boxters in winter
2 Answers
I do not have first hand experience since I only drove my 911 Turbo in the winter. Many of my friends have the Boxster as daily drivers and I never heard any complaints from them. Consider the weight distribution, close to 60% of the car's weight is on the drive wheels (similar to front wheel drive vehicles which most think are good handlers in snow - not exactly right, see following) and this is a great advantage over any other chassis designs as superior traction is available to put power down as well as maintain stability (to prevent fishtailing). Braking is also optimized in all conditions due to more even weight shift (since the front axle only carries 40%, vs. 60% of front drive setups, of the vehicle's weight, it has the capacity to handle far more when the weight shifts to the front duiring braking and not overloading them). Finally, I have not had any issue with problems created by ride height. European cars, Porsche included, generally have generous ground clearance. Check it out and you will notice most japanese front drive "pretend-to-be" sport sedans have, indeed, very low clearances especially under their front axles (to achieve low centre-of-gravity to boost handling, reads Acura). In another word, if equipped with even just "performance" snow tires (vs. regular "Blizzard" type tires, due to size/profile), there is nothing out there that will outhandle you, as long as the snow on the ground is less than 4" high.
Thanks Vince for makeing my decision a little bit easier.