Are the Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxster Doomed?
You may have seen the headlines predicting the demise of the Porsche 718 duo. But is this real journalism or just fake news?
The general consensus among pundits remains that the Boxster deserves credit for saving Porsche during a very difficult time in the automaker’s history. In the early ’90s, Porsche remained mired in sales hell and in desperate need of a volume-based seller to right the ship. A faltering U.S. economy and bloated production process had driven the automaker to the brink of bankruptcy. So they built a mid-engine, two-seat roadster, sold the heck out of it, and the rest is history. Today, the Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman live on with turbo four power.
Despite the fact that both iterations of the Porsche 718 are, by all accounts, excellent, there is a bit of a problem. It seems that no one really likes the new powerplants. Which is no surprise considering they’re somewhat soulless compared to the old reliable flat-six. And that leads to another problem. Porsche only sold 5,087 Boxsters and Caymans in the U.S. in 2017. Which led Automobile to wonder out loud if the dynamic Porsche 718 duo was in fact doomed.
