Clocking the new Boxster is like checking out the teenage daughter of your old high school crush. Everything that attracted you to the roadster is still there, only fresher, perkier and more… streamlined. From most angles, the Boxster resembles Ye Olde 996 Turbo, chopped and dropped. From the rear though, and especially with the beefier haunches, the Boxster still appears as if someone is bent over and spreading 'em. If you think this is a coincidence, you haven't watched enough German porn.

Physically, it's no stunner. Yes, the Cayman's muscular fastback and sculpted haunches are exquisite: a deeply alluring shape that finally eliminates the Boxster's insipid push-me, pull-you design. But the Cayman's bootylicious butt draws new attention to the exceedingly bland Porsche family nose. Embedded fog lights may separate the model from its stablemates, but they do nothing to lift the miasma of mediocrity that has bedeviled the Boxster's face since birth. The Cayman's side air intakes are another distraction, lacking in both shape and scale. The German/Finnish roadster is also more color-sensitive than Martha Stewart; in anything other than black, the Cayman looks like a small and frivolous sports car souffle. Which it bloody well isn't.

The C4 is the next-up next-gen 911: a wide-hipped iteration of the new Carrera's Coke-bottle-as-suppository design theme. As such, it's also a minimalist vision of the forthcoming be-winged and bi-gilled Turbo. Although the C4 offers Porsche-spotters a few cosmetic tweaks to the basic model's retro-modern mix, it is, at its core, another Armani-clad psycho-killer. Considering the C4's inherent potential for luring its pilot into legal entanglements, the stealth wealth aesthetic is probably a blessing in disguise.

The second time through the corner, I held the Boxster S in second gear and mashed the gas. The car added speed like a boulder rolling downhill; the transition from bottom end torque shove to Variocam assisted accelerative thrust was as seamless and powerful as gravity itself. The Boxster's variable-ratio steering rack and [optional] 19" wheels responded to the smallest steering input with a fencer's speed, a surgeon's precision and a Rottweiler's tenacity. The resulting line through the ramp's radius wasn't pretty, but it was very, very quick. Oh yeah, and fun.

It's not about looks. The appeal of the 911's gently evolving design is more or less lost on the non-cognoscenti. There's no question that this, the latest 911 iteration, is more attractive than the one it replaces, even if it's difficult to identify the exact cause (the smart money is on the wasp-waisted flanks and purposeful rump). Still, as beautiful as it is, the revised shape is no radical departure, no newfound siren song to lure converts into the 911 fold. No; the essence of the Carrera's transformative powers lies behind the wheel.

Well, of course not. That kind of egocentric accelerative exuberance would be criminally irresponsible, regardless of the conditions. Anyway, your [imaginary] right foot rests atop an accelerator hot wired to a 605hp, race-bred, V10 engine. The car holstering this brute weighs just 3043lbs. It's a Porsche. So what the Hell, you muck about a bit, change gears, play around with the throttle, that kind of thing. I mean why not? It's not like you're headed for work or anything.

At first, the aesthetically challenged Cayenne S motored down the Spanish pavement with reasonable aplomb. That said, the coil spring suspension reminded me of a tightly sprung trampoline. But hey, not even the Germans can tie down an SUV to the point where it can blast around corners, without falling over or ploughing straight ahead, while providing Jaguar ride quality. The best thing that can be said about the Cayenne S' on-road comfort is that the BMW X5 4.6 Sport is a lot worse.

Power. And so, on the seventh day, the zealots of Zuffenhausen created the 911 Turbo. And on the eighth day, they created the Power Pack. These factory enhancements increase the engine's peak output from a not inconsiderable 420bhp, to a monumental 450bhp. The zero to sixty time sinks to 3.79 seconds. Porsche calls the extra oomph an 'option', but c'mon, you know it isn't. Put it this way…

The second Carrera is Clint Eastwood. This Porsche upholds The Law of The Jungle, with scant regard for legal niceties like speed limits and other road users. In fact, there's nothing nice about it. Clint sticks your nose into the tarmac and makes you feel every bump, ridge and rut. As far as speed is concerned, the bullet chamber is always loaded, the hammer cocked. Pull the trigger and Clint explodes into forward motion. Cornering is equally brutal, and effective. Calling this Carrera 'soft' or 'not as good as the old one' only reveals your ignorance.

Plan B involved a ride in the passenger seat with a RUF technician at the helm, followed by a 'small spin behind the wheels.' As I helped push the immaculate R-Turbo out of the showroom, I hoped something had been lost in the translation. I took comfort in the fact that RUF's official press car- a yellow, rear-wheel-drive machine-was busy making sushi out of lesser cars in Japan. This silver car had four-wheel-drive and stability control. Oh, that's all right then… isn't it?

Ah, but if you are a purist, get ready for a treat. You'll already know the Boxster has one-up on its 911 stable mate: a mid-engine layout. (For the blissfully ignorant, the 911's engine sits behind the rear wheels. During heavy cornering, the car must use clever tricks to stop the rear end from saying, 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm the leader.') What purists can't know- at least until they drive the 3400S- is the Boxster's true magnificence. The official Porsche product just doesn't have enough power to exploit the Boxster's dynamic capabilities. In other words, it's too damn slow.