Porsche 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 Hire Sydney: Review, Specs and What It Is Really Like

The Boxster GTS 4.0 is the car Porsche built after enthusiasts spent four years complaining about the four-cylinder 718. A naturally aspirated flat-six back in the middle of the car, a fabric roof that folds in seconds, and a chassis that is better balanced than any 911. It is confirmed by request, it is the least expensive car on the Exotic tier, and on the right Sydney road it is the one you will remember.

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Specifications

Those are Porsche's figures. The engine line is the one that sells the car: the GTS 4.0
is the version that put a naturally aspirated six back into the Boxster after the turbo
four-cylinder 718 models had spent several years being technically excellent and emotionally
flat.

What It Is Actually Like in Sydney

The engine is the reason it exists

Porsche launched the 718 in 2016 with turbocharged four-cylinder engines, and the cars were
quicker than the six-cylinder Boxsters they replaced. Nobody cared. They sounded like a hot
hatch and revved like one, and the people who buy mid-engined Porsches said so loudly enough
that the GTS 4.0 exists as a direct response. The 4.0-litre flat-six has no turbocharger,
and it pulls cleanly from idle to a rev limit that feels a long way above where a turbo engine
would have given up.

What that means on the road is that the car responds to the throttle in proportion to how
far you press it, with no lag and no sudden arrival of boost. Coming out of the tight bends on
the Old Pacific Highway that predictability is worth more than an extra 50kW would be. The
noise, with the roof down and the sports exhaust open, is the thing hirers talk about
afterwards. It is a hard, flat, mechanical sound rather than a V8 rumble, and it is entirely
its own.

Mid-engined balance on a road with real corners

The engine sits behind the seats and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the
centre of the car. The result is a chassis that changes direction with a lightness a 911
cannot match, because a 911 carries its engine behind the rear wheels and has to be
persuaded to turn in. On the Sea Cliff Bridge approaches, through the switchbacks of Macquarie
Pass, or on the tight and cambered corners of the Royal National Park, the Boxster feels like
it is rotating around your hips. It is also forgiving: the balance means the car telegraphs
what it is about to do long before it does it, and with 294kW rather than 400 there is less
to catch you out when you are learning it.

In the wet it stays honest. Rear-wheel drive and no turbo means the power arrives
progressively rather than all at once, and the traction control is calibrated for a car that
people drive to the shops as well as up a mountain. A wet run back down Bells Line of Road
in a Boxster is a calmer experience than the same road in a rear-drive V8, and that is worth
knowing if the dates fall in the wetter months. It is not immune to physics, and cold tyres
on a damp morning still ask for patience for the first few kilometres.

Roof down at motorway speed without the hair-dryer effect

The fabric roof folds electrically in a few seconds and can be lowered without leaving the
seat, which matters when the cloud clears halfway down the Grand Pacific Drive. With the
roof down and the windows up, the cabin is calm enough at 100km/h on the M1 to hold a
conversation, and the wind deflector between the seats takes most of the buffeting out. Roof
up, the fabric keeps the rain out and the noise down to a level that makes a wet Tuesday
commute into the CBD entirely reasonable. It is not as quiet as a hard-top, and you would not
expect it to be.

One practical note for a Sydney summer. Roof down at midday in January is less pleasant
than it looks in photographs: the seats and the top of the dashboard get hot enough to be
uncomfortable, the sun is directly on the driver's head for the whole run, and the wind at
motorway speed dries you out. The people who enjoy the car most keep the roof up through the
middle of the day and drop it for the early morning and the hour before sunset, which also
happens to be when the coastal roads are quietest and the light is best.

Two boots, which nobody expects

Because the engine is in the middle, there is luggage space at both ends. The front boot is
deep and takes a medium soft bag or two cabin bags. The rear boot, behind the engine, is
shallower but long enough for a suit carrier or a couple of small duffels. Two people can pack
for a four-day weekend in soft luggage and keep the passenger footwell empty, which is a
practical advantage over almost every other two-seat convertible and a genuine surprise to
anyone who assumes a roadster means one overnight bag each.

Things You Should Know

It is a two-seater, with no plus-two to argue about

Unlike a 911, there is no back seat of any kind. Two people and their luggage, and that is
the entire proposition. If a third person is part of the plan, even occasionally, the car is
wrong and the Taycan Turbo S or the M3 Competition xDrive is right. We would rather say that
here than have you find out on the driveway with a friend holding an overnight bag.

The upside of two seats is that the cabin is built around the driver. The seating position
is low and close to the centre of the car, the wheel is small, and the controls are where your
hands already are. It is a car that fits a tall driver better than the roofline suggests, and
with the roof down headroom stops being a question at all.

Manual or PDK changes the experience more than the numbers suggest

The GTS 4.0 is offered with a six-speed manual or the seven-speed PDK dual-clutch. The
manual is half a second slower to 100km/h and considerably more involving; the gearing is
long, so second gear runs a long way, and the clutch is light enough for traffic. The PDK is
quicker, easier, and the better choice if the car will spend a lot of its time on the
Parramatta Road end of the hire rather than the Bells Line of Road end. We confirm which
gearbox is in the car we can secure before you pay, and a strong preference stated in the
enquiry lets us source the right one.

It is confirmed by request, and the price reflects the tier

The Boxster GTS 4.0 is available from $650 a day, which makes it the least expensive way
onto the Exotic tier and not far above the Ford Mustang GT for a very different kind of
car. It is not waiting in a garage. When you send your dates we source a car for
them, confirm the gearbox, colour and total, and only then take a payment. Availability is
limited, and long weekends and summer school holidays are the hardest dates to fill. If we
cannot get one we say so straight away rather than leaving the request open, and we offer an
in-fleet alternative on the same tier.

Who Books This Car

The Boxster GTS is booked by drivers rather than passengers. People who want to spend a
Saturday on the Old Pacific Highway or the Putty Road and feel every corner. Couples on a
coastal weekend who would rather have the roof off along the Sea Cliff Bridge than a badge at
the valet. Enthusiasts who know that a mid-engined car with a naturally aspirated six and a
manual gearbox is a specification that is disappearing from every price list.

It is also booked by people shopping for one. Porsche dealers do not hand over a GTS 4.0 for
a weekend on your own roads, and a hire that covers the Blue Mountains on the Saturday and the
Northern Beaches on the Sunday answers the manual-or-PDK question in a way that a fifteen-minute
loop from a showroom never will.

A good weekend in it has a consistent shape. Delivery on the Friday evening so the first
drive is not in traffic. Saturday morning north to the Old Pacific Highway before the
motorcycles arrive, then across to the Northern Beaches for lunch with the roof down. Sunday
south through the Royal National Park, out onto the Grand Pacific Drive and over the Sea
Cliff Bridge, and home up the M1 with the roof up and the seats cooled. Two people, two soft
bags, and about 400 kilometres of the best roads in the state without the car ever feeling
like the wrong tool for any of them.

It is not the car for an arrival. If the purpose is to be seen stepping out of something at
a wedding or a launch, the Taycan Turbo S or the AMG GT does that job better. The Boxster is
the car you book for the drive between the events, and for that purpose it is very hard to
beat at the price.