Porsche's Boxster and Boxster S have been heavy favorites around here since the first model was introduced in late 1996. It's been on our 10Best list five times, won three comparison tests, and is one of the most fought-over cars to ever grace our car board.

But the Boxster competes in the notoriously fickle sports-car genre, a segment that favors the freshest face or newest model. Not so this car. Boxster sales have only recently started to fall off as the cars have aged, and Porsche credits the Boxster with pulling the company out of its money-losing days of the early 1990s.