2006 Porsche Boxster Takes on a Fiesta ST, Proves Cars Are Getting Faster

Of course, Porsches were a lot cheaper over a decade ago, but being a classic mid-engined roadster, the Boxster kept a lot of its value, which is about the only thing that supports this weird comparison put together by The Fast Lane Car.

They say they paid about $19,000 for the Fiesta ST while the classy Porsche is within a couple of grand of that. Shocking, right? A little Ford costing the same as that sports car.

The official specs don't support what's happening here. The 1.3-ton Boxster is supposed to do 62 mph in about 6.2 seconds, according to Porsche's numbers, while the Fiesta ST is assumed to be about half a second slower. It's lighter, and you could argue that some of the horsepower has been lost in that 12-year-old engine, but a mid-engined, RWD car should always have an advantage.

Besides human error impacting gear shifts and stuff like that, there's also the altitude of the track. Both cars are affected, but it's worse for naturally aspirated units, even when they have two more cylinders and 1.1 liters of extra displacement.

The Boxster wins the first drag race by about a car's length while the second one is about even. Another test involves a hot lap of a small circuit, which the Fiesta ST wins. That's kind of shocking, considering the reputation of German sports cars in General and Porsche in particular. But even if they were even or the Boxster won, the fact of the matter is these two cars are roughly in the same league.

Just think about how crazy that is! Following this logic, in 2030, there's going to be a cheap Ford subcompact that's as fast as today's $60,000 718 Boxster. Of course, that's never going to happen, as Ford won't make any subcompacts.