Porsche 718 Boxster vs. Subaru WRX STI Soundtrack Comparison Will Offend Purists

Which brings us to the piece of footage at the bottom of the page, which shows a Porsche 718 Boxster and a Subaru Impreza WRX STI engaging in a bit of an aural brawl - mic tip to Redditor Porsche2fst4u for bringing the clip to our attention.

Sure, the two flat-four bearers don't go all the way with crazy revving, as... modern-day Youtube rev battles have accustomed us, but the piece we have here is enough to get the idea.

While many might rush to criticize the fact that 718 Boxsters and Caymans now sounds like Subarus, allow us to point out Zuffenhausen was a bit ahead of the Japanese company when it came to building four-cylinder boxer hearts. Only a little bit.

In fact, it will take years until the debate about Porsche's return to the flat-four was justified or not and while we're not here to take sides, we have to admit you can't expect a company like Porsche to take such serious decisions without having thoroughly weighed its options before the showroom arrival of the cars.

Let's take a just-as-purist-offending decision of the German carmaker, for example, namely skipping the stick shift in the 991.1 GT3 and GT3 RS. Some aficionados might believe this was a mistake made by Andreas Preuninger, the man helming the carmaker's GT arm.

However, we think it was more of a short-term risk for long-term benefits. If you think about it, the manual gearbox black hole meant prices for both past and future track-savvy Porsches will jump.

Returning to the aural episode we have here, we're inviting you to hit the "play" button below.