IS DOWNSIZING DOWN AND OUT?
Call me a wrinkly old fart with a planetary deathwish, but I’m losing patience with the cynical vogue for engine downsizing and the gaming of emissions targets that goes with it. Take the latest 718 Boxster and Cayman GTS. What with its puny 4.0-litre naturally aspirated flat six...wait, what? A new 400hp 4.0-litre atmospheric engine that directly replaces a 2.5-litre turbo lump? In a cooking Cayster? In 2020? Just as the UK government announces its intention to bring forward the ban on new combustion cars, Porsche itself presses on with a multibillion euro plan to electrify its entire fleet and European car makers are looking down the barrel of big fines for busting fleet emissions targets. What the actual f’ is going on?
Even without the ever tightening noose of emissions regulations, the new 4.0-litre GTS would be pretty extraordinary. It wasn’t that long ago a mere 10hp power bump for the then range-topping 3.4litre lump was all Porsche dared to dabble with for the 987 Cayman R. Now all pretence of caution has been unceremoniously defenestrated and along with it any apparent concern for emissions. The 4.0-litre motor spews out the thick end of 250g/km.
Or try looking at it this way. You can now buy a non-motorsport 718 with a 4.0-ltre 400hp atmospheric engine for under £65,000, while the base 911 costs over £80,000 and has less power from its downsized 3.0-litre turbo engine. And, currently, you can only buy it with a manual gearbox. All the while the rest of the industry is fitting ever smaller turbo engines and making auto boxes compulsory. Rumour has it, for instance, Mercedes AMG is preparing to replace its signature V8 engine with, I can hardly bring myself to say it, a turbo four banger. The humanity.
However you slice it, then, the new 718 4.0 is a pretty remarkable turn of events. It does, however, fit into a certain pattern. Arguably, it all started with the 911 R. That began a process that saw the manual gearbox resurrected for the regular 911 GT3, before the 981 GT4 and Spyder came similarly equipped, as latterly did the 911 Speedster, a model that signalled Porsche’s willingness to keep very high revving atmospheric engines alive in the post-wltp era. Somehow, Porsche seemed to be winding back the clock.
To put it all into a broader context, what the 718 4.0 very likely signals is the ever-greater bifurcation of Porsche’s products. On the one hand, Porsche is pressing ahead with electrification for its big volume models. Give it five years and odds are the majority of Macan, Cayenne, Panamera et al output will be electrified, with at least plug-in hybrid capability. At the same time, Porsche will probably have begun the process of shifting its mainstream sports car to electric with a battery-powered replacement for the 718.
And on the other hand? All those plug-in cars might actually give Porsche a freer hand to produce a small number of what will seem like very extreme combustion cars. When you’re making 250,000 plug-in cars, it probably doesn’t matter if the remaining 50,000 or so combustion cars emit 175g/km or 250g/km. You’ve got some margin to play with when it comes to the overall average fleet emissions upon which the likes of EU fines are based.
Think of it as analogous to the impact of the Cayenne back in the day. Many purists were aghast at the very thought of a Porsche SUV. But it gave Porsche the financial breathing room to produce ever better resourced sports cars than before. With that in mind, Porsche’s push for electrification is probably a good thing, whatever your preference.
One day, new combustion cars will probably be banned, entirely. Until then, a big shift to electrification by Porsche will provide EVS and hybrids for those who want them but at the same time create space in emissions terms to allow Porsche to crank out not just a few last combustion cars, but combustion cars with less need to heed fleet averages. And that, dear reader, is roughly what I think is going on with the 4.0-litre 718. It’s a sign that, ironically, the coming of the electric Porsche will actually be good news for we combustion diehards. At least until we’ve finally died. Hard.