I have to admit, I am a bit of a Porschephile.
I like their vehicles simple and I like them loud — factory sport exhaust, please. No turbos, rear-wheel drive and equipped with carbon fiber-backed seats. It's no wonder I was a huge fan of the original Porsche Boxster Spyder and Cayman R.
They ticked all the boxes.
Recently the Cayman GT4 was on offer. While I never got the chance to pilot one, I have to say everything about it made me want to say "Yes." But with the 911 going turbocharged and all sorts of nonsense plaguing the 911 GT3, it seemed that the good 'ol days were over once production stopped on the GT4. But, they're not.
That's because the upcoming Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 is expected to be the final hurrah. According to reports, we're talking about 420 horsepower from a naturally aspirated flat six motor. The first model year will only be had with a do-it-yourself transmission. And, yes, there will be plenty of aerodynamic tricks to make the new GT4 even better than your standard 911 Carrera 2S.
Two words: "Daddy likey."
Stay tuned for the latest details. If CAR magazine is to be believed, we'll see the new 718 Cayman GT4 unveiled this summer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Nothing sticks around forever. The base 718 Cayman models have lost their six-cylinder engines, the Porsche 911 has gained turbochargers across the board and the manual gearbox is an endangered species throughout the car world. But when the second-generation 718 Cayman GT4 is released into the wild at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July, it will contain no turbochargers and – at first – no automatic gearbox option. The ultimate pure driver’s car remains just that.
‘The current formula is too convincing to change it for the sake of changing,’ says Frank-Steffen Walliser, who on 1 January took over R&D responsibility for sports cars from Gustl Achleitner (the famous ‘Mister 911’, retiring after nearly two decades in charge of the 911 model series). ‘Instead, we concentrated on making a very good car even better...'
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