder delivered. So I thought I would just be happy with what I had, knowing there wasn’t a better option out there for my particular use case.
Well of course, after saying for 10+ years that the GT3 engine could never, ever fit in the mid-engines platform, Porsche went off script. Instead of continuing to neuter the platform, they engineered around the size limitations and boom - now you have a proper send off for the ICE Cayman / Boxster with the GT4 and Spyder RSs becoming a reality.
Well, by being patient and passing on allocations with ADMs that made my eyes water, I was able to snag an SRS allocation at MSRP. I’ve had it for a few weeks now, and am blown away - not by things like the improved steering, or magical dampening or awesomeness of the LWB seats (which are all noticeably better than what I’ve had in any other car)….but by the sound. The air intakes are quite simply the most maniacal thing I’ve ever been exposed to. And I’m still in the AP break-in procedure. I can’t wait for 932 miles on the clock and the green light for 9k RPM.
Anyway, thought that might interest some of you and happy to discuss with anyone who is also interested in one of the RS variants.
Attached some pics too.