I wrote the following in response to a comment about how to choose the right sports car. It ended up turning into a love story of how I ended up in a GT3. If you're interested in a long read about my journey, please enjoy. 2010 or 2011 or so I decided that I really wanted a roadster. I've always loved driving and spent my 20's in the sport compact modified car scene. So I made up my mind to get a roadster and started squirreling away any money I could. I had a list of cars to consider, starting with a used Miata and going all the way up to a Corvette. It would end up coming down to how much money I saved and that would all depend whatever circumstances life might throw my way in the following few years. I'll never forget the moment in October, 2011, as I was sitting at work and probably checking Jalopnik or some other car blog, when the first spy shots came out of the new 981 Porsche Boxster. I fell in love.
I blogged about it. Little did I realize at the time that it would be the beginning of the journey that lead me to where I am today, hustling a GT3 around race tracks. As the next few years went by and I kept saving, I started knocking cars off the list. 10k used Miata. I was past the S2000 and the 350Z. I was getting up into Z4, Corvette, and Boxster territory. The Jaguar F-Type was announced, and was immediately in contention. I sat in a Z4 at an autoshow and hated just about everything about it, so that fell off the list. I dropped the idea of the Jag when there was no manual available, so it ultimately came down to the Corvette or the Boxster. I was still in love with the look of the Boxster but my wife liked the new C7 and it was too great a package to just ignore.
The experience with the Z4 left me afraid that the same might happen with the Boxster. I convinced one of the reps at an autoshow to let me sit in one and couldn't be more relieved that everything about it just felt right. It wasn't awkard like the BMW was. There were no strange controls in places I couldn't reach them. It just all worked. It was down to the final two. I started calling up GM dealers and, I kid you not, NOBODY would offer the least bit of help in letting me test drive a Corvette. The told me I could go ahead and order one and that, when it came in, if I didn't like it I didn't have to take it. The whole scenario was ridiculous and that's how the Corvette was off the list and the Porsche was the last man standing. FWIW, I never did get to drive a C7 until last summer, when my friend brought his up from Baltimore. If I'm honest, had they let me drive it back then, I may well have bought one.
It's an absolute blast to drive! But they didn't, so I didn't. I went to a Porsche dealer and they were more than happy to let me take a Boxster for a test drive, as well as a Cayman S to feel the difference in power between the two. It blew my mind. The SA drove it first and he went around a highway onramp faster than I'd ever been in anything before. I couldn't believe it. When I took over the driving, I didn't drive it nearly as hard as he did and was still grinning ear to ear when we got finished. And then I found out the car was running on winter tires! It was somewhere around this time that Porsche announced the GTS versions of the 981 and that was that. I didn't actually end up buying from that dealer as trying to work out pricing with them turned into an endlessly frustrating process, but that was the moment I knew exactly what I wanted.