The Early Cayman GT4 Reviews Are Arriving

The first round of reviews for the Porsche Cayman GT4 is coming in this week. Unsurprisingly, they are all rather hosanna-esque in nature; Porsche PR won’t permit anything less. With that said, this is the combination of Porker-LEGOS for which a lot of people have been asking for a long time, and there are some interesting tidbits from the reviews, summarized below.

* “Production capacity” limits the GT4 to 2500 units worldwide and about half that for the US. Surely the limiting factor here is a product of Porsche’s own imagination because the GT4 does not appear to have any unobtanium parts or difficult third-party sourcing. This will probably cause a bit of a bidding war at some Porsche dealers, so be prepared.

* The body-in-white is supposedly reinforced in a few different areas and is unique to the GT4.

* Front suspension is from the 911 GT3. The rear suspension is unique to the Cayman. Wheels are five-bolt, not center-lock.

* Like the Nissan 370Z, the GT4 has an automatic rev-matching feature for downshifts. It can be disabled.

* My friend at Road&Track, Jason Cammisa, found understeer at the limit.

* There’s a Nurburgring time, of course, that time being 7m40s.

Equipped to match my 2004 Boxster Anniversary, minus the special-equipment leather from my car and without carbon brakes, the GT4 checks in at about ninety-four thousand dollars. In Porsche-land, this amounts to a bargain; my Boxster’s MSRP of $61,450 adjusted for inflation is seventy-nine grand today, for a car with 115 fewer horsepower, less impressive running gear, and the infamous M96 engine. If you can find a dealer to sell you the car at sticker, you might want to consider getting one.

Alternately, for less money you can get a Corvette Z06 or the base $84,995 Dodge Viper. The blah-blah of Ring times aside, I cannot adequately convey how much faster either one of those cars would be around any racetrack of any size in even remotely capable hands. If you don’t care about racetrack times, then forget the Cayman GT4 entirely and get a Boxster. The top goes down, which is nice on sunny days and makes for very nice first dates.