Porsche is For those who might have been encased in amber the past 15 years or perhaps stuck in a universe of flying dirigibles, a golden Statue of Liberty, and Sony Beta max VCR , we’d like to welcome you to the other side. The bad news: During your absence, all the ten-penny mid-engined sportsters such as the Lotus Elise and the Toyota MR2 have been superseded by exotics with entomological monikers and six-figure price tags. All, that is, but the Porsche Boxster, which launched around the time you entered hibernation.

By some strange but wonderful evolutionary process, the Boxster has survived—make that thrived—despite a major pandemic of crossover SUV s and self-parking sedans. Or maybe it was just Porsche’s single-minded determination to develop and refine a relatively affordable—emphasis on “relatively”—mid-engined sports car. We’ve recognized the car’s excellence by placing the Boxster on our 10-Best Cars list 13 times since it first arrived in 1997.

For 2013, the slightly cherubic, overtly retro skin has been molted, replaced by more menacing sheet metal that’s suggestive of super-cars such as Porsche’s own upcoming 918 hybrid. When we first drove the latest Boxster S, we detailed how its innards had metamorphosed as well, with a longer wheelbase, more passenger space, a wider track for more sure-footed handling, and weight reduction in key areas. A subsequent instrumented test of a six-speed-manual ’13 Boxster S revealed more exotic tendencies—nearly 1.0 g of skid pad grip, a Ferrari 458 Italian–like 147-foot stopping distance from 70 mph, and a 911 Carr-era–matching 4.4-second 0-to-60 sprint.
article by www.caranddriver.com