haha, just kidding on the topic description. My buddy is waiting to receive his 2006 911S and he paid for it on Thursday, expecting to receive it Friday. Well, Friday and Saturday and now Monday rolled around, so he was getting pissed. To appease him, they gave him a low mileage (5,000) Base Boxster 5-speed to drive until his new 911S comes in.

Well, we all know what that means. It's beat the piss out of the borrowed Boxster time.

I go over to his house and he hops in my '05 S2000 and I drive the '04 Boxster.

Impression:
1. Seating position is different, but okay
2. More interior room, but not much
3. Fairly cheesy plastics on the center stack
4. Shifter felt okay, but not as direct as the S2000
5. Motor was butter smooth and sounded pretty cool at full throttle
6. Not a lot of low-end torque
7. Electronic throttle decides how much thrust to hand out. Very fluid, but not super fast.

Anyway, we raced probably 15 times and both cars were very evenly matched, suprisingly with the edge going to the S2000. My buddy told me he wasn't banging the gears as hard as he wasn't too familiar with my car. We both decided if we had traded back, the S2000 would be ahead by a carlength or so.

I got the Boxster up to 130mph on a local tollroad (no traffic) and it was stable.

One of the things that impressed me the most was how you couldn't hear the engine as it wound down from high rpm with no throttle. Very smooth motor.

Specs:

2004 base Boxster
228hp, 192lb/ft torque, 2811lbs

2005 S2000
240hp 162lb/ft torque, 2835lbs

Overall, it was a lot of fun chasing my S2000 around with a borrowed (from the dealership) Boxster and I can see why so many people love the Boxster

Final analysis:

Boxster is a good car, but not as direct feeling as the S2000, but with more creature comforts. In my opinion, is it worth the $15k (or so) premium over an S2000? No.

 

i wonder how the results would have been with the new boxster base, its got 240hp but supposed to have improve low end grunt better shifting and handling...

 

I test drove a base Boxster in 2003 and was most impressed with the steering. It felt less darty than the S2000.
The engine was also really smooth, and I loved hearing the intake noise right behind my ears as the rpms built. It accelerated very smoothly w/no VTEC-like kick. I didn't redline it.
I didn't trade my S for it - in the end, just too pricey. That was a base car, though - don't know about the Boxster S. I'm sure it's a super nice package.

 

Yeah, the engine is incredibly smooth and the intake sound does just seem to be right behind your left ear. They definitely spent some time working on the intake sound.