What It Is: A Porsche Boxster prototype doing its best impression of a Michigan resident and freezing its arse off during cold-weather testing. We believe this Boxster—which is badged as an S model—is in fact a 2016 GT4, a new range-topping high-performance model. The front fascia is the giveaway, its giant intakes mimicking those on a Cayman GT4 prototype we spotted this past spring. This Boxster’s rear end may actually have frozen clean off, since the tall spoiler seen on the Cayman GT4 is absent here.

Why It Matters: As we pointed out when the Cayman GT4 surfaced, it used to be that any talk of a high-performance Porsche based on anything beneath the 911 was punishable by life in a clapped-out 924, but the hard-liners in Stuttgart are softening. The mid-engine Boxster and its hardtop Cayman sibling are highly capable sports cars that also feel as though they’ve been purposely held back so as not to step on the pricier 911’s toes. GT4 variants of the mid-engined wunderkinds could mark the end of Porsche’s careful metering of performance, not to mention show what the Boxster/Cayman can really do.

View Photos CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE, THE MANUFACTURER

Platform: Underneath, the Boxster GT4 should closely resemble every other current Boxster and Cayman, save for some chassis-stiffening measures and a firmer suspension. Interestingly, the Boxster prototype pictured here is equipped with red brake calipers, which in Porsche’s brake hierarchy—yes, Porsche has a brake hierarchy—indicates the presence of the same upsized iron brake rotors used on the Boxster GTS. (Yellow calipers announce carbon-ceramic rotors, silver denotes base brake kits, and black signals that a given Porsche is all-wheel drive.) One might expect Porsche to fit carbon-ceramics as standard GT4 fare, but the Cayman GT4 we spied a few months ago also had this same setup. One key difference between this Boxster GT4 and the Cayman version is the former’s lack of a gigantic, fixed rear wing; in its place sits a smaller yet still prominent ducktail spoiler.

Powertrain: Wouldn’t it be great if spy photographers could magically produce keys to prototypes and use them to pop the hood every once in a while? That way at least we’d have some idea of what kind of muscle the GT4 will come packing. OK, well, we’d have to drive this particular car onto a lift and drop the engine, but you get the idea. Our best guess is that the new Boxster variant will utilize a version of one of the 911’s more-powerful flat-six mills—the Carrera S’s 400-hp 3.8-liter—or a worked-over iteration of the 3.4-liter flat-six that the Boxster and Cayman share with the base 911 Carrera. It’s also possible that Porsche could use the model to introduce a turbocharged variant, perhaps with just four cylinders, and/or include some hybrid gear.

Whatever happens, don’t expect the GT4 to pack much less than 400 horsepower. If the GT4 uses a hopped-up 3.4-liter six like the Boxster GTS, it’s impossible to imagine fewer than 355 horses; after all, the GTS makes 340, and Porsche would have to differentiate the GT4 with more power. Encouragingly, this prototype had a six-speed stick sprouting from its center console.

View Photos CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE, THE MANUFACTURER

Competition: Alfa Romeo 4C, Audi TT RS, BMW M4.

Estimated Arrival and Price: Porsche already has rolled out the entirety of its 2015-model-year offerings, so we’re thinking the Boxster GT4—and its Cayman-based twin—will be introduced sometime next year as 2016 models. (We had previously predicted that the Boxster and Cayman GT4s would be 2015 models and debut late in 2014; that timeline has more or less expired, so we’ve shifted our expectations accordingly.) With what’s sure to be epic dynamic capability, the Boxster GT4—there’s also some talk that this car may be called the RS Spyder—could start at $100,000 or more.

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