Artificially lower? Becaue magazines "speculate" that it will handle more hP and be a better car than the 997? Why should a car 20k cheaper than a 997 have the SAME engine? NO car manufacturer does that....The Cayman is a mid leve car...Carrera high level...Boxster entry level...Thats how Porsche set it up. Thats like saying the Gallardo would be a better car than the Murcielago, if only it had a 12 cylinder engine.....nuts. The tepid reception the Cayman recieved is because they are trying to fool people into thinking its something that it isnt...What it is is a hardtop Boxster. And USUALLY a hardtop variant of the same car is CHEAPER than the convertible version....but what they did was put in a 3.4L (not the 996 3.4, a version of the 986 3.2L) and say it costs more because it has more HP....but then they drop that same engine in the Boxster S....so you can get the same car, in a convertible for CHEAPER....If they priced it THE SAME as a Boxster or cheaper, they would have sold TONS of them....Which is what they should have done....then rebadged the Boxster as the Cayman Cabriolet....The sales of the Cayman have NOTHING to do with the performance, or "dumbing down" of it.

 

And you know this for a FACT they purposely did this to not compete with the 3.4L 996? Considering even the 3.4L version of that engine is still not producing the same HP as the 3.4L 996....From what I understand its a bored out 2.7L block...not a bigger block like the 3.4L. So it WONT have the same output....see my post aboove about an entry level car having the same engine as the high level car...not done anywhere in the automotive world. So while it would be NICE to have more power in the Boxster, how would you differentiate the 911? Then your 911 sales, which is your bread and butter go down the tubes...just because it would be nice for the Boxster to have more HP....How about Ford put the GT500 engine in all mustangs...not just the Shelby...or how about the base Vette get the Z06 motor as well....you can make the argument for every car manufacturer, but the all differentiate models and trim level by engine output.

 

of course i don't know this for a FACT.... just like you.

dude, the easiest thing for porsche to do was to just put the 3.4L engine into the boxster S. easy. marketing couldn't have their precious 911 be out classed by the boxster. IIRC they use the ssme block. different crank and pistons giving smaller compression and displacement. to top it all off, the boxster has 4 cats. unnecessary. the 996 has only 2.

we are arguing the same point. my point is that porsche DOES have to differentiate between the models so they have to dumb them down.

there is one "supercar" that shares the same engine as a pickup truck. ford GT. same supercharged 5.4L engine. now that's one company that thinks out of the box .

 

Just to throw some fuel on the fire.

Boxsters with the 3.4L are faster then 3.4L & 3.6L 996s. Trent Carter was running 4.5-4.7 0-60 times on his 5-spd tranny.

 

remember this. porsche makes more profit on each car they sell than any other manufacturer. they make great cars, but profit not performance, is the bottom line.

 

thanks goodness for aftermarket