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