If I asked you to name the best-selling mid-engined car of all time, you'd probably guess the Ferrari 308, or perhaps the Toyota MR2. And you'd be spectacularly wrong. The honor of being the most prolific mid-engined car in history goes to – drumroll please – the Porsche Boxster and its hardtop twin, the Cayman. Yes, the "baby Porsche" that was once derided by 911 owners as "not a real Porsche" has quietly gone about selling more than half a million units since 1996. That's not just impressive; it's downright astonishing for a configuration that's about as practical as wearing stilettos to hike Everest. Why Mid-Engined Cars Are The Unicorns Of The Automotive World Before we delve into the Boxster's success story, let's understand why mid-engined cars are rarer than a politician who admits they were wrong. Out of the 60-97 million cars produced annually over the last 25 years, mid-engined vehicles account for barely a million units over five decades. That's like finding a needle in a haystack, if the haystack were the size of Texas. Why so rare? For starters, mid-engined cars are horrifically impractical. The engine sitting where most cars would have rear seats or a decent boot means you can forget about carrying anything larger than a toothbrush. They're also more expensive to design, trickier to maintain (ever tried changing the timing belt on a mid-engined car? It's like performing surgery through a letterbox), and can be rather spicy to drive at the limit for the uninitiated.But – and this is a massive but – they handle like nothing else on the road. The weight distribution is as near to perfect as physics allows, the steering is uncorrupted by pesky engine forces, and the rotation around corners feels almost supernatural. It's why Formula 1 cars are mid-engined and not front-engined like your aunt's Corolla. How The Boxster Saved Porsche From Financial Disaster The Boxster's origin story reads like a corporate thriller. In the early 1990s, Porsche was in the financial equivalent of intensive care. Sales were plummeting faster than a skydiver without a parachute, and the company was hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. They needed a miracle, and they needed it fast. That miracle arrived in the form of the 986 Boxster in 1996, developed alongside the first water-cooled 911 (the 996). The timing was perfect – the roadster craze ignited by the Mazda MX-5 was in full swing, and well-heeled buyers were looking for something more premium than the little Japanese funster. The Boxster sold like hot cakes right from the start. It was more affordable than the 911 but still wore that hallowed Porsche badge. The initial 201-hp 2.5-liter flat-six was hardly earth-shattering, but it was enough to provide a 0-60 mph time of 6.7 seconds – respectable for the time, though these days that's barely quick enough to raise an eyebrow at the traffic lights. Image Credit: Nutts on Cars on YouTube. Over the years, the Boxster grew more powerful, more refined, and more capable. The introduction of the hardtop Cayman in 2005 only bolstered sales further. By the third generation (the 981), these "entry-level" Porsches were so good that the company had to artificially hobble them to prevent cannibalization of 911 sales. Even then, many journalists quietly admitted that the mid-engined siblings actually handled better than the flagship rear-engined 911. The Competition: Not Even Close When you look at the numbers, nothing comes close to the Boxster/Cayman's success. The Pontiac Fiero managed 370,168 units in just five years, which is impressive until you remember that most of them seemed determined to spontaneously combust. The current mid-engined Corvette C8 has shifted around 183,000 units since 2020, a respectable figure but still not threatening the Porsche's crown. Exotic mid-engined cars like Lamborghinis and Ferraris sell in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands. The Lamborghini Gallardo, one of the most successful supercars ever, managed just 14,022 units. The Honda Beat and Smart Roadster, both affordable mid-engined options, barely made a dent with 33,600 and 43,091 sales respectively. The Boxster/Cayman pair, meanwhile, sailed past the 560,000 mark by the end of 2024. That's more than all the mid-engined Ferraris ever made. Combined. Get One While You Still Can Here's the kicker – the mid-engined Porsche as we know it is on borrowed time. The next generation will be fully electric, meaning the characteristic boxer engine's unmistakable soundtrack will be replaced by the whirr of electric motors. Progress, perhaps, but not the same experience. The current gas-powered models likely have just another year of production left. If you've ever fancied experiencing one of the finest handling cars ever made, with an engine that howls like a wolf behind your ears rather than under the bonnet, the clock is ticking. Image Credit: David Bush on FlickR In a world where SUVs rule the roads and electric power is the future, the mid-engined, gasoline-powered sports car is an endangered species. And the Boxster/Cayman – the most successful of its kind – deserves a place in the automotive hall of fame for proving that sometimes, the "wrong" place to put an engine turns out to be exactly right.
