2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Pros and Cons Review: Ultimate Track Tool – Motor Trend

This automotive has all of the makings of a Greatest Driver’s Automotive winner: engine mounted within the correct place straight behind the driving force and revving to an excellent 8,000 rpm, a pleasant guide shifter (distinctive this yr), unflappable carbon-ceramic brakes with glorious pedal really feel, and sticky Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. It is a sports activities automotive that punches means above its 3,127-pound featherweight standing. The 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 lapped Laguna Seca faster than a Ferrari 458, AMG GT 63 4Matic+, and numerous flavors of Nissan GT-R.

Like every Porsche I’ve ever pushed, I can inform it is a Porsche in the best way all of its controls have matched efforts and responses. Nothing within the steering, pedals, or shifter is simply too heavy or too mild. All reply with precisely what you’d count on out of your effort or request. I might be blindfolded and let you know that I used to be driving a Porsche, and from the exhaust word, I might most likely let you know which one. “The engine noise, that is what an unique automotive costing 3 times as a lot ought to sound like,” editor-in-chief Mark Rechtin stated. “Thunderous, guttural, startling and snarling.”

Positive, it rides harshly on the road and makes a ton of tire noise. However say it with me: “It is a GT4.” So yeah. On the twisting freeway portion of our drive, it felt extra like a dance than a flogging. It was completely in its ingredient and hanging on the tailpipe of 600- to 700-horsepower automobiles that value tens or a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} extra. “It does all the pieces proper, on a regular basis, so you possibly can simply work in your strains and your braking zones,” options editor Scott Evans stated. “Anybody can get on this automotive and drive to their restrict instantly, then work on growing their restrict.”

Additionally, as a Porsche, it responds to and rewards being pushed onerous on the monitor. The Cayman GT4 will get higher the tougher you drive it. And though it has the “lowest” horsepower ranking on this yr’s subject, it succeeds as a “momentum” automotive, and that is the way it’s been engineered. (Nonetheless, as senior options editor Jonny Lieberman famous: “This factor has 14 extra horsepower than the unique Viper with half the displacement and 4 fewer cylinders. “)

There is no blast from a turbocharger or additional motor, no all-wheel drive, no secret trick or digital gizmo making it go quicker. Simply six cylinders’ value of atmospheric air and gas burning. “It instantly evokes my racing instincts and urges me to drive flat-out,” resident professional driver Randy Pobst stated. “The reward is nice pleasure and satisfaction of my driving habit.”

That stated, some judges discovered the track-focused suspension too fast and jitterbuggy on much less refined again roads or round city (however in a nod to Gen X drivers, the Cayman nonetheless affords a CD participant).

It was the primary automotive I took out at Laguna Seca, and it was a good way to refamiliarize myself with the monitor. The GT4 is such a fantastic teacher. “Dammit, drive me and belief me,” it goads. What you do issues, so discover the proper line and luxuriate in. The GT4 gives a lot “we acquired this” that I discovered myself pushing and pushing, however the automotive was all the time there for me. Such a fantastic high quality that just a few automobiles present.

“It is a great sports activities automotive—mild, potent, exact, and deceptively succesful,” Lieberman stated. “When you settle for that it is not a 911, holy hell does this factor cook dinner!”

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