2015 Porsche Cayman GTS: Mid Engine Perfection & The Biggest Threat to the 911!

MotorTrend

On this weekâs episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 Howdy and welcome to another episode of Ignition.

00:04 Since it debuted, the Cayman has caused nothing but agita

00:08 in the hearts and minds of Porsche fans

00:10 because it's mid-engine and therefore, in theory,

00:14 it could be better than the 911.

00:18 But evil Porsche, so the purists say,

00:21 they keep the Cayman down by not giving it enough power

00:25 because they wanna protect the almighty

00:27 and much more profitable 911.

00:31 However, this is the Cayman GTS

00:34 and with 340 horsepower, it produces just 10 fewer

00:39 than the 911 Carrera.

00:41 Moreover, it weighs hundreds of pounds less.

00:44 So, is the Cayman GTS better than a Porsche 911?

00:49 With all that power, is it even good for a Cayman?

00:52 There is precisely one way to find out.

00:55 (upbeat music)

00:57 Launching the Uber Cayman is pretty straightforward.

01:16 Make sure it's in Sport Plus

01:20 to get the quickest possible throttle response,

01:22 build the revs up to 4,000 RPM,

01:24 and then sidestep the clutch.

01:26 Zero to 60 happens in 4.4 seconds.

01:34 The Cayman GTS then completes the quarter mile

01:36 in 12.8 seconds at 111.8 miles per hour.

01:40 60 to zero braking takes place in a pretty good 100 feet.

01:45 Handling is where the Cayman GTS really shines.

01:50 The GTS can sprint around our figure eight

01:53 in 23.8 seconds, quite an elite time.

01:57 And its max lateral acceleration is 1.04 Gs.

02:02 Base 911 takes 24 seconds flat to run the figure eight,

02:05 meaning the Cayman GTS is quicker.

02:08 In fact, the Cayman GTS is quicker

02:10 than any 911 we've ever tested,

02:13 save for the GT3 and Turbo models.

02:16 (car engine revving)

02:19 This is pretty good for a Cayman.

02:38 This is pretty good for any car, actually.

02:45 I mean, I'll say this about Caymans and Boxers, too.

02:48 The steering is really what separates them from mortal cars.

02:53 You jump out of something, say, oh, I don't know,

02:58 a Jaguar Coupe R, and you get into this,

03:01 and you just have so much steering

03:03 and so little understeer.

03:05 And also, unless you're really going nuts, nuts, nuts,

03:08 so little oversteer, balance, balance, balance.

03:11 What makes a Cayman GTS, or for that matter,

03:15 any Porsche GTS?

03:17 Well, the basic recipe is you take your S model

03:20 and you mix in the most popular options,

03:23 and you charge less for that car

03:25 than you would for the base car with all the options.

03:29 Add to that a couple exterior tweaks,

03:31 you lower the suspension,

03:32 you mix in a little bit more power,

03:34 and voila, that's a GTS.

03:36 Wow.

03:39 Fun car.

03:42 Sports cars are fun cars, and this is a great sports car.

03:45 (car engine revving)

03:48 Horsepower is up 15, count 'em, 15 ponies.

03:53 325 over the Cayman S to 340 in this car.

03:57 Torque is up marginally by seven pound-feet

04:00 to an even 280, but as Anthony, my cameraman, pointed out,

04:05 this is the punchiest 280 pound-feet of torque

04:08 I've ever felt.

04:09 (car engine revving)

04:13 (upbeat music)

04:16 When you get a Porsche GTS,

04:17 you get some special stuff on the exterior.

04:19 In the case of the Cayman,

04:21 you get larger and blacked out front air intakes,

04:24 you get frosted headlights and taillights,

04:27 and you get blacked out exhaust tips.

04:29 (car engine revving)

04:31 So even though the base price of this car is about $75,000,

04:35 this particular Cayman GTS showed up

04:37 with $20,000 worth of options,

04:39 including $8,700 in interior options.

04:43 Apparently, $5,000 of those dollars go towards the seats,

04:48 while another $3,700 goes towards

04:50 something called the GTS interior package.

04:53 (car engine revving)

04:56 This is such a fun car.

05:03 Yeah, this is a real Miata road,

05:08 and what I mean by that is it's really tight

05:10 and really twisty.

05:11 Huge horsepower cars don't do so well here,

05:14 but something like this Cayman GTS,

05:17 I mean, it's so at home,

05:20 this might as well be Zuffenhausen.

05:22 I said this was pretty good for a Cayman.

05:27 I'm gonna go a step further and say

05:28 this is pretty great for a Cayman.

05:30 The original Cayman, it blew me away.

05:34 I couldn't believe how sweet that car handled.

05:36 It was small, it was nimble, it was light.

05:37 Then they came out with a Gen 2 here,

05:40 and it was a little bit bigger,

05:41 it wasn't a lot more powerful,

05:42 and it just sort of didn't do it for me.

05:46 I think you could clearly make the case

05:49 that the 911 was a much better car.

05:52 This is sort of what the Cayman's

05:57 been hoping to be since day one.

06:00 It's just fabulous.

06:06 You know, it's like, I don't know,

06:08 it's like a baby Ferrari 458 Italia.

06:12 Yes, it's not as crazy fast or as crazy sing-songy,

06:17 but man, it just does everything you want it to do,

06:19 and it does it so elegantly.

06:21 Road holding, the noise, I mean, everything, the power.

06:27 It's just an absolutely incredible car.

06:32 In conclusion,

06:35 there's not a lot of mid-engine cars

06:37 that are near the price range of the Cayman GTS.

06:41 I think it's better than the obvious competitor,

06:43 the Alfa Romeo 4C.

06:45 I'm not really sure if Lotus is still in business,

06:47 but I would take half of the Cayman GTS

06:50 over an Evora any day of the week.

06:52 Back to the initial question.

06:55 Is the Cayman GTS a better car than the Porsche 911?

07:00 That's almost an impossible question to answer

07:02 without having both cars here side by side.

07:05 For now, I will cop out and say the answer

07:07 is both yes and no,

07:09 and this is gonna make one hell of a future head-to-head.

07:13 What a great machine, though, huh?

07:18 It's just so on top of the road.

07:20 You're just not sitting around waiting for anything.

07:25 Well, it's also got these cool seat belts.

07:27 I like this with the kind of contrast colors.

07:31 Well, yeah, I was gonna say it's pretty easy

07:34 to make the call that this is the greatest Cayman

07:37 of all time.

07:38 - One more time.

07:41 And again.

07:43 All right, you're good.

07:46 - Howdy!

07:49 This is the Cayman GTS,

07:51 and with 340 horsepower,

07:54 it produces just 10 fewer than the 911.

07:58 (imitates engine revving)

08:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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