The Porsche Boxster broke from Porsche tradition as the brand’s first production model built around a mid-mounted, water-cooled engine — and its earliest examples carried a cylinder liner flaw serious enough to worry any used buyer. Understanding what Porsche quietly fixed by 2000, and how output climbed across three distinct engine displacements, is useful context even for muscle car fans cross-shopping performance convertibles. Read on for the full mechanical breakdown.