What's the news?
Porsche is offering 718 Boxster and Cayman buyers the chance to have a more affordable, more basic, 300hp model that comes with the superior handling of the 350hp S version. The new 718 Boxster T and 718 Cayman T mirror the larger 911 Carrera T in being less about power and more about the driving experience. The two cars roughly split the difference in price between a basic version and an S.
Exterior
On the outside there are 20-inch alloy wheels, finished in high-gloss titanium grey. There are also grey mirror caps and, when it comes to paint, you can choose from Black, Guards Red, Racing Yellow or White, as well as Carrara White, Jet Black and GT Silver metallic. Porsche is also offering Lava Orange and Miami Blue as special colours.
Interior
The T (which stands for Touring) models also get a simpler cabin layout, including black door pulls in the door panels and sports seats with electric two-way adjustment, black Sport-Tex centre sections and the "718" logo embroidered on the headrests.
The big Porsche Communications Management (PCM) touchscreen has been binned, leaving in its place a... well, a storage bin. You can have it back in the dash at no extra cost, but Porsche says that the weight saved by leaving out the screen balances out the extra weight of the new gasoline particulate filter in the exhaust (which traps nasty carcinogens, and which is needed to get through the next round of emissions regulations).
The T models also get a three-spoke 360mm steering wheel, with the sport mode switch dangling from the right-hand spoke. There are also 718 and Cayman T or Boxster T logos scattered about.
Mechanicals
What do you get for your money? Well, instead of the S models' 350hp 2.5-litre flat-four turbo, you get the same 300hp 2.0-litre engine as the basic Boxster and Cayman. Hardly a hardship - that's a terrific engine, but Porsche has tried to rev up its performance a touch. Both get a shorter gear shift lever for the manual gearbox and there's also Porsche Torque Vectoring (PTV) including a mechanical rear axle differential lock.
More importantly, they both get the sharper-driving Sports Chassis option, which sits 20mm closer to the ground than standard, and which is normally only available on the more expensive S models. Porsche's PASM (Porsche Active Stability Management) suspension is also standard, as is the Sports Chrono package, which includes an analogue stopwatch on the dashboard, active engine mounts, active gearbox mounts, the Sport Mode selector switch, throttle-blip for manual gearbox cars and launch control for cars with the PDK dual-clutch automatic gearbox.
Performance? How about 0-100km/h in just 4.7 seconds (if you've got the PDK gearbox with launch control) and a top speed of 275km/h?