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"A car&amp;#039;s door is essential but often taken for granted, lowly phytoplankton in the food chain of automotive assemblies. A collection of metal stampings, tempered glass, weatherstripping, switches, guides, motors, linkages and latches, it&amp;#039;s a humble hinged cover for a body-in-white aperture that&amp;#039;s outshone by the engineering dazzle of far sexier superchargers and torque-vectoring differentials. So why, exactly, should an extra pair of them intrude on the very thing we hold so dear\u2014that oneness between man and machine through our favorite corner?   The &amp;quot;4-door sports car&amp;quot; is a path well-trodden by marketing types, and it is possible to infuse a sedan with ridiculously good handling qualities. But there&amp;#039;s a weight penalty, reduced nimbleness owing to a sedan&amp;#039;s typically longer wheelbase, and often a reduction in structural rigidity. And at the end of the day, do your rear-seat passengers, who have so painlessly entered the vehicle, really want to be centrifuged against the door panel (and each other) at 0.92g? With the promise of usefulness comes a taller and often stodgier roofline...just the ticket for rear head room, but its attendant higher center of gravity is physics-book Kryptonite when it comes to superhero handling.   Despite what seems like a deck stacked in favor of coupes/sports cars, the ultimate decision has more to do with what you feel in your gut and heart, and less with a 1-second lap time advantage. Go with the more utilitarian choice and satisfy spouses, children and friends, or choose the more glamorous 2-door route and have your kin clamber headlong past forward-tilted front seatbacks, unfurling like human lawn chairs once back there...that is, if your 2-door mode of personal expression has a back seat at all.   That didn&amp;#039;t stop us, however, from taking a fresh set of 2- and 4-door pairings from Germany and the U.S., setting them up with VBOX data acquisition systems and lapping them around the 1.5-mile Radical Loop at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada. Much as with our last pairings (Nissan 370Z Touring/Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR; Lotus Evora/Jaguar XFR, June 2011), we drove them hard on the racetrack, over desert highways in the cloak of darkness and in our daily commutes; we then crunched the data and gauged their overall usefulness and appeal. Of course, their nuances in handling, braking and power delivery received the greatest scrutiny. As before, our pairings are based on country of origin, price and straight-line acceleration ability. So with full tanks of 91 octane and our beady eyes laser-locked on the next apex, we began in earnest.   Up first: 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder vs. 2011 Audi S4 &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-comparison-tests/reviews/a17388/door-to-door-performance-part-deux/>