Your roots are showing
It’s good to be back. Twist the vaguely car-shaped key in the Cayman’s ignition and not four but six cylinders at the small of your back bark and settle into a reassuringly rattly idle. At low revs some of the all-time great Porsches sound like a cutlery drawer being emptied into a distant washing machine, and the GTS continues that theme. It’s not noisy or unpleasant but it is mechanical, gritty. It bodes well for what’s to come.
A quick recap: until this car came along, the only current-generation Porsche Cayman you could buy with a flat-six rather than a turbo’d flat-four was the £75k 718 GT4. To both justify the investment in creating the GT4’s 4.0-litre engine and un-wring the hands of enthusiasts (and automotive journalists) who’ve bemoaned the lack of a ‘normal’ Cayman with six cylinders, Porsche has installed it in this new, £64k 718 GTS 4.0. The power output has been turned down by around 20bhp and the GTS has slightly less racy suspension components than the GT4 (and a less racy appearance, going without the big dog’s fixed rear wing and chin spoiler) but it feels like something of a bargain. Relatively speaking, of course. Gambolling across the Lincolnshire Wolds on a fine summer’s day, the GTS feels 95 per cent as good to drive as the GT4 for 85 per cent of the price.
Like the best Caymans, the getting-to-know-you phase in the GTS is remarkably short. Within moments of its wheels rolling you feel like you know it inside out. And it’s got your back: handling is apparently viceless at road speeds, as safe and as stable as it is eager. The way it changes direction is quite something, the GTS turning on its heels like an action movie hero in a slow-motion gunfight. Time feels malleable in this car; there’s always space to modify your inputs, to try something different at apparently any stage of a corner.
The GTS’s tactility is enhanced by the six-speed manual gearbox, for the time being the only transmission for the GTS (although a PDK paddleshift will be available as an option in the near future). A weighty, mechanical-feeling shift, it’s a pleasure to use. The revs blip automatically on downshifts in the sportier driving modes but heel-and-toe purists can still rev-match themselves should they wish by leaving the settings in Normal mode.
Above 4000rpm or so, the flat-six’s gruff burr morphs into a snarling howl but, despite Porsche’s best efforts, it doesn’t quite sound as raw and evocative as six-cylinder Caymans of old. The particulate filter required to clear emissions regs, necessary for the greater good, is no doubt partly the reason. Regardless, this is an engine with plenty of character and no little pace, too – the GTS is a quick car. It would feel even quicker if it
didn’t have such long gearing though, an established Boxster/Cayman bugbear. Second gear is good for more than 80mph, and you could easily drive all day without broaching the 4000rpm sweet spot where the engine really comes alive, in terms of both sound and muscle. Peak torque of 310lb ft arrives north of 5000rpm and the 394bhp of peak power not until 7000rpm, by which time you’d be going too fast for most roads. A close-ratio kit, though an impossibility out of the factory, would make a lovely car lovelier still.
Still, these are nits so small they’re barely pickable. For the most part, the Cayman feels like it’s milled from a solid billet of just-rightness. The others have their work cut out. But if any cars can beat the Cayman, it’s the trio assembled on these pages, three of the greatest sports cars on sale today. As we approach our meeting point, they start to assemble like ships answering a siren call. In my mirrors, art editor Mal Bailey looms in the malevolent-looking BMW M2 CS, the best (but priciest) M2 yet. Up ahead, the small, lithe form of a white Alpine A110S peels out of a petrol station, staff writer Jake Groves at the wheel. And judging by the sound of a barely silenced supercharged V6 on the breeze, road test guru Adam Binnie can’t be far away in Lotus’s spellbinding Evora GT410.
We’ll be testing predominantly on the road, where these cars belong, but the challenging Cadwell Park circuit has kindly allowed us to sneak onto the track for a short while too, which will tell us a few things the roads can’t, if only for a tantalisingly brief snapshot. But frankly, after the drive I’ve just had on the way here in the GTS, it feels like we might as well call the verdict now. The Cayman feels so perfect the others can’t have a chance – can they? ⊲
Within moments of the Cayman’s wheels rolling you feel you know it inside out. It’s got your back