2021 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 review

Every second motoring journo blags on about the Lambo, Ferrari or Porsche poster that adorned their bedroom wall growing up.

Oh please spare me. My childhood was a little different. There wasn’t much in the way of Ferrari or Lamborghini advertising that a six-year-old kid like me could access or be exposed to back in the late 1970s.

Born in what was a working-class suburb – Albert Park – where your best friend’s older brother stole your seventh birthday present BMX for a quick housing commission buck, times were tough.

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Thankfully my Grandpa did have a stack of old Wheels magazines on his sunroom bookshelf but, for some strange reason, I only flicked through them for the Bathurst race car pictures. Who would know I’d be here right now scribing for the same masthead? What’s the old 7-Up adage, ‘show me a boy at seven and I’ll show you the man’?

So with the Mazda RX-7 being the only ‘performance car’ advertised on TV that I was allowed to watch in 1980, I pestered my Dad to drive me down to the dealer in nearby Port Melbourne to find an RX-7 poster that could adorn my bedroom wall.

Mazda sucked me in. But only for a moment...

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Not long after the above-marked moment in time, my affection for Porsche began like those of us who now love fine auto engineering; as an impressionable kid. The badge – yellow, black and red with some gold trimming – made its indelible impression on me.

I can pinpoint it to a school holiday treat chaperoned by my Nana, bless her soul, for one of my first trips to the cinema – the ‘flicks’ as she used to call the big screen – to see “Condorman”.

The year was 1981.

For those of you a vintage younger or older than me (the window of appreciation is narrow) that have never been gifted with the joys of viewing Condorman, it delivered one of the greatest (ok, or maybe cheesiest) car chases ever produced. Bear with me.

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Although seemingly a kid-focused Walt Disney production that conjured a comical plot, the stunts and car chase sequences in this memorable epic were serious and orchestrated by none other than the guru of modern car carnage, Rémy Julienne, the man behind the spectacular car chases and ludicrous stunt scenes in more than 270 movies.

Think every memorable James Bond car chase you've ever seen, then add The Italian Job, Taxi 2 … the man made it happen.

Now while the whimsically dopey Condorman (Michael Crawford) drove a modified Sterling-like racer that was tres-cool with all its fantastical Bond-inspired gadgets, the head villain's car was a slantnose Porsche 911 (for those really interested; chassis #930 000 00027, which was in fact modified for road use by its owner Angelo Pallavicini in Switzerland) leading a gang of KGB (yeah it was peak Cold War 1981) in black Porsche 930 Turbo Carreras.

Sadly, from memory, only the evil boss’s car survived the four or so minutes of cartoonesque road rage.

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The impression this car chase scene left on me as a kid still lives on today. Obviously, strong enough for me to freshly recall it for this piece. Beautiful cars, driven skillfully on a spiralling mountain pass. But most indelible was the fact these gorgeous black machines were Porsches. Context for today’s musings – but you didn’t come here to read about my childhood memories.

So for the next 36 years, my fantasy of driving a Porsche incubated and surprisingly it wasn’t until 2017 that I finally found myself behind the wheel of Germany’s finest. And to completely blow my mind away, it was a 991 GT3 RS – no less – on track!

Talk about a baptism of fire. This car pumped the power, torque and pure fear-induced adrenaline through me without even asking it to. Eight minutes in the carbon-fibre moulded track seat that I didn’t even have time to adjust was enough for me to lock some memories in my ‘life-highlight’ bank. Wow...

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Fast-forward another few years and I was lucky enough to have a second outing in Zuffenhausen’s greatest export, but this time a more ‘sedate’ 911 Turbo S – again on track. This exact same car was runner up in this year’s PCOTY … and for good reason.

Having been fortunate enough to drive a multitude of performance and race cars at speed and on a track during the past 20 years, there was no more sublime experience than that Turbo S. The insane power and torque matched to the PDK was – and still is – the most intuitive performance car I have ever experienced.

No vehicle – in my simple opinion – reads your mind and desire while keeping your ability in check at the limit of performance driving. By the admission of one of Porsche’s own proven local test drivers, "There isn’t a driver on Earth or a track so perfect to extract 100 per cent of what this car is capable of''. So in the hands of a mere mortal like me, it was well beyond a phenomenal experience.

But sadly with both being more than $500K on the road, these two dream initiators quickly crushed my childhood fantasy of actually owning one. Until the subject of this ‘review’ – the 718 Cayman GT4 – rolled into my Brisbane diary.

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Thanks to COVID-related restrictions making the car unavailable to our professional team of primo motoring scribes predominantly based in Melbourne and Sydney, I was the winner – and finally a Porsche driver – albeit for a week.

First up, that colour. “Python Green” is a $6K option and honestly not my first choice but, nudging 50 years old and balding faster than the tyres on the aforementioned GT3, it’s better suited to me than the classic mid-life crisis ‘Guards Red’.

My eight-year-old son instantly dubbed it the “Creeper Car”, a Minecraft reference known to any of us with kids hooked on the sandbox video game.

But it’s no “Creeper”. I’m sure in any colour this car would turn heads, so if you don’t like being looked at – especially at the cliche traffic lights stare – stop reading here. It’s a real thing.

And unless you're comfortable being in the spotlight (or a narcissist), it could be uncomfortable for some not acclimated to attention. Black rear badging and 'GT4' embossed on the side air intakes let everyone around you know you’re in something special if they can’t put a name to it.

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And while on aesthetics and looking the part, I’ve never really found the base-spec Cayman’s curves a turn-on but the addition of the aggressive front splitter with Turboesque air dams, deep rear diffuser and strut-mounted fixed rear wing make the profile and overall design package some very sweet eye candy.

Better still, it’s all functional. At max speed (claimed 304km/h), which was obviously nowhere in my realm, you can expect around 122kg of downforce over the rear axle thanks to the rear diffuser and wing alone. That's 40 per cent up on the previous version.

Some of the world’s best auto brains also combined the sports exhaust system with the whole rear-aero package to generate even more negative pressure and dutifully pull the vehicle to the road. In layman's terms, this thing – like any race-bred car – sucks the road more the faster you go.

Confidence backed by science. The fact I couldn’t track this beauty to test these claims pains me. But we live in uncertain times that don’t always deliver our dreams … but they will return.

The addition of the aggressive front splitter and fixed rear wing make the design package some very sweet eye candy. Better still, it’s all functional.

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So what enables this clever aero to do its job? A stunning and visceral flat-six naturally aspirated 4.0-litre powerplant – essentially a bored and stroked turbo-less version of the current 911’s engine.

It makes 309kW and 420Nm, propelling a slender 1420kgs, definitely ‘come get some’ numbers that deliver a quoted 3.9 seconds to 100km/h. ‘Come at me’ value proposition? Hell yeah.

Of course, it’s quick. And that oh-so-sweet torquey kick in the back is always present when you give it a squirt, magnified by the mid-mounted engine that sings in your ear all the way to 8000rpm.

Mid-range torque is just as magical and again, functional. In fifth, you can expect to pull from 80 to 120km/h in around six seconds. Halve that or less if you’re in second or third. It moves when you need it to as it should – it’s a Porsche that deservedly wears its GT badge.

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The seven-speed PDK transmission is intuitive and intelligent around town in its basic mode and sucks minimal fuel (if you are financially vexed as to worry about fuel costs driving a car like this, again, stop reading now).

More depressing to me is that I can only assume the box is as sublime and smart in its performance mode at speed on a closed road or circuit – but my colleague Alex Inwood gave it a whirl during Targa Tasmania earlier this year and absolutely loved it.

You really don’t want this with a manual unless you’re only going to do long country drives or track it. Day-to-day living with the DIY option's long ratios would be a nightmare in the city if you had to drop the foot on the clutch every two seconds to stop yourself propelling into the car in front or staying below the posted speed limit. In manual guise, it’s a two-gear car. First will get you out of your car park, second will get you to your destination. What a waste. So back to the better PDK...

In its manual mode, you have the now ‘standard in every shitbox’ paddles (yeah even the worst car I have driven this year – the Toyota Fortuner – has them) to flip up and down with. Sadly, they are well underdone in size for my liking and therefore confident accessibility for a GT-spec Porsche wanes. “Please improve”, as the Japanese would say.

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If you want to know what good paddleshifters look like, check out the Alfa Romeo Giulia. Regardless, for the more engaged ‘driver’ experience you can always use the gear selector that lives up to proper motorsport fundamentals – pull back to shift up, forwards to shift down.

Why other (mainly Asian) marques can’t live up to this mandate is beyond me. Every old-school manual H-pattern dictates you push up for a lower gear and pull back for a higher ratio. Someone in Japan was big into the sake that night and sadly it filtered over to Korea and stuck. Seriously, it’s a switch. As above, “Please improve” Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Honda, Kia and Hyundai.

Outside of the tyres, which I’ll address shortly, getting this immense power to the ground takes some serious suspension. And as in all Porsche GT models, it is deliberately track-focused with the GT4. While it shares front and rear components with the very track-focused 911 GT3, Porsche’s Active Suspension Management damping system actually gives this car surprising day-to-day liveability around town.

You really don’t want this in a manual unless you’re only going to do long country drives or track it.

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In its ‘standard’ setting (as opposed to the ‘sports chassis’ setting) the GT4 soaks up most of the bumps like raised or sunken manhole covers, smaller potholes and shoddy council roadwork patches without shooting a boot in your arse and a shudder up your spine in the way less premium ‘sports’ cars will do. It's a magical engineering feat considering the lightweight, low-riding, stiff-AF chassis at play and the sports seats that give beautiful tight support but little in terms of plush cushioning comfort.

As mentioned, I didn't get “The Creeper” on track, but I did have the chance to take it to some secluded, twisty bits, with long straights that by law let me push all the way to an amazing 110km/h.

Being facetious against our government road rules aside, locking the cruise control onto the speed limit and keeping a ready foot on the brake pedal at the dictated speed, the cornering experience at ‘low speed’ was actually amazing. Suggested corner speeds of a recommended 60 were cruised in total control at 100 without any feeling of cautious anxiety.

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Pushing my right foot down on a long straight when able to be opened up, the full-on power and insane acceleration of this gorgeous 4.0L was harnessed equally as quickly at a fast-approaching corner by dutiful six-piston calipers acting on 380mm rotors at the front and the same diameter rears being grabbed by four-pots. They're internally vented and perforated for better cooling so that if you do track this unit you’ll have little issue with fading, well at least for your first 100km of track torture.

But like in any hi-po car, the GT4’s superb brakes are only as good as the rubber belted to the platinum finish 20-inch wheels (I love them). With Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tread – being 245s on the front and some fat 295s on the back – there was no way I was ever going to push this thing off the road under my guidance, nor would a race-bred driver. Unless of course, you turned off the two-stage traction control. No chance.

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On our photography day, ambient temps were pushing 34 degrees Celsius, so the road was 60 degrees or more. I was picking shale stones shed by the substandard road surface out of the Porsche's tyres before even heating them up, so my confidence was boosted for the drive ahead.

We were literally driving a car with bitumen spikes, the Aussie summer version of a European snow tyre. As expected, the Michelins' grip delivered calculated and predictable claw on every corner. Not many performance cars can make you feel like a star right off the showroom floor without significant driver training – but the GT4 did.

In its ‘standard’ setting the GT4 soaks up most of the bumps without shooting a boot in your arse and a shudder up your spine in the way less premium ‘sports’ cars will do.

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Adding to the theatre of this press spec GT4 were the lashings of Race-Tex (Alcantara to most) and carbonfibre inserts throughout the interior, woven nylon door openers and a yellow rally-inspired angle band on the steering wheel.

Porsche should be applauded for leaving the normally distracting myriad of buttons and switches off the wheel. A deliberately clever design to allow the driver to focus on their hands to do the business without even thinking about changing the radio station or other useless information.

Speaking of which, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard but again the fitment of a $2230 optional Bose surround sound system is never going to be appreciated if you buy this car for its naturally exciting audio.

The Sports Chrono package (a dash-mounted clock and timing system) is a neat addition but again all adds up to the exorbitant added extras (see below pricing).

The up-specced 18-way adaptive sports seats were one of the few welcome additions. Amazingly comfortable once you’re in, although even thinking I’m quite fit, entry – and extraction – from the cockpit is a minor feat of yoga and may be the cause of my recent back pain (if only because I’m not as supple and flexible as I believe myself to be)!

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Now outside of my self-identified poor fitness, the GT4 is surprisingly liveable as a daily – if you’re not carrying more than yourself and one of your most loved. The mid-engine placement enables plenty of useable front and rear ‘boot’ storage. It provides 150 litres up front and 270 in the back; more than enough for your luggage to the airport or a weekend away. Or in my case, the weekly grocery shop.

Lower driveway kerbs and speed humps should always be approached with caution but the front splitter is thankfully fitted with hard nylon-block skid plates so you don’t directly ruin the composite front bar.

The adaptable exhaust system also makes it friendly to your neighbours – they don’t have to put up with the extremely beautiful but raucous engine note unless you want them to. But again, the joy of starting with the colour-coded key (another lazy $780 and obviously designed for multi-Porsche owning families so you can easily grab the right car key) and then pushing the ‘loud button’ is part of the ownership experience.

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In Porsche’s now incredibly diverse line-up, this GT4 is in my mind their most achievable true sportscar experience when it comes to value for money.

It delivers performance in droves when you have the opportunity to explore your limits, but just as importantly can be managed without complaint as a daily drive – if your back’s up to it.

Now Condorman ain’t no Ronin but then again, Ronin didn’t make me want to go out and buy an Audi or BMW. Had the evil villain been behind the wheel of the GT4 back in 1981, he could have probably caught the hero and the movie would have ended a lot earlier.

And to just really piss me off, as I file my thoughts, here comes the GT4 RS! Oh spare me the pain of wanting. Just order this base-spec GT4 now – it will become a future performance classic.

2021 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 specifications