Boxster vs 911: What the Extra Money Buys, and Which One to Take
Take the Boxster if the morning is about the road and there are two of you: mid-engined, lighter, more talkative at a speed you can legally use, and roughly half the money. Take the 911 if you want the flat-six, the badge everybody reads, two occasional rear seats and a fixed roof — or the Targa if you want that roof to fold. Both are in this garage now, with a 911 Targa 4S above them. The seat count and the roof decide more bookings than the horsepower does.
| What differs | Figure | What kind of number that is |
|---|---|---|
| Engine sits | between / behind | The Boxster’s flat-four is between the axles; the 911’s flat-six hangs behind the rear one. |
| Engine | 2.0 flat-four / 3.0 flat-six | 300 hp against high 300s in the coupe and 443 in the Targa 4S. Both turbocharged. |
| 0–60 mph | 4.9 s / about 4 | Porsche’s figures. The Targa 4S is about 3.6 with all-wheel drive. |
| Seats | 2 / 2+2 | The 911’s rear seats take a child, a coat or a bag; adults only briefly. |
| Roof | 10 s / fixed, or 19 s | Fabric on the Boxster. The coupe is a coupe; the Targa’s panel folds behind a hoop. |
| Rate | $286/day | The Boxster. The 911 is roughly double, the Targa above that, both on a larger deposit. |
Where the engine sits is the entire argument
Both cars put the engine behind the driver. Only one of them puts it behind the rear axle, and that single fact generates every other difference on this page.
The Boxster is mid-engined: the flat-four sits between the axles, behind your shoulders and ahead of the rear boot. Mass in the middle gives it a low polar moment of inertia, which in plain terms means it changes direction without arguing and stops the moment you stop asking. The steering loads up early and tells you what the front tyres are doing while you are still well inside anything legal. It is the layout every serious racing car has used since about 1960. If the engine itself is the question rather than where it sits, the boxer layout is explained separately.
The 911 hangs its flat-six out behind the rear axle. That is an engineering problem Porsche has been solving since 1963, and by the current generation it is solved: traction out of a slow corner is spectacular, because the weight sits on the driven wheels. What it never stops being is a car with a pendulum at the back and a nose that goes light, and the reason 911s feel special is partly that you can sense the engineers working. Both lean on the same electronic net on a wet road — stability control, and what the button switches off.
Porsche’s own 718 model overview puts the name in context: Boxster is boxer plus roadster, the open 718; the fixed-roof version of the same car is the Cayman, also here, in blue. The Porsche sports cars sit on the Porsche page with live dates.
What roughly double the money actually buys
Set the driving aside and list what the 911 gives you that the Boxster does not, because the list is real. Two more cylinders and the noise they make: a flat-six at seven thousand revolutions is one of the defining sounds in motoring, and the 718’s turbocharged four is quick and is not that. Two more seats, in theory. More power in every trim. A fixed roof, if you want one. And recognition: nobody has to be told what a 911 is, and if the point of the day is being looked at, that is the only line on this list that matters.
Now the other column. On a road with corners, at speeds that will not end the afternoon in a conversation with the CHP, the Boxster’s balance is its own reward, and it is why a lot of people who own both take the small one out on a Sunday. The Drive put a 911 against a 718 at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles and came away preferring the mid-engined car, because the 911’s limits sat a long way above the driver’s own.
Two seats or two-plus-two is the row that decides it
Everything above is texture. The decision usually comes down to arithmetic: a Boxster seats two, full stop. The 911 seats two properly and two more for a short hop — a child to dinner, a friend across Beverly Hills, a jacket and a camera bag on a long day. If a third adult is coming for the whole trip, neither car is the answer; the Maserati Grecale from the SUV shelf is, and the usual shape of a good week is the SUV for the days with people in them and the sports car for the one morning that is about the road.
Luggage follows the seats. The Boxster has a boot at each end — two soft bags in the front, one behind the engine — and the roof stows between them without eating either. One operator note you will not get from a brochure: the rear boot sits behind a warm engine and stays warm, and every summer somebody finds that out with a bag of groceries from Erewhon. The 911’s nose boot swallows two weekend bags, with the rear seats as a shelf. For a couple flying in with cases the 911 carries more; for an afternoon with the bags at the hotel, the difference never appears.
The roof: the Boxster folds, the 911 comes three ways
The Boxster’s fabric roof folds in about ten seconds and takes no luggage space with it. The 911 answers the open-roof question in three bodies: the coupe, the Cabriolet with its conventional soft top, and the Targa. The Targa is the interesting one — a fixed brushed hoop behind the seats, a wraparound glass rear window with no C-pillars, and a roof segment that folds itself away in about nineteen seconds of visible mechanical theatre, the most watchable roof in production and the heaviest way to remove one.
That is the grey car here, a Targa 4S with all-wheel drive, the right choice for a car you will drive open on a damp June morning on the PCH. So the open-air question has two answers at very different money: the Boxster for a morning about the road, the Targa for a forecourt where people stand and watch.
The cars that are actually here
Ours are specific cars rather than model names. The Boxster is red, wears a white script along the sills and a white stripe down the bonnet, sits on black wheels, and has the PDK dual-clutch gearbox with paddles. The 911 is a coupe in full racing yellow over dark multi-spoke wheels, a colour that keeps every line of the shape visible after midday. The Targa is agate grey, which lets the hoop read as engineering rather than decoration. All three are on the sports car hire in Los Angeles page beside the Corvette and the Ferrari, and the Boxster sits with the other open cars under convertible car hire in LA.
One thing about the money the rate does not tell you. Every quote here is the cheapest combination of the daily, five-day and twenty-one-day rates, with no percentage discount in it. On the Boxster the five-day block beats five separate days, so a working week costs meaningfully less than the daily rate multiplied out. On the 911 the five-day block is priced above five days, so the quote never picks it; on that car the twenty-one-day block is where the price breaks.
Two things worth knowing
The 911 is here in two forms. The yellow coupe for the badge, the grey Targa for the roof and the badge; the Boxster is the answer for the open road.
Each has its own strength. As a driver’s car the Boxster is lighter, more neutral and easier to place; as an object, the 911 is recognised by everybody, so for a birthday where the car is the centrepiece, the 911 is the one.
What it costs, and how it reaches you
The Boxster takes the middle refundable deposit band and the two 911s the top one, which moves the daily cover and the young-driver fee up with them; each deposit comes back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, and your own full policy works instead if you have it. The live calendars and current rates are on the Porsche page; where the price breaks on a longer booking differs between these two cars, as above.
Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the shuttle out to it, or $300 both ways VIP, where it is at the terminal when you walk out — half that for one direction.
The Boxster takes two soft bags, so with luggage take the VIP tier at the terminal, or the 911. Drivers are twenty-one and up with a licence held two years; under twenty-five there is a young-driver fee per day, the lower of the two on the Boxster and the higher on the 911s. Mileage, fuel and the rest are in the terms.
The short version
The 911 buys you two more cylinders, two more seats, a fixed roof or a folding one, and a badge everybody reads instantly. What it does not buy is a better car on a canyon road at a speed you can legally use, which is a question of where the engine sits rather than what it costs; The Drive reached the same verdict on Porsche’s own track. The 718 Boxster is the mid-engined half of the same engineering department at half the money, and for a morning that is about driving it is not a downgrade.
Both are on the Porsche page with their calendars, the Targa beside them. If the badge is the job, take the 911; if the road is, take the Boxster; if the roof has to fold and everybody has to watch, take the Targa.
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Cars in this guide
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Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a Boxster and a 911?
Nizo Luxury rents both — +1 (424) 303-6496 — the Boxster at $286 and the 911 at $550 a day — and the difference is where the engine sits, and what follows from it. The Boxster is mid-engined — a turbocharged flat-four between the axles, two seats, a fabric roof and a boot at each end. The 911 hangs a flat-six behind the rear axle, seats two plus two occasional passengers, and comes as a coupe, a cabriolet or a Targa. The 911 costs roughly double, here and everywhere, and both are in this garage.
Boxster vs 911: is the Boxster much slower?
In a straight line, yes. The 718 Boxster makes 300 horsepower and reaches sixty in about 4.9 seconds; the yellow 911 coupe does it in about four, and the Targa 4S in about 3.6 with all-wheel drive. On a canyon road at a speed you can legally hold the gap closes to almost nothing, because what you are using there is balance and steering rather than power.
Boxster vs 911: which is better on a canyon road?
The Boxster, for most drivers. Mid-engined, lighter and more neutral, it tells you what the front tyres are doing at speeds that will not lose you a licence. The 911's limits sit a long way above the driver's own, which is what The Drive concluded when it ran the two back to back at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles. If the road is the point, take the small one.
What is the difference between a Boxster and a Cayman?
The roof, and almost nothing else. They are the same 718 under the skin — same mid-mounted engine, same chassis, same wheelbase. The Boxster is the open one, the Cayman is the fixed-roof coupe. Both are here: the Boxster in red, the Cayman in blue, and the Cayman is the one to take if the day is a canyon morning and the roof was never going to come down.
How many people fit in a Boxster vs a 911?
Two in the Boxster, and there is no version that seats more. Two properly in the 911 plus two occasional rear seats — a child, a jacket, a bag, an adult for a short hop across Beverly Hills. If a third adult is coming for the whole trip, neither is the answer; the Maserati Grecale from the SUV shelf is, with five seats and a tailgate.
Boxster vs 911: are they manual or automatic?
Both here are PDK dual-clutch automatics with paddles. In traffic on Sunset the PDK is the better car by a wide margin; on Mulholland it is a matter of taste.