Video: 2009 Porsche Boxster S

Now, the car has been a favorite since about 10 years ago, when it first came out because it's relatively affordable for a Porsche. It's light, it's great on the track, it handles extremely well, even off the track, and it's very quick. Porsche is not known for making dramatic changes from one model year to another, but for 2009, generally, a more aggressive look to the front end. Porsche has changed the suspension for 2009. The characters very similar. The handling is great. You can swing the rear end out pretty easily. The ride comfort is okay. Now this is a Boxstar S which is the higher trim level. In the softer setting, which you can adjust by hitting the button here that has the shotguns over icon on it. The softer setting is still not all that comfortable. It's okay, it's livable, but there are definitely roadsters out there with softer rides if you want to live with it from day to day. Also for 2009, Porsche redid the engines. Both the three liter that comes from the regular Boxster and the 3.4 in the Boxster S. More powerful and also more efficient. Now you can get a six speed manual as a standard transmission, which I would probably prefer. This car has the new PDK. P stands for Porsche and the DK, as you know, stands for Doppelkupplungsgetriebe. Everyone knows that, right? What it is is a dual clutch seven speed automated manual. Now automated manual sounds a lot like automatic and to the driver it is. What's happening is you've got two clutches that trade off, so the upshifts are even faster than you could possibly do with a manual transmission. We should add the quality of these buttons, is just not up to snuff. Clearly plastic, trying to look like metal. This is an option that's more than $4,300. The PDK and the car itself starts at $57,000. This one as equipped is about $79,000. The materials are not good enough by today's standards. Here in the rear, that's a good size trunk for a small Roadster, and it doesn't get any smaller with the top-down. Now, I said trunks, cause there's two. The engine is in the middle. That gives you a fair amount of space here in front. Look how deep this is. This is a general carry on bag. Could almost put it in vertically, risk bending the hood and this isn't my car so I'm not going to do that. Overall, the changes for 2009 are positive. If you can afford it, why not? <v Narrator>For more car related news, go to cars.com or our blog KickingTires.net.