Drove it, loved it and ordered it!!!!!
Duly drove up to Porsche Centre Swindon today with SWMBO to test drive the new Boxster GTS, I've been really looking forward to today for the last three weeks when I made the appointment Kept watching - and listening - to the several video reports that have been appearing in YouTube etc, including, of course the evo one I started the thread on Rennteam a few weeks ago. We were still very undecided on colour, so we thought we'd turn up an hour early so we could wander round the showroom and forecourt to try and make our minds up without having the distraction of a hovering salesman. By chance alongside each other they had the shortlisted colours, a solid white Cayman GTS, a rhodium silver 911 convertible, and a sapphire blue Cayman. SWMBO has never liked the idea of silver, and rhodium silver to both our eyes was just another silver, nothing special about it and certainly didn't see any hint of blue in it which some claim to see. Sapphire blue was a major disappointment, looked quite washed out compared with aqua blue we had on both the 997 and Cayman, accentuated by an aqua blue 997 close by. That left white, however also in the showroom close to these cars was a 991 in the new Carrara white metallic and that was it, decision made, we both loved it. Solid white looked off white by comparison, that in isolation we probably wouldn't have noticed. Carrara White is an amazing bright pure white, without being garish.
And so to the demonstration drive, the car was a fairly standard spec, agate grey, PDK, with standard sport seat plus, with alcantara / leather trim. On starting the car bellows into life, even with PSE off. It quickly settles down to a more civilised idle rumble. Driving away in sport mode (PSE on of course) the car is loud, even with pretty moderate throttle openings, but as soon as more power is applied the sound level rises to a real loud bellow. In sport plus, louder still, with manual downshifts resulting in wonderful rev blips and really loud pops and crackles. Truly an amazing sound, the various videos on You tube don't come close to doing the real sound justice. Under bridges, blips then acceleration is simply deafening. An awesome sound. The weather was dry and quite mild so we had roof down throughout which really gave the full high definition surround sound experience. PDK a huge improvement on our previous 997, changes both smoother and much faster, automatic blipping on downshifting and no abrupt shunts when slowing to a stop and then quickly accelerating. Everything else pretty much faultless, the alcantara sport seat plus superbly comfortable, even for SWMBO, ( she tried the 18 way adaptive seats in a 991 in the showroom and really surprisingly didn't find them anything like as comfortable as the standard offering, primarily because they don't have the tiltable squab angle unlike the 997 / 987 comfort / adaptive electric seats. The adaptives also are far more bolstered than the 2 way adjustable seats, even with the bolsters fully deflated, the 14 way adjustable sport seats would have been the ideal choice, but these aren't available on the GTS models). Ride quality with the PASM superb, handling and road holding brilliant. Couldn't really find anything to fault at all, other than the cheap plastic manual seat adjustment and annoyingly the electric folding mirrors can't be folded by remote or be programmed to fold automatically on locking, unless the adaptive memory seats are specified. So you have to fold them before switching off which then means you can't look in them to make sure the road is clear before opening the door. Really stupid, same as SWMBO's Jazz. Even my Skoda ones fold on locking and unfold on unlocking automatically. But that's about the only fault to pick on. As Reginos said this car was designed for me!! I spent so much of the test drive laughing with sheer enjoyment!!
The showroom Cayman GTS had the normal bi-colour leather trim that we had thought about, definitely the GTS exclusive alcantara / leather is the right choice, with or without the GTS Interior pack, it makes the car feel very much more special, as ISUK quite rightly said. Many thanks to him and all the others here who made such informed and valued advice to guide us with the specification.
In summary words fail me so will have to suffice
This is the order we finally decided on and signed up to, delivery for March 2015 :-
Boxster GTS
2Y Carrara White Metallic
4V Black convertible top
GQ. Black leather i.c.w. Carmine red alcantara package GTS
498. GTS Black exterior package
632. Bi-Xenon headlights with PDLS + with dynamic high beam
636. Park assist front and rear
748. Electric folding mirrors
P13. Automatically dimming interior and exterior mirrors with ran sensor
220. Porsche Torque Vectoring
250. PDK
423. 20 inch Carrera S wheels
446 Coloured wheel centres
027. Carmine red instrument dials
088. GTS interior package
342. Seat heating
454. Cruise control
573. 2 zone automatic air conditioning
583. Smoking package
630. Light design package
P04. Sport seats plus, 2 way electric
666. Telephone module
680. Bose surround sound system
691. Digital radio
P23. Porsche Communication Management
....re option 583 we don't smoke, but for free you get a proper cover over the little square cubby box on the central console rather than a cheap looking open box!
....and now the almost unbearable six month wait begins.....
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Porsche Boxster GTS (on order) / Skoda Octavia Mk.3 daily drive