Porsche Cayman R Debuts At LA Auto Show
Porsche answered the prayers of its long-suffering enthusiast base today by introducing a low-cost, low-content, no-frills Cayman to finally bring value and performance to its model line.
Ha! Made you look! Just kidding!
The last Porsches to truly offer more for less were the 968 Club Sport, which wasn’t sold in the United States, and the 964 RS America, which wasn’t purchased in the United States, at least not in any volume. The people who brought you those great cars are long gone. We’re in the new era of Porsche now, and therefore it comes as no surprise that the “stripper” Porsche now costs more than repeatedly sleeping with a stripper named Porsche.
Your $66,300 will get you a Cayman with 121 fewer pounds of frills and frippery. There’s some aluminum in the interior and the lightweight doors from the GT3 make an appearance. The 3.4 new-gen waterboxer puts out 330 horsepower, and you get the same 19-inch wheels and limited-slip diff found in the new Boxster Spyder. It’s dropped three-quarters of an inch and you have the choice of six-speed manual or seven-speed PDK.
When I consider the fact that my 2004 Boxster S Anniversary cost $61,500 six years ago, this Cayman seems like a decent enough deal. When I think about how much the car probably costs to build, I get sick to my stomach. And when I remember that the Corvette Z06 rings the cash register at $74,285 and will absolutely violate the little pseudo-alligator around most road courses… well, at least you get a retro side-stripe for your money!
More by Jack Baruth
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I think Porsches are so overrated. they are great cars, but the people pricing them know how strong the brand is and that people are willing to pay extra, so they charge stupid money... I still don't get how Porsche can get away with charging more for much less...but then again, i dont get how people pay twice the money to get a V6 Cayenne rather than a better equipped Touareg...
Porsche "gets away" with charging more for their cars in the same way, for instance, Ford gets away with charging $40,000 plus for a body-on-frame, 1960s-tech four-wheel-drive pick-em-up truck. Because people want to drive that, as opposed to, say, a better equipped Honda Accord to and from their cubicle. That said, I was disappointed (though not at all surprised) by the Cayman R. Puny power increase, minor weight loss, hardly the race-inspired engineering feat that the ad copy describes. Any shade tree mechanic with a few thousand bucks and a '09 Cayman S could do quite a bit better for much less. Porsche continues to engineer their Cayman, Boxster, and lower Carrera variants to a price rather than performance point, creating an increasingly crowded lineup of nearly-redundant cars.