Now that Porsche is hard at work on the 2011 Boxster, it seems there is a lot of cross-pollination going on with its new minions at the Volkswagen Group. Porsche may be spending a little too much time with its new playmates at the diesel-happy Audi. There are now rumors swirling around that the next generation of the Boxster will get an oil burner.

The Cayenne diesel we understood. The Cayenne is a truck, and a diesel's torque is great for towing and hauling. But placing a VW-sourced 2.0-liter 204 hp diesel in a sports car!? It's not even a boxer engine. Something just doesn't sit right.

The good news is that of all the companies making diesels, Audi is probably the best (it won LeMans three times with oil burner racers) and the 2.0-liter's 370 lbs ft. of torque will give brisk performance. But for a company whose motto is "There is No Substitute", this seem an awful lot like a compromise.

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