Any Cayman GT4 fans?

[kamran]

^ what I'm starting to dislike about this new era of performance cars is the non-enthusiast speculators who ruin it for the rest of us. It seems on these limited edition cars, if you are not able to buy them at msrp when new, you'll end up paying a premium to a speculator or dealer to buy them used.

I saw a used, low miles 2007 GT3RS just advertised for $100 short of $200K on Rennlist. You can buy the new GT3RS for less! And maybe buy a silly little FRS with the left over change!

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[Supraman]

Yup sort of an investment plan for some only to flip it for profit later on which does suck for those who have to wait and possibly pay more since they couldn't get their hands on it when released.

 

[Craigy]

^ what I'm starting to dislike about this new era of performance cars is the non-enthusiast speculators who ruin it for the rest of us. It seems on these limited edition cars, if you are not able to buy them at msrp when new, you'll end up paying a premium to a speculator or dealer to buy them used.

I saw a used, low miles 2007 GT3RS just advertised for $100 short of $200K on Rennlist. You can buy the new GT3RS for less! And maybe buy a silly little FRS with the left over change!

It's pretty much forcing you to save your pennies and just buy new. I suppose that there would be some effort getting on the right list, but it seems like Porsche at least builds enough cars to meet immediate demand. I'm sure the 996 and 997 GT3's are great cars, but if you're spending the money might as well get the latest one. The days of waiting a few years and buying a GT3 for half price are over... and have been over for some time.

I don't know if it's entirely speculators, there are a fair amount of enthusiasts out there and they have a lot of money. I think with the dawn on the internet enthusiasts in everything, car culture has really taken off.

It does seem like a bubble though. For the owners and collectors (and speculators), good for them. But I just can't imagine paying $60k for a E30 M3, $200k for a 993 Turbo, or like you said, silly money for an eight year old GT3 RS when you can buy the newer, better car for less.

 

[kamran]

It's pretty much forcing you to save your pennies and just buy new. I suppose that there would be some effort getting on the right list, but it seems like Porsche at least builds enough cars to meet immediate demand. I'm sure the 996 and 997 GT3's are great cars, but if you're spending the money might as well get the latest one. The days of waiting a few years and buying a GT3 for half price are over... and have been over for some time.

I don't know if it's entirely speculators, there are a fair amount of enthusiasts out there and they have a lot of money. I think with the dawn on the internet enthusiasts in everything, car culture has really taken off.

It does seem like a bubble though. For the owners and collectors (and speculators), good for them. But I just can't imagine paying $60k for a E30 M3, $200k for a 993 Turbo, or like you said, silly money for an eight year old GT3 RS when you can buy the newer, better car for less.

Exactly. I'm not the garage queen type. I cannot buy anything that I have to pamper! I like what JL once said... I buy cars that are 9 or 10 and drive them until they are 6 or 7!

My dealer service mgr asked me if I pamper my cars. I said I take care of them but I use them hard for what they are intended. If you buy a high performance car and constantly labor the engine at 2000rpm with cylindes and seals never having had the chance to be seated or a low miles car that the cylinders are now glazed is the worst thing you can do to the cars!

But even if I had the money to blow, unless I didn't know the value of it and never worked for it, I just can't see myself tracking a car hard when it's $200K and I stand to loose $100K in value with the slightest track incident.

My thoughts are if you cannot use it for what it's intended, then I don't buy it.

I do see a lot of guys with high dollar cars with tons of Hp on the track, which is good, but they are afraid of driving it to the limit, which is good for my silly little FRS 's ego!!! Because it gets driven at times a little beyond its limits!

 

[Supra93]

2016 Porsche Cayman GT4: A different sort of GT car

The Cayman GT4 manages the neat trick of being both reassuringly familiar and radically different. Nobody with prior experience of any GT-badged 911 is going to be either offended or surprised by the way the über-ized Cayman drives, or the clinical competence with which it deals with the all-important business of being thrashed around a racetrack. Yet, within the rarefied world of Porsche’s GT division, the very fact that the Cayman doesn’t have its engine hung behind its rear axle is a ground-shaking departure from the norm. Then there’s its price tag: $85,595. That might seem like ludicrous money for a Cayman, but this is the cheapest GT-badged Porsche ever sold in America.

A Parts-Bin Special

The GT4 development team made one critical decision—to give the car an engine from the mainstream side of the Porsche business. In this case, the 3.8-liter flat-six from the 911 Carrera S. Doing this enabled money to be spent on other areas, including giving the Cayman many of the same suspension components as the current 991 GT3. But it does mean an engine that, on paper, lacks some of the high-revving Götterdämmerung we’ve come to expect from a GT-level Porsche.

Just getting the engine into the Cayman required some engineering gymnastics, including turning it 180 degrees so it sits on the other side of the rear axle. Exhaust and intake systems are necessarily new, but the internals are unchanged, and the only other alteration is a lighter flywheel. Officially the GT4 has 385 horsepower—45 more than the Cayman GTS but 15 fewer than the same engine in the 911. But we’ve been assured that output figure represents the very least number of horses any GT4 will ever deliver, likely while climbing a mountain on a hot day.

You’d struggle to improve on the rest of the mechanical specification. The really good news is the presence of a six-speed manual gearbox, proof that the GT3’s PDK didn’t find universal favor. Beyond that there’s a limited-slip differential, Porsche’s torque-vectoring system, and the firm’s active transmission mounts. The front suspension has been pretty much taken straight from the GT3, with the two cars sharing hub carriers, shim-adjustable control arms, and the same steering rack. The rear suspension is similarly beefed up, with ball-jointed links and “helper springs” to pre-tension the main springs. The GT4 sits on track-biased Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, and the aerodynamic kit—which replaces the standard Cayman’s pop-up spoiler with a carbon-reinforced polymer wing that looks like it could shave a whale—develops actual downforce. The GT4 is a parts-bin special at heart, but what a bin.

Harder Edge

Porsche took us to Portugal to drive the GT4, being keen for us to experience the car (and its aggressive tires) in warm, dry conditions. The company had also booked exclusive use of the very impressive, if little used, Autódromo Internacional Algarve in Portimão. Before that, however, there was the chance to drive the ultra-Cayman on some of the twisting inland roads that give the Algarve region much of its touristic charm, as well as an alarming percentage of its accident statistics.

The GT4 starts off doing a remarkable impression of the 991 GT3. Given the price disparity between the two cars (the GT3 starts at $131,395), this is a good thing. Yes, the mid-engine Cayman’s mass sits much farther forward than that of the 911, but at road speeds it generates so much mechanical grip that you don’t feel much difference beyond the fact that the GT4 is smaller and lighter, making it easier to place on the tight-fitting roads and giving it a greater enthusiasm for obeying directional inputs. The steering feels pretty much identical to the GT3’s—not too heavy, with a strong caster feel and delivering far more information than Porsche allows to pass through the electrical assistance of its regular cars.

Against that, the engine is a slight disappointment. And we stress slight—the GT4 pulls harder than any other Cayman, sounds great while doing so, and delivers the sort of perfectly proportional throttle response that vindicates the decision to stand against the turbocharge-everything orthodoxy that’s sweeping the industry. But while it has plenty of midrange punch, it can’t come close to matching the GT3’s enthusiasm for revs. The Cayman’s fuel cut arrives at 7800 rpm—impressive by modern standards but pretty much exactly where the GT3’s engine starts to do its best work.

The sweet-shifting manual gearbox delivers plenty of compensation. The engineering team acknowledges it’s not as quick as the PDK would have been, but we’d say that it’s at least 400 percent more involving, although—as in all Porsches—the gearing is still toweringly tall (second runs out at 81 mph). Sport mode also brings a rev-matching function if you’re not willing or able to do your own heel-and-toe downshifts.

Predictably, the rest of the GT4 is far harder edged than even the Cayman GTS. The car we drove had optional fixed-back carbon-fiber bucket seats, which would probably start to bite hard after a couple of hours at the wheel, and the suspension never feels anything other than very firm (even with the switchable dampers in their default, softer setting). The upside is mighty body control even over broken road surfaces. And let’s be honest—if you’re looking for ride comfort, this probably isn’t the car for you.

Not Like a Pendulum

The track at Portimão has been cleverly designed to deliver big surprises. Although none as large as that handed to the taxpayers who helped fund the building of this vast elefante branco, which hosts little more than a round of the MotoGP championship when not being used by manufacturers or for track days. The course features a tough combination of corners and crests, several of which leave you facing an empty horizon and the knuckle-whitening hope that you’re going to find the apex where you expect it. That said, it’s also immediately clear that the GT4 is in its natural environment.

Most of what we learned on the road is true here, as well. The Cayman’s steering remains wonderfully accurate, its resistance to understeer near total. Even Portimão’s longer straights don’t make the car feel in any way slow, and the gearbox seems to work even better under the increased pressure of track use. We drove cars fitted with both steel and the optional carbon-ceramic brakes, with neither system showing any signs of wilting under the sort of use that would boil the brake fluid in most sports cars.

But the higher loads of track use also brought out a different side to the GT4’s character—it starts to feel mid-engined, in the same way you only really realize how much mass the GT3 carries at the back under really hard driving. The GT4 turns in more keenly than the 911, and feels more stable under hard braking, but it lacks the corner-exiting traction its big-assed sister can generate. Nor does it have the sensation of trying to steer a pendulum that the 911 delivers on the limit. It’s a less demanding car to drive hard, but it’s not less of a car for it. Even in very close proximity to its limits, the GT4 stays predictable and even playful; we ignored the official instruction to leave the stability control switched on and discovered that the Cayman is profoundly unscary even with it fully defeated. Grip fades progressively and slides are easily corrected or extended, according to individual preference.

Enter the Gateway

It’s tempting to see the GT4 as a little brother, yet in many ways it’s not. Its official Nürburgring Nordschleife time is 7:40, a respectful 15 seconds behind the 991 GT3’s. However, Porsche told us at that car’s launch that the 911 GT3’s active rear steering and PDK gearbox (neither of which is present here) together shaved more than 15 seconds off of its ’Ring time, meaning the GT4 is closer than you’d think.

The bigger mystery is why Porsche’s GT division—which has long proved capable of selling every car it makes and which has very limited production capacity—should have gone to the trouble to develop something cheaper rather than one of the familiar 911 variants, which would have had lines forming around the block. The answer, of course, is that the Cayman GT4 is a gateway drug, designed to introduce a whole new generation of potential addicts to one of the most expensive, and exciting, automotive addictions there is.

http://www.caranddriver.com/porsche/cayman-gt4

 

[kamran]

And now the GT4 Clubsport. With all the crazy money out there being thrown around on Porsches, Porsche is thinking of cashing in on some of this craziness!

Called the dealer, no MSRP yet, although it has a link to Build&Price it:

Rumor has it, it has a base price of $165K!!!???

Cayman GT4 Clubsport
Rebels race harder.

• Details

Technical Specs

Drive type Rear wheel drive
Output 283 kW (385 hp)
Transmission 6-speed Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) with optimised shift application
Steering Electromechanical power steering
Displacement 3,800 cm³
Tank 90 l series tank, 70/100 l FT3 safety tank optional
All Technical Specs

The link below has a lot more info, plus pdf's of specs, etc.

http://www.porsche.com/usa/eventsan...2-2015&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

 

[MACKSTER]

I'm not usually a fan of graphics on cars but the GT4 Clubsport looks great! I even like the tire lettering. Adds to the track car effect.

 

[Supra93]

Porsche 718 Boxster Revealed With New Turbo’d 4-Cylinder Engines [w/Video]

Two decades after Porsche released the successful Boxster, Stuttgart is not only changing the name of the series to 718 Boxster with the updated model, but also what powers it with the introduction of turbocharged flat-fours.

From this generation - or rather, this model, since it’s not entirely new- and onwards, Porsche’s entry-level Boxster roadster and Cayman coupe will bear the numeric designation 718, as a nod to the four-cylinder-powered 718 mid-engine sports cars that won numerous races back in the 1950s and 1960s.

The new 718 Boxster will be revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in the beginning of March, possibly joined by the 718 Cayman at Porsche’s booth.

At the heart of the new 718 models is Porsche’s newly designed turbocharged flat-four engine, available in two displacements, at 2.0-liters and 2.5-liters. The same units should eventually make their way into the Macan SUV.

In the base 718 Boxster, the 2.0-liter unit produces 300PS (296hp) and 380Nm (280 lb-ft) of peak torque available from 1,950 rpm to 4,500 rpm, representing gains of 35hp and 100Nm (74 lb-ft) respectively over the naturally-aspirated 2.7-liter flat-six it replaces. When combined with the optional PDK dual-clutch transmission and the Sport Chrono package, the base 718 Boxster sprints to 100km/h in 4.7 seconds, shaving 0.8 seconds from its predecessor, while topping out at 275km/h (171mph).

The 718 Boxster S gets the larger displacement 2.5-liter four featuring a turbocharger with a variable turbine geometry that’s rated at 350PS (345hp) and 420Nm (310 lb-ft) from 1,900 rpm to 4,500 rpm, offering an increase of 35hp and 60Nm (44 lb-ft) respectively over the 3.4-liter naturally-aspirated flat-six of the previous Boxster S. According to Porsche, when paired to the PDK transmission and the Sport Chrono kit, this model hits 100km/h (62mph) in 4.2 seconds (0.6 seconds faster) and reaches a top speed of 285km/h (177mph).

The new engines are not only more powerful, but also more efficient with Porsche claiming fuel economy improvements of up to 13 per cent.

Both versions come with a standard six-speed manual, with Porsche adding that the updated and optional PDK dual-clutch transmission now features the brand’s “fuel-saving virtual gears” that allows the system to partially engage two adjacent gears to create an intermediate gear to further improve fuel efficiency at cruising speeds.

Porsche says it has also modified the chassis with a re-tuned suspension to accommodate the new engines and keep its weight distribution, and a new electro-mechanical power steering that is now “10% more direct”. Those looking for better handling, can opt for the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) that includes a 10mm reduction in ride height.

On the design front, Porsche says that the 718 Boxster “was completely revised except for the luggage compartment lids, the windscreen and the convertible top”, though, you might be hard pressed to tell all the changes without actually comparing it with the outgoing Boxster. On the outside, the 718 variant looks sharper and has more contemporary details, like the new head- and tail-lamp fixtures, while inside, the Germans gave it a revised steering wheel and the latest gen of their PCM infotainment system, complete with a new touchscreen.

In the States, the new 718 Boxster models will arrive in showrooms in June, with the base model priced from $56,000 and the ‘S’ variant from $68,400, excluding the $1,050 destination charge.

http://www.carscoops.com/2016/01/porsche-718-boxster-revealed-with-new.html

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