Brendan may disagree, but I just can’t say the same for the Corvette. There’s a phenomenal amount of grip through both the front and rear tires (although the generous traction control system lets you flare the rear end out more than you can in the GTS), it just takes a while to figure it out.

It’s a steering thing; on the tight canyon roads we were on, I just never got settled behind the wheel in the Stingray as I did the Boxster. There’s a surprising disconnect through the steering column to the front wheels. Brendan likened driving the car to driving a speedboat; all that power back to the rear wheels, enough to lift the front end clear off the tarmac, it seems. Trouble is, it don’t matter too much when a speedboat lifts its hull; in a car, though, you need them front wheels to steer. Yee-haw.

Still, both cars change direction with gumption, both stick to the tarmac as if their livelihoods depended on it and are great examples of both manufacturers’ years and years of development. You don’t just get grip levels like this overnight.

I guess one of the knocks I have against the Boxster is that it’s almost too grippy. It becomes an issue at low speeds, especially with our tester as it doesn’t have the $310 Power Steering Plus option that eases the effort it takes to maneuver the car when things slow down. The Corvette, with its plethora of driving modes, is actually a single-hand breeze to thread through the car parks and other obstacles that litter the urban jungle.

What the GTS has that the Corvette doesn’t, however, are selectable damper modes. They’re standard on the GTS and while you can get adaptive Magnetic Ride Control on your ‘Vette, you have to first select the $67,245 Z51 package, then add the dampers for another $1,885.

On the GTS, you can either select “Sport” dampers separately, or have them automatically activate by selecting the “Sport Plus” driving mode. Boy, do you feel the difference; if the Boxster was taut before, the sporty dampers tighten the screws even more, turning the GTS into something just this side of a track special. Which is probably the only time I’d use the setting; it’s a little too firm for everyday work. Good that you can set the dampers independently of the drive mode—I like the rest of Sport Plus; the power delivery, exhaust sound et cetera—so it’s nice to be able to take advantage of all that without having your fillings rattled.

In the end, though, you just want to continue to carve the canyons in the Boxster; continue to clip the apexes and power out until the cows come home. I just don’t feel that way, to the same degree, with the Stingray. It’s fantastic, that’s for sure, just not quite as fantastic—handling-wise, anyway—as the Boxster GTS.

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