Published:
22 March 2022What the Porsche Cayman GT4 RS offers here, in a vaguely abstract sense, is one of the all-time great performance engines applied in a completely new way, ready to leave you dumbstruck and awe-inspired all over again.
The 4.0-litre flat six has all of the dizzying strengths that prior experience of a Porsche 911 GT3 would lead you to expect: big power, supreme response and transformative range and freedom of operation. But here it hits new heights for noise and sensory rawness. You might not expect to read this of a near-500bhp Porsche Cayman, but there may not be another sports car in the world that better bears witness to the relative insignificance of outright power and torque compared with the impact of such a dramatic style of delivery.
The car’s turbine exhaust howl is one that fast 911 owners are likely to recognise instantly; likewise the rhythmic chatter of rocker arms, and the percussive stab of revs and instant sneeze of mechanical activity that come with every paddle-shift gearchange. No other sports car sounds as alive with almost hypnotic mechanical commotion as a Porsche with this motorsport-derived engine.
The proximity of the flat six to your ears puts all of the audible theatre at even closer range than you are used to, accentuating every beat and flare. Then there’s the new induction noise: a symphony of sucking and hissing of air, and of reverberating combustion hammer, which is unlike anything that the vast majority of owners of modern performance cars will ever have heard before.
