Revealed: the new 2012 Porsche Boxster

Here you go: the new, generation three Porsche Boxster. We promised you at least one deeply distracting new car a week this year in our new magazine, and by our counting, after the show in Detroit we’re already well ahead of schedule.

Porsche is telling us this – and this only – about Boxster 3.0. One, it’s lighter, bigger, and comes with a choice of smaller 2.7-litre (265bhp) and same size 3.4-litre (315bhp) flat six engines slung out behind the driver but in front of the driven wheels. Two, that it’s up to 15 per cent less thirsty. Three, and a surprising one this: it will cost £37,589 and £45,384 for the ‘S’ when it goes on sale in the UK on 28 April. That’s just over a grand and just over £1500 more than the outgoing Boxster (or generation 2.2.1, if you are interested in keeping the software metaphor going)

However, you don’t need a Doctorate in Cars to work out the rest. You know by now the Boxster and the 911 have always been ‘close’. So you’ll know that the new car has a lot more aluminium and that controversial-but-excellent electric power steering from the new 911. Hence the 15 per cent saving at the fuel pump. Reasonable also to guess that the Boxster keeps the same architectural stuff keeping those one inch bigger wheels doing what you ask them to; struts at the front, multi-link at the rear. And it all being longer and wider between those wheels, that chassis will be put to even better work.

Yeah, this is one worth looking forward to.

See more pictures of the new Porsche Boxster

And while we would not for one minute suggest how you should feel about its looks, we do believe you might want to call Specsavers if you don’t think this is an awfully pretty car. We’re getting an even stronger nose of Carrera GT than Boxster 2.0 and even a faint whiff of 918; there is definitely something in those slightly taller arches that says ‘let’s go racing’. Nobody will call this a hairdressers’ Porsche. Well, Jeremy probably will, but you know how it is with him.

Other kit making its way over from the new 911 spec sheet is a Chrono Pack that includes dynamic transmission mounts and the PVT torque vectoring system. The six speed manual transmission is standard, and, if you want to give up a little performance in exchange for all that extra mpg, then the double clutch PDK is an option.

So, back to the New Car Watch 2012, and with one eye on New Car Watch 2013. Because there will, of course, be a Cayman based on Boxster 3.0. A more curvy, less weedy looking Cayman. Ooo-er.

See more pictures of the new Porsche Boxster