Porsche 718 Spyder RS review

Does it matter? I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, just a bit. If there’s a missing part of the puzzle, it’s a third pedal. That said, the PDK is its usual blistering self and this firecracker roadster makes up elsewhere. Chiefly with its ride and handling balance, which, more than the open body, is where the Spyder RS deviates from its tin-top counterpart.

The aero package is also quite different. Compared with the GT4 RS’s rear wing, the Spyder RS’s thuggish ducktail generates less downforce. The effects of the splitter and underbody vanes have duly been curtailed to preserve aero balance. Or it would all get a bit pointy at high speeds. 

The truth is the GT4 RS can be punishing company on the road. Meagre wheel travel results in skittishness and the front can struggle for purchase in non-ideal conditions. Porsche knows this, so for the Spyder RS the spring rates have plummeted from 110Nm per millimetre to 45Nm at the front axle and 140Nm to 80Nm at the back. 

In line with this, the steering has also been recalibrated. Preuninger claims it’s just a little calmer off-centre, though the character of the car retains the “immediacy and excitement” of a GT product. This is a more sat-back RS but still one with adjustable ride height, camber, track and anti-roll bars, plus uniball joints in the suspension. An over-endowed BMW Z4 rival it is not. 

How does it all feel on Swabian hill roads? Heavenly. This car is absurdly precise, balanced and homogenous, and underpins it with a suppleness that doesn’t evaporate when the road surface deteriorates. And the screaming. Good Lord.

The reduction in spring rate has benefits beyond heightened comfort and cruise-ability. One is that you have more confidence scaling those flat-six heights. The car just sits on the road more resolutely. Another is that, in the real world of tepid tyres and damp patches, the Spyder RS hooks up better than the Cayman GT4 RS on turn-in. The knock-on effect is that you can really steer it on the throttle on the way out. It will be interesting to see whether all this translates well to the UK. If it does, of the current crop, this will be the RS creation to have. It’s remarkable just how far the Boxster has come.

Of course, this is no conventional Boxster and it has no conventional roof. One element joins the header rail to points on the carbonfibre rear deck but leaves an open crescent at the back. The second fills this crescent in, for when the weather really turns. With everything up, refinement is good. You feel very much inside the eye of the storm.

Fitting the roof is not the work of a moment but neither is it a hernia-inducing ordeal. Once removed, the fabric stores neatly under the deck, just behind the bulkhead. This bit weighs a scant 8.5kg, so the Spyder RS is actually lighter at the kerb than the Cayman GT4 RS. Going for the £9300 Weissach pack (by Preuninger’s own admission more aesthetics-focused on this Spyder) brings titanium pipes and unlocks the option of fitting magnesium-alloy wheels, which should sneak the whole show below 1400kg.