Road Tripping a Porsche Boxster Spyder to Flavortown

From Road & Track

There’s no good way to get from Los Angeles to Santa Rosa, CA. It’s 443 miles. You can fly, but the closest airport is still a 90-minute drive once you touch down. Even so, my broken spine’s cut off for flying is about 350 miles, but I don’t typically have a European-spec 2020 Porsche Boxster Spyder with an honest-to-god, 4.0-liter engine, do I?

Flavortown, USA, as Santa Rosa is colloquially known, is the home of Chef Guy Fieri (pronounced Fieddi), his family, and the grocery store studio in which Chef and his crew are busy producing the twentieth (!) season of Guy’s Grocery Games. The Mayor of Flavortown was taping a special episode of the series in honor of my late friend Chef Carl Ruiz, who passed away suddenly last month. Carl, on top of being Guy’s Chef de Cuisine in many of his restaurants over the years, was the winningest chef in Triple-G history. He will be remembered by many for his food, but by many more knew him for the way he connected good people.

Every time I hung out with Carl, I learned something, I laughed my ass off, and I met someone new; someone almost, but never quite as interesting as Carl. He always said I’d like Guy–that we would get and respect each other. Now Guy was having a thing for Carl and I wanted to go. I wasn’t exactly invited, but as I would later learn, any friend of Carl’s is always welcome in Flavortown.

I had to get up at four. That would be the obvious way to clear the hell out of L.A. before anyone was awake. You’d think 5 or 5:30 a.m. would be enough of a head start on rush hour to make excellent time, but in a city of that size, you’d be wrong. But only Uber airport runners and the select few road trippers who hate traffic as much as I do are on the road at four. None of those folks had a problem with my pace, which had to be impressive in order to perfectly time my crossing of San Francisco later that morning.

Though my original commitment involved doing the entire drive with the Spyder’s top removed, second thoughts reminded me that GT-spec carbon bucket seats would provide sufficient martyrdom for one weekend. And, I should probably test the car with the top both up and down. I downloaded several podcasts, filled up my largest Yeti with thirty-plus ounces of fine Panamanian coffee, and enjoyed having LA’s freeway system entirely to myself in the most fitting way possible: with the right foot down.

In theory, this would be the typical “take the very fast but not comfortable sports car a very long way” story in which I would write about all the sacrifices I had to make, physically and mentally, in order to make this journey happen. Had I been driving the first-generation Boxster Spyder, maybe, just maybe, that would have been the case. If you enjoy reading about my pain: prepare to be disappointed. As it turns out, Porsche has found a loophole in the sports car purity continuum in which engagement can be dialed up to eleven while sacrificing virtually nothing in return.

It used to be that a ‘GT’ car, one designed to cover long distances at high speed, had to be front-engined, and for a long time, that was true. I recall driving a Ferrari F430 for several hours on the Bullrun Rally in 2007 on a very straight stretch of I-95, and how the mid-engine car produced two-handed, sweaty-palm driving the entire time. But the Boxster Spyder tracks straight and true, even on relatively uneven I-405 pavement. One hand on the wheel, the other calmly sipping coffee, deep into the triple digits. If I’m being completely objective here, the 718 GTS would have served an equal, if not better companion for such a road trip, with its narrower tires, better fuel economy, and comfort-oriented seats, but you only have to wind out each gear once to remember why flat sixes are just better in Porsches compared to four-cylinders, even if you do understand the math.

For the first time, Porsche has treated the Boxster Spyder like the GT car it was born to be; the likely result of enthusiasts taking the Cayman GT4 seriously. Andreas Preuninger, the legend behind the modern GT3 program, has brought the Spyder into the GT4 fold - the two cars are now, save for the roof, identical in every way. That means same 4.0-liter flat six engine, the full GT4 suspension with adaptive shocks from the GT3 RS, GT4 bodywork, wheels, tires, and interior (including the glorious six-speed shifter). It also means that, since a Cayman is really a Boxster with a roof, and not the other way round, the two cars weigh the same: 3120 lbs. That makes them the lightest six-cylinder road cars Porsche will sell you.

And that 4.0-liter? It’s just about as sweetheart as it gets. The 414 horsepower and 309 pound-feet of torque is more than sufficient to maintain a deeply criminal pace. The power-to-weight ratio is approximately the same as the 997 GT3 with the famous Metzger engine, an enthusiast benchmark. All the really good stuff happens on the right half of the tach, between 5,000 and 7,600 rpm, with a redline just past peak, at eight. But even down low, there’s a noticeable difference between how a naturally aspirated engine feels while trying to build power at low revs, and a turbocharged engine that’s in vacuum. In a sports car like this, the big bore N/A engine just feels spectacular.

But it’s not the best 4.0-liter N/A flat-six Porsche makes.

I have a theory called The Cayman Complex, whereby no mid-engined Porsche may ever be faster than the rear-engined 911. It’s proven itself true time and time again. So while the Boxster Spyder does have a 4.0-liter engine, it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of. The actual best engine in the world: the one from the last GT3 RS.

Nope, this one is all new, built out of the new Carrera’s 3.0-liter engine, but with the turbos removed, the bore and stroke increased, the heads revised, and a whole bunch of other stuff done to make it run well in a naturally aspirated configuration. Because my tester was a German-market import, it had the mandated exhaust filter, muffling the dual exhausts more than we’ll see in our US-spec cars. Its sound is reminiscent of the 991 Carrera GTS more so than the last Spyder, GT4, or any GT car recently on sale. While still an absolute jewel of an engine, it doesn’t have quite the motorsport feel of the GT3’s mill. It spools up fast, but not like a liter bike, like the GT3 does. And it’s melodious, but doesn’t remind me of camping at the infield of Daytona. Of course, the GT3 goes to nine, whereas this engine gets halted at just eight. But don’t let me get you down on it. This engine only places second to its own big brother, and it costs another $50k to land that.

And there’s the gearing, which, I’m sorry to say, has not been changed from the previous car. Second gear is good for 75 mph, and third for 113. You can drive the entire length of Angeles Crest Highway, 50 miles, fast, in only third gear, which, I suppose, is great if the goal is to change gears as few times as possible. As we learned last year, Sharkwerks sells an aftermarket gear set for this car which replaces second through fifth gear with a closer ratio, drastically improving both the performance and the experience. It’s not cheap, but it’s the best money you can spend modifying one of these.

I passed Kettleman City by the time the sun came up. The combination of Waze over CarPlay and my trusty Valentine One radar detector provided the kind of confidence I needed while trying to arrive in Northern California before noon. The fabric roof, though just one layer and a bunch of visible, metal spreaders, kept things warm and quiet enough, even as it dipped down into the 40s over the grapevine. Somewhere around Berkeley, it warmed and I pulled over to drop the top. After a few practice rounds, I timed myself at 45 seconds—not bad! Though when the roof is up, it makes accessing the rear trunk somewhat awkward; you have to release the roof from the dash binnacle in order to open the trunk. Strange, but not a dealbreaker.

I arrived in Santa Rosa at 10:02 a.m., a time that I am particularly proud of. Even more surprisingly, I wasn’t in pain, wind-beaten, or otherwise exhausted considering how far I’d driven in a morning. For the hardest core version of anything, this was remarkably pleasant and luxurious.

I met up with my friend Opie Hughes and we hopped in the Boxster, destination Flavortown. Opie and his former broadcasting partner Anthony were one of the great radio duos in the northeast, heavily influencing my own broadcast career. It was because of Chef Carl that I got to meet Opie at all (We met live on the air, in fact, when he said he was a fan of my show and I phoned in); and I suppose it’s fitting that we were attending memorials for Carl together. Carl was basically the other half of the Opie Radio Podcast, and now that he’s gone, on top of just being there for a friend, I was doing my best to fill Carl’s giant clogs on the show. Even though he earned a living making food, Carl was a better broadcaster than 90 percent of the professionals who’ve ever spoken into a mic.

Fieri, his crew, friends, and family could not have been more hospitable. Though obviously at work when we first met, he made time for a courteous hello. Everyone in the audience was Carl’s friends and family, and everyone got some #Ruizing swag and a wristband good for entrance to that evening’s party.

Fieri is not just the host and Executive Producer of Guy’s Grocery Games, but also the showrunner. Being the host, EP and showrunner of a six-camera studio shoot would be daunting if that were your only job, but this guy also hosts, EPs and show-runs two other productions, while owning three restaurants and a massive licensing business. The calmness and confidence with which this man goes about his day is awe-inspiring.

The next day, I wanted oysters. Point Reyes was just 30 miles down Highway 1. The Marshal Store, a famous fresh oyster haunt, was where I’d had my first ever oyster and gotten hooked, five years ago. It didn’t take much convincing for Opie to come with me for a ride, though his reactions to what I would describe as “transit stage rain driving” indicated that, on the windy and wet Highway 1, the Boxster is probably considered terrifyingly fast by the non-enthusiast population. My general disdain for Michelin’s ‘Ring-focused Cup2 tire did not find exception here—I get why these tires exist, but they are only good for one strong lap on the track, and they are awful in the rain, especially in a light car with 295s at the rear.

After lunch, we pressed back north, swung through Chef Fieri’s spread to say our goodbyes, deliver the bottle of Japanese whisky I forgot to drop off the day before, and ask for a tour of the garage. The chef has an excellent collection of fun toys from all continents with hilarious, food-themed vanity plates. After poking around the Boxster a bit, he asked if I have the hook-up for a GT3. Even he knows the Boxster can be great, but it’s always the gateway drug to a GT3. That’s why Bring A Trailer is chock-full of 18-month old, 13,000 mile Cayman GT4s and there’s always a waiting list for a GT3.

I agreed to make a call, shook a bunch of really fun people’s hands, and headed south, 445 miles to Venice, this time beginning mid afternoon. It would be a proper slog, with a 30-mile-long rush-hour jam near San Francisco Bay, followed by another over the Tejon Pass, and then a third on the 405. I attempted to keep the top down as long as possible, which lasted about half an hour after sunset. Traffic, darkness, and exhaustion kept me far, far off my previous day’s pace. The last sixty miles took over two hours, my brain demanding I stop and get out of the car to tamp down what were, basically, hallucinations from being so tired. I’ll admit, after nearly 1,200 miles in just over 36 hours, I was beat the hell up. In the future, for this kind of mileage, maybe a Panamera?

But that would have been easy. It was a memorial for a friend that I’m going to miss very deeply. It was an adventure in a far away place, with new people whose only real connection is now gone. To take a normal car wouldn’t be #Ruizing. Carl basically was a hashtag, and #Ruizing represents extracting the most fun, the most flair, the most enjoyment out of any given situation. There’s an argument a luxury sedan would have been the tool for this job. And if it was any other day, that argument would have won. But it wouldn’t be a story, and therefore it wouldn’t be Carl.

He’d take the keys to the rawest, lightest, purest sports car that Porsche will sell you today, throw them to me, light a cigarette, take a shot of Jim Beam, drop the shades, hop in the passenger seat, and demand I drive that little bastard as fast as it will go, all the way to Flavortown.

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