Talk Morgan Forums Thread Like Summary - Howards Dillema...Almost.

I parked next to another mid engined 2 seater cabrio today and thought that perhaps the Boxster is missing something...



Both are instantly recognisable, both have a racing pedigree,
Both attract attention, the lady behind the 488 is clearly interested!

Both are turbocharged, both weigh about 1400kg, both are roadsters.....
One is a 3.9L V8 pushing out 661 bhp, the other is a 2.5L Boxster 4 with 350bhp

Both are about the same age

The Porsche could be on a dealer's forecourt for about £50,000, the Ferrari for about £175,000.

But I am impressed that a Ferrari 488 owner would park in a supermarket carpark, well a Waitrose & John Lewis one.
Not exactly Aldi....

I parked next to it, and spent a while looking at it.

The car was clearly a daily drive, the interior was "lived in", like my Boxster S.
but is it really worth so much more?
What does it do that the Boxster doesn't do?

I begin to understand Howard's perpetual dilemma

More fun to drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow......

George, you’ve hit the nail on the head “Enjoy whatever you can and while you can seems to be a reasonable way to go, be that in the automotive sense or otherwise..?”

Time is the only truly valuable currency we have to spend, you can’t earn more, you don’t know your balance yet it reduces with every passing moment.

Plus the amount of traffic on the roads leaves fewer overtaking opportunities so people get out of practice.

It's the art of overtaking which has been lost, in part perhaps due to cars and SUVs which have excessive width, but crocodiles of timids following slower vehicles is an epidemic.

Indeed, SAAB's turbo for torque philosophy made for quick cars - my last was a Hirsch tuned last-gen 9-5, with a many-speed paddle auto. It delivered mountains of power & torque in a narrow 2,000 rpm band - and once I'd learned the 1500-3500/change gear trick, was blindingly quick for a large saloon.

I kept that one a relatively short time - the two previous 9-5s looked after me for some 250,000 miles. The latter V6 turbo cost £2250, ran on LPG, so returned the equivalent of 55mpg in petrol costs. I fitted the last self-levelling rear suspension kit to leave the factory before the receivers arrived, to offset the weight of the LPG tank. A strut brace between the front suspension towers, and fancy Bilstein B6 coil/dampers... and I was chasing sports cars across country roads :-)

There must be an element of truth in the bore scoring scaremongering but I still think how you use the engine can make the difference.
I had the 996 and a Boxster of the same era, the same goes for the Kseries Elise I had which also had a bad reputation,, the cooling is remote from the engine and careful heat management is the key. Sustained use of full power is fine but you needed to bring it up to temperature gently and even more importantly cool it down the same way. I do that with all engines and I never once worried about any of the well publicised problems of either of those cars.
At the time, I needed the back seat of the 996 but the Boxster was the better car, the Elise was far more exciting than both and the Ferrari is really just a property built Elise. It does have too much power but once you’ve got used to enough power the excitement comes from having more than you’ve capable of applying.
The 996 design is ageing well now, it’s gone beyond the sad, unfashionable stage and the tidy ones are really looking good, particularly the most basic models, it’s such a pure shape.