Porsche Cayman GT4 2015 Review

Porsche Cayman GT4 Coupe

Porsche's Motorsport department has worked its magic on the Cayman – and the result is a mid-engined sports car that could just be one of Zuffenhausen's most accomplished ever. The GT4 is already sold out twice over Down Under and after just one short drive it’s easy to understand why. GT3 chassis and Carrera S engine componentry add serious handling and performance prowess to an already wonderful sports car, but the real achievement is the fact this is anything but a parts-bin special. It's one of Porsche’s very special cars.

GT2, GT3: emotive badges if you’re a Porsche fan. An alphanumeric wish-list if you’re looking for the ultimate in road-legal ‘racers’. Well, now you can add another to the list: GT4.

The first mid-engined series-production Porsche to be fettled by the company’s famed Motorsport division, the Cayman GT4 is a sports car par excellence. As far as we can work out from our (admittedly short) drive there is absolutely nothing to fault.

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Oh, you want to know a little more?

Porsche Australia already has 140-plus orders for the $189,900 newcomer yet at this stage has secured just 70 cars from the production run. It’s a sell out success, two times over.

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You lot just aren’t going away, are you?

Motorsport’s work on the GT4 is substantially more than a makeover. The car is very recognisably based on a standard Cayman but from almost every angle there’s a lot more grit and gristle.

The car sits lower. It’s wider and its ducts and grille openings bite more air. The body itself has been strengthened and modified and its wheels fill the pumped guards just so. Even parked right next to a GT3 it requires and extra look to sort the two.

At the rear, there’s a more than a hint of Carrera GT. The GT4’s large bore exhausts tell a very different mechanical story from the dare I say, more feminine, ‘basic’ Cayman and also play a very different, harder-edged tune.

There’s a significant transfer of 911 GT3 parts into the GT4’s underpinnings. I could be lazy and write the whole front-end has been transplanted from the rear-engined car, but that wouldn’t be correct. The parts are all very similar and the design owes its existence to Porsche's fastest atmo 911, but they are not interchangeable. The fettling of this uber-Cayman is far more focussed than that.

Same too for the 3.8-litre Carrera S-derived powerplant. With 283kW it is far more powerful that the 3.4 in the already rapid and wonderful Cayman GTS (winner of motoring.com.au’s inaugural Australia’s Best Driver's Car) and even out-grunts the last-generation Cayman R.

Compared to the Carrera S, the GT4 sports a unique induction system and manifolding, different engine mapping and new injectors for the direct-injection system. It also sounds a whole lot more like a proper racing boxer.

The flat six is mated to a dual-mass flywheel and clutch arrangement that’s unique to GT4. The six-speed manual gearbox (no dual-clutch option here) might share the GTS’s gear set, but the casing and other components are beefed up. Auto downshift rev matching is standard – and works a treat. Yes, a PDK-equipped car might in the end be faster but there’s a level of satisfaction from driving the manual GT4 well that an enthusiast driver will never get from a two-pedal car.

Bespoke is the word that comes to mind to many aspects of the GT4. And then there’s the unique approach to adapting the 911 family’s active engine mounts -- instead in the Cayman GT4 they are dynamic gearbox mounts. In the most aggressive mode of Porsche’s Active Suspension Management system, they are for all intents and purposes locked hard like a race car, for the ultimate in chassis accuracy and response… And no shortage of wonderfully tactile seat of the pants feedback.

The GT4’s front brakes and steering set-up are GT3-sourced. Cast iron rotors of 380mm diameter and six-piston callipers are standard but Porsche offers massive 410mm composites as an option. It’s hard to believe anyone will ever need to tick that box – such is the effectiveness of the standard kit. The rear brakes are 80mm oversized compared to the GTS. It’s all up a notch or two when compared to the GTS, or even the non-GT 911s.

More details?

Front track is 13mm wider than the standard Cayman but the rear is actually slightly narrower – a function of the much larger wheels and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres: 295/30s on 11.0x20-inch wheels at the driven end and 245/35s on 8.5x20s at the front. There’s been a 9mm stretch in the wheelbase. These latter dimensions are in part a result of the unique rear suspension set-up of the GT4.

Inverted alloy-bodied dampers are used, again drawing on GT3 experience. Helper springs on the rear deliver an added pinch of refinement on road, says Porsche. We can’t comment, our entire GT4 experience was on the smooth, grippy and oh so rapid confines of Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

And that experience, my friends will go down as one of the best four laps (less than 20km, alas) I’ve done at the place – rivalling a reasonable number of races and some memorable Australian Superbike Championship track tests way back when I wore leather for a living.

The GT4 we drove was a car I’ll be racing against (or should I say, chasing) at next year’s 25th Anniversary of Targa Tasmania. Eight-times Targa champ Jim Richards is taking the GT4 to the Apple Island event after contesting a number in a Cayman S.

For the time being it’s absolutely standard, save for a set of Dunlop semi-slicks. Indeed, Jim’s car has got all of the standard mod-cons still in place: power windows, air-con, Porsche Communication Management sat-nav and sound system – and that all-important race car addition, rear parking sensors!

Even when race-time comes Jim won’t modify the car much – Porsche offers a circa $10K ‘Club Sport’ option pack that features a bolt-in half cage and other race accoutrements which along with (extra cost) carbon-shelled bucket seats make the GT4 almost Targa ready. (This shouldn’t be confused with the PDK-equipped Cayman GT4 Clubsport which will debut at next month's Los Angeles auto show. The racetrack-only car will likely be built exclusively in left-hand drive and isn’t coming Down Under.)

Thus with deference to this GT4’s role (and owner) I was extra careful during my test drive but even two corners in it was obvious that the car was a very different beast to the Cayman GTS I’d being ‘warming up’ in.

More accurate, faster, more responsive but also more stable and confidence-inspiring, the GT4 is absolutely alive and at home on a track like Phillip Island.

With its serious rear wing and GT3-style front splitter, Porsche claims it is the first Cayman or Boxster series car to have downforce at speed – in the order of 100kg at 250km/h - and that’s certainly part of the story. The rest of the formula for racetrack happiness is sheer competence – in every department.

The front-end is communicative and the rear has tons of grip – as much lateral grip as most pukka racers. And then there’s the wonderfully responsive, linear and glitch-free power delivery… It’s lucky I was wearing a full face helmet for the video or you would have seen me grinning like a loon.

PI’s flowing corners and sheer scale makes quick cars feel pedestrian. Thus it’s hard to judge how fast it’ll feel on the road, but Porsche’s official performance figures of 4.4sec 0-100km/h and 14.5sec 0-200km/h are respectively 0.5sec and 2.4sec faster than the very rapid GTS. It won’t feel slow is my tip…

Even after just two laps the GT4 was arriving at the end of the front straight fully 25km/h faster than the GTS. Hard brake, back to fifth (rev-matching makes this fuss free) and through turn one and it still carried a significant advantage pace-wise, but with what seemed like half the effort or histrionics. And remember the GTS is a cracking sports car.

Anyway, you get the idea…

How good is the GT4? I apologise in advance to the rest of the 2016 ABDC field.

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It really is this time.

2015 Porsche Cayman GT4 pricing and specifications:
Price: $189,900 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.8-litre petrol flat six-cylinder
Output: 283kW/420Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 10.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 238g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: TBA

What we liked:
>> Everything
>> A road-legal mid-engined racing Porsche
>> Serious comp-ready looks

Not so much:
>> Nothing
>> Sold out