2024 Porsche 718 Spyder RS review: Boxster moves up a gear
It’s below freezing as Andrew Frankel takes flight in Porsche’s open-top 718 Spyder RS – a non-track-day car wearing track-day tyres
Bracing for winter perhaps – and the open-top is not simple to put up while alone during a summer cloudburst
It has been my great fortune to do some mad things in Porsches over the years, usually involving one or more of its implausibly powerful racing cars. But right now, driving the new 718 Spyder RS as fast as I reasonably could in sub-zero temperatures feels right up there. I am sure that, over time, the experience will settle into a more normal order but for now my heart rate rises at the very thought.
It is significant that, despite it clearly being a derivative of the Boxster, the name appears nowhere on the Spyder RS. A Boxster is a nice, fun, gentle recreational kind of car, but by putting the 4-litre engine from the GT3 into the Spyder RS, Porsche has turned it into a very serious weapon.
Yes, a GT3 engine in what is in all bar name a Boxster. If that makes you think a bit, you should have been sitting where I was on that journey.
The thing is, I’ve been driving Boxsters of every description since they started the process that saved Porsche back in 1997. And I’ve never had a moment’s trouble in any of them. They are not now, nor have they ever been difficult cars to drive. But this one is, at least in these conditions.
From here, you can really appreciate the high-revving howl from the 4-litre boxer
Consider if you will that the very first Boxster had a fraction more than 200bhp, and that this one has a fraction less than 500bhp. It’s heavier of course, but only by the weight of a couple of blokes. And that engine turns it into an absolute monster.
“This engine is identical to that used in the 911 Carrera Cup car”
Remember also that this engine is, installation aside, identical to that used in the 911 Carrera Cup racing car. It revs to 9000rpm and in an open car its voice is so loud and demonic that you struggle to believe it can even be legal. It is menacing, confrontational and, in short bursts, absolutely bloody wonderful.
The suspension has been stiffened too but, sensibly, not so much as in the Cayman GT4 RS. Porsche does not see this as a track day car, and neither do I, but that suspension is still fully adjustable and is acted upon by track day tyres, in this case Michelin’s usually excellent Pilot Sport Cup 2. I say ‘usually’ because you’re not usually out driving such a car at –3°C, in which circumstances, deprived of the heat they need to function properly, they’re not excellent at all.
To drive it fast and safely requires exerting the gentlest of pressure on all primary controls. You don’t have to drive that slowly because grip levels are better than you’d think, but if you provoke it, it will break traction suddenly and leave you on the road at a rather jaunty angle to the intended, working really quite hard and all before the safety systems have twigged what’s going on, let alone formulated an appropriate response.
Fair enough: if you want to use your Spyder RS year-round, put it on some less challenging rubber and I am sure all such problems will simply evaporate.
The issue with the roof, or two-part hood as it is more accurately described, is not so easily resolved. This is by far the most weatherproof such covering ever to grace a Porsche Spyder of any description and you can travel long distances in foul weather remaining dry, warm and not even that deafened inside given the noise of the engine and the shortness of the gearing. But it’s a minor pain to take off, and a major one to put back. I guess you learn in time but it will always be a distinctly suboptimal operation for one person and it will always take enough time to ensure you and your precious car interior are thoroughly soaked if you’re caught out in a sudden rain shower.
And for what? If it was saving vast amounts of weight there’d be a point, but the car is only 25kg lighter than the Boxster GTS when also fitted with the same PDK gearbox. A manual GTS is actually lighter than the Spyder RS – for this no three pedal solution exists – which doesn’t make a vast amount of sense to me. Any more than the fact that it comes with neither seat nor steering wheel heating. The GTS has both of these as standard.
Finally there’s the price. Remember the Spyder RS is not a limited-edition car, so you’re not buying exclusivity, but Porsche still charges over £50,000 more for it than the GTS which also has a 4-litre flat six motor (albeit 100bhp less powerful), the option of manual gears and a hood that goes up and down at the flex of a finger joint.
The strange thing is I have no such reservations about the Cayman GT4 RS which remains one of my favourite Porsches, despite their many obvious similarities. But with track day suspension rates and track day aero, there’s no questioning its role in life, and it’s one it performs to perfection. It’s a true hooligan, born for the circuit, and all the better for it. Porsche says the Spyder RS is not about tracks but the joy of the open road and I can see that. But if I had a Boxster GTS instead I might not enjoy it quite so much in perfect conditions, but I’d enjoy it a sight more often. And be 50 grand richer to boot.
Porsche 718 Spyder RS
Price £125,499
Engine 4 litres, six cylinders, petrol
Power 493bhp
Torque 332lb ft
Weight 1410kg (DIN)
Power to weight 350bhp per tonne
Transmission Seven-speed double clutch, rear-wheel drive
0-62mph 3.4 sec
Top speed 191mph
Economy 21.7mpg
CO2 294g/km
Verdict Save £50k: get a Boxster GTS.