I pushed the clutch in and turned the key waiting for that familiar start-up sound. The deep tone of the exhaust filled my eardrums, and the smell of a cold start wafted into my nostrils. Accelerating out onto the road, I pressed my foot down onto the gas pedal and felt that direct and instantaneous connection between my body and the engine.

A lot of these emotions felt in cars of the past no longer present themselves the same way in modern cars. The everlasting march of technology advances may finally be taking away some things we hold dear to our hearts.

That march towards “betterment” continued at the New York International Auto Show with the release of some landmark cars to the United States market.

While the design had already been made public, the Porsche 718 Boxster made its American debut at the show.

If anybody knows how to make an exciting and invigorating car to drive, it’s undoubtedly Porsche. This latest installment to the company’s mid-engine convertible sports car is similar to the previous generation in every category except one: the engine. Since Porsche’s release of the Boxster for the 1997 model year, it has come with varying sizes of naturally aspirated flat 6-cylinder engines. However, with this iteration of the car, Porsche decided to switch to a turbocharged flat 4-cylinder engine.

This change didn’t happen because Porsche thinks the car is better with this engine. It happened because of ever tightening emissions regulations and a push for greater fuel economy. In fact, if you take a look around the industry, every single manufacturer out there has either made, or is in the process of transitioning to, turbocharged engines.

Porsche is doing this because it can downsize the engine and regain the power with forced induction from the turbocharger. By making a smaller engine, you can reduce emissions and get better mileage, meeting demands from environmental agencies worldwide.

You might be thinking to yourself that this is a perfect solution to the problem. We can have all the performance and still save money. Not so fast. For car companies that make your typical commuter car like Toyota and Ford, this solution is fantastic. Everybody will buy their cars, get slightly better fuel economy and be totally satisfied.

It gets more complicated when car companies like Porsche or Ferrari are aiming for the same goal. I’m going to reference the beginning of this article to make my point here. Driving is emotional for people like me. I want to feel like my foot is actually connected to the engine.

Sadly, turbochargers dull that feeling of immediacy. When you press your foot down, you initially experience a sensation called turbo lag, and then once the turbo spins up you’re shoved along.

The car enthusiast community is split on this issue, but I prefer a naturally aspirated engine. There’s no turbo lag, so it’s predictable and satisfying to drive, making you feel at one with the car.

Porsche aims to make cars people get excited to drive. The fact that it compromised on the biggest sales factor of its car is somewhat preposterous to me. A turbo can be fun, but the old model is much more Porsche-like and engaging to drive than this one will be.

The future of the sports car won’t look like the past. With each new car that comes out, another turbocharged engine takes the place of a naturally aspirated one. Ferrari has the 488 GTB, and the Porsche 911 has already made the switch over.

I don’t blame the car companies for the lack of soul-stirring a new car may be able to provide. It’s really a great engineering feat that they can utilize this technology to benefit all of us in terms of fuel efficiency and power. No matter what I may think of it, turbocharged engines will continue to take over naturally aspirated engines.

Zac Palmer is a sophomore magazine journalism major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. He can be reached at zipalmer@syr.edu.

Published on April 10, 2016 at 8:13 pm