PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 RS

PORSCHE APPEARS TO HAVE TURNED UP TO A World War I dogfight with a Eurofighter. This is the Cayman that has been talked about, rumoured and denied would ever happen since Porsche revealed its mid-engined two-seater back in 2005. Since then the original GT4 has demonstrated the Cayman’s potential by being crowned 2015’s ecoty champ, an honour its successor repeated in 2019. But the RS? This is hardcore with a capital ‘H’.

The baggage it’s saddled with is oversized, the expectation it carries almost suffocating. The appetite for it to be the best driver’s car ever made? Insatiable. It makes a GT3 feel almost undercooked, its specification as mouth-watering as it is intimidating. Those who have driven it know what’s to come, their anticipation matched by the sense of excitement from those of us yet to experience a fully blown Porsche Motorsport-developed Cayman.

There’s a quiet confidence oozing from the GT4 RS, as there always is from Porsches on ecoty. The promise of its ethos – ‘the car you are as likely to take for a road drive as you are a track blast’ according to its maker – is almost overwhelming. It’s a car that has blown minds on its own and held its own against more titled icons both past and present.

This week it will need more than its laser-sharp focus, though. The Cayman GT4 RS will need to demonstrate it’s more than a track refugee and can live up to the claims that it’s from the useable side of the RS workshop. Like many in this test it has been created by a team that understands exactly what’s required to win this automotive dogfight.

‘IT’S NEVER SLEEPING, IT’S ALWAYS “ON”, UNAPOLOGETICALLY, UNAMBIGUOUSLY’ – ADAM TOWLER, EVO 297