Test Drive: 2008 Porsche Cayman S

Sports cars come in all shapes and sizes. The question of "what constitutes a sports car?" is not one with an easy answer.  Some people would say "Well, it's got to have two seats, and a folding roof."  So, the Mitsubishi Evo isn't a sports car?  "Well, it's got to be really fast."  So the Mazda Miata isn't a sports car?  "Well, it has to be rear-wheel-drive."  So the Honda CRX isn't a sports car?

The definition of a sports car is an ethereal, ever-changing thing.  30 years ago, there were no such things as sports sedans.  Sedans for were for boring people, sports cars were for exciting people with rockstar lives.  The original BMW M5 punched a solid hole through that theory, and today we've got plenty of 4-doors that are so fun they should be illegal.

What's easier to define is what makes a good sports car.  Things like weight balance, a strong engine, communicative steering, suspension that holds the car flat but doesn't get thrown off line by bumps, confidence-inspiring brakes; hell, even small details like the position of the steering wheel, the support of the seats, the sound it makes, that's what makes a great sports car.

By these metrics, the Porsche Cayman S is a fantastic sports car.  That's really nothing surprising; the press has been raving about the Porsche Cayman since it's debut in 2006.  What they skip over most of the time, though, is what makes the Cayman a good real car.  And it's these details that might make it the best sports car.

Like, for instance, the Cayman has two trunks.  And they're both huge.  You could easily fit two roll-on suitcases in the frunk ("front trunk") of a Cayman.  Most mid-engined cars have a frunk, but it's useless.  The MR2's was all jammed full of spare tire and fluid reservoirs, and you couldn't really put anything in it.

Then there's also the back trunk; and while you might not want to put groceries in it (they'd be sitting right behind the engine and right above the exhaust system!), there's still a lot of room for stuff back there, too.

The downside to this twin-trunk arrangement is that if you want to actually see any part of the engine, you either need to bust out the tools, or put the car up on jack stands and slide under it.  This is always been a characteristics of the Boxster/Cayman, though.  That panel on the right side of the engine hump in the trunk is access to oil and coolant.  The upside to the motor's location, according to the owner, is that an oil change is about as simple as they come- back it up onto ramps, pull the plug, and drop the filter out of it's cartridge, replace, fill, done.

As you'd expect of a modern Porsche, the interior is a comfortable, well-made, logically designed place to be.  This particular Cayman's interior was sort of a coffee-brown color covering everything; it's unusually warm and inviting for a German car, which are usually pits of gray depression.  Also check out the small fire extinguisher mounted to the driver's seat rails - this Cayman sees track time a few times a year, and many clubs require an on-board fire suppression system.

This car has the optional sports seats, and they're... perfect.  immensely comfortable, but not Cadillac squishy - they're supportive in all the right places, but they feel like a natural fit - unlike the Recaro seats in, say, an S4 or an Evo, which pinch and hold you in place.  All of the controls in the interior just reek of quality; it's really an unbelievable step forward from the original Boxster interior, which while functional was honestly a bit cheap-feeling.  Big advantage for tall people - that steering wheel tilts and telescopes, so you can actually drive it comfortably.  There's plenty of headroom-  one imagines Porsche designed the inside of the Cayman to comfortable fit 6'+ drivers with helmets on, as the roof is scalloped out a bit.  It's not ridiculously posh inside like a Lexus or Maserati, but thank god - nothing really distracts you from the task of driving.

And driving is what the Cayman exists for.  Even though this is the "S" version, which boasts a bigger motor than the standard Cayman, outright straight-line speed isn't what this car is about.  Mind you, it'll do that. Oh my yes.  The 3.4L flat-6 in the Cayman S is based on the 3.2L block from the Boxster S, but is equipped with cylinder heads similar to those in the 3.8L Carrera S, which feature Porsche Variocam Plus.  VC Plus works similarly to Honda's i-VTec system - variable cam timing on the intake cam, as well as a two-stage variable valve lift setup on the intake cam.  Total output for the S is 295bhp @ 6,250rpm and 251lb-ft@4,200-6,000rpm, with the redline set at 7,200rpm.  Without Sport mode engaged, the Cayman S is happy to burble around town like a normal car - unlike the Honda S2000, this car actually has great low-end torque, and the lag-free throttle response means you can run around a gear higher than you normally would.  It can be a little clunky leaving a stoplight - maybe due to the heavy clutch.  But wind it past 5,000 rpm and the flat six takes on a menacing tone, and power output ramps up sharply. It's not as stark of a contrast as, say, a Honda F20C - which goes from nothing to afterburners! around 6,000 rpm, but it's certainly noticeable.  Porsche claims the Cayman S is good for 0-60 in 5.1s, and 0-100 in 11.7, while some independent publications have seen times as low as 4.8, with the quarter mile between 13.3-13.5s at around 105mph.  So it's quick, but a Corvette will go considerably quicker for the same (or less) money.

Still, point it down a straight stretch of road and crack open the throttle and... oh, that's why people pay so much for Porsches.  The flat six behind your back makes a noise that's totally unique in the automotive world - a lot of people say Porsche motors lost their character when they switched from air to water cooled engines, but it's hard to justify that claim when you drive one.  There's a lot of mechanical noise compared to, say, a Lexus - but it's good noise.  The tick of the valvetrain, the whine of the gearbox, the whoosh of the radiator fans at a stop light let you know you're actually operating a well-oiled piece of machinery.  It's a lot more involving than sports cars like the GT-R, which are certainly faster, but isolate you from the experience a lot more.

All the controls have a proper heft to them.  The clutch is surprisingly heavy and engages fairly close to the floor, the shifter (which has been fitted with a Porsche short shift kit on this car) has a good bit of resistance to it, and the steering... well, I'm sure you've read about how great the steering on the Boxster/Cayman is, and none of it's exaggerated.  There probably isn't a better power steering setup out there.  The front end is unencumbered with an engine, so it's a little floaty - weight distribution is biased approximately 5% rearward - which lets the front suspension transmit a wealth of information directly to your hands.  Undoubtedly helping are the super sticky Bridgestone Potenza RE11 tires this car was shod with, as well as the lack of heavy optional wheels - the sign of an owner that knows what he's doing.  And considering this car sees track time 4 or 5 times a year, the super-sticky tires are probably a great choice.

Handling is what the Cayman is all about, though.  It doesn't do everything for you, but there's almost no learning curve.  You can hop in a Cayman S, drive it for a few minutes, and proceed to demolish a road at a rate of speed that would cause your high school physics professor to scratch his head and put his pencil down.  It's unbelievable.  A local road that I've run down in almost all of the cars I've had was tackled at 65mph without breaking a sweat - me or the car - where in any of my cars, 50mph would be enough to give you sweats and white knuckles.  It really feels like the car is rotating about an imaginary axis that passes right through your lap.  Understeer?  Oversteer?  No.  Trail-braking, punch it too hard in a tight corner in 2nd, nothing throws this car off it's line.  The harder you drive it, the further it goes away from "car" and towards "religious experience."  Heel and toe from 3rd to 2nd into a 90° corner, feed in the power well before the apex, and the symphony of angels playing trumpets right behind your back throws you out of a turn that would have lesser cars hobbled over scraping their doorhandles like NASA's centripetal force generating machine.  It's amazing.  And it's so easy. The Cayman is the type of car that makes a decent driver look great, and would probably make a talented driver look like a professional - but somehow without doing everything for you.  The brakes deserve special mention, too.  Porsche doesn't mess around with their brakes: 318mm ventilated discs with four-piston calipers up front, and 299mm with twin-pistons out back.  BMW oughtta get on this level with their performance cars - there's no dead spot in the pedal travel, and they've got a lot of force delivered in a linear manner - they boost the confidence of the driver.

In fact, maybe the only real problem with the Cayman is this: any driver below the Shumacher/Lewis/Raikkonen level of skill will never actually approach the Cayman S's limits, much less on a public road.  You'd have to be insane, suicidal, or both.  There's so much more grip, poise, brakes and stability than there is power (and there's a lot of power!) that you find yourself outside your comfort zone on a back road, but certainly not outside the Porsche's comfort zone.  The only place to really stretch the legs of a car like this is, and always will be, a race track.  Which brings us to that "sport" mode.  Really, this is only to be used on a race track.  The Cayman S has optional electronically controlled dampers (PASM) with a "normal" and a "sport" mode.  With it engaged, it's just too stiffly damped for public roads.  The front end bobs and weaves over the smallest undulations, bumps you wouldn't even know were there in a normal car.  It feels hyper, like a Labrador who's 3 years old but is kept in a 600 square-foot apartment all day long.  It's probably amazing on a glass-smooth race track, but it's totally out of place on roads.  Thankfully you can select the suspension settings separately from the rest of the sport mode calibrations - and that's what's ideal for back-road barnstorming.

Is the Cayman as raw, communicative, and nimble as an Elise?  No.  It weighs as much as 1.5 Elises, it's got carpet, comfortable seats, luxury features, the stuff people expect from a $60,000+ sports car.  But here's the thing: it delivers 90% of the excitement of an Elise, but 100% more tolerability on a day-to-day basis.  I mean, when the red mist recedes from your eyes and you stop treating every corner on a road like it just mugged your mother, you can go get groceries, or take a relaxed road trip, or drive it in the rain without coming out soaking wet and feeling like you escaped death.  At maximum-attack I'm sure an Elise is more fun (Lotus?  Test car?  Why don't you return my calls?), but it's hard to say it'd be worth it when you have to be a contortion artist just to get in it, you can hear every pebble smack the fender wells, the seats make your butt go numb after 15 minutes, and you can't actually hold a conversation with your passenger past 30mph.  If you were picking a car to be a daily driver and a track vehicle, a Cayman would be the easy choice.  If it was just a track toy, hell, get a Lotus.

The Cayman's biggest competitor might not even be the Lotus or the 'Vette, though: it could very well be the 911 Carrera.  The base Carrera's starting MSRP is an incredible $14,900 higher than the Cayman, but the prices can get pretty close with options.  And while Porsche purists will tell you the only real Porsche is a 911 until their throat gets dry, truth be told I'd take the Cayman over the 911 ten times out of ten.  It's practically sacrilegious for a car enthusiast to not worship at the idol of Porsche's rear-engined masterpiece, but I look at things differently.  The main reason the engine's in the back on the 911 is A) it's always been there, and B) you get rear seats.  Which are about as useful as a chocolate teapot, if you've got legs.  Porsche's (admittedly very talented) engineers have been working for years to engineer around the basic problem, which is that they put the engine in the wrong place.  And then they make a car with the engine in the right place, and hobble it mechanically so as to not steal sales from the 911 itself.  Witness the lack of bigger engine options in the Cayman/Boxster (still only a 3.4, but now with direct injection), the lack of availability of a limited-slip differential until 2009(!), no turbo option, etc.  The hardcore, lightweight Cayman R is still almost 13,000 cheaper than a basic Carrera, and it seems like a no-brainer to me.  There are plenty of aftermarket companies out there that are happy to upgrade the Cayman's mechanical bits to 911 specs, which is surely a costly endeavor, but you'd wind up with a car that although they should, Porsche refuses to build.  Can you imagine how amazing a Cayman with the Carrera S's 3.8L flat-six would be?  Or the 911 Turbo engine in a lighter mid-engine chassis?

The bottom line is this: the Cayman S is a sports car that really does everythingwell.  There are a lot of competitors in this price range, and a lot of them do specific things better.  An optioned-up Cayman S gets into GT-R territory, which is orders of magnitude faster in a straight line, has a much bigger aftermarket, more technology, etc - but it's also a computerized synthetic experience compared to a Cayman.  The Corvette has a lot more power and is probably more fun if you prefer to spend time sideways going down an onramp, but the quality and precision isn't really there.  The Elise is lighter, simpler, just as fast, and way more direct - but it's an abysmal road car.  An M3 or S5 has the quality, precision, and "German-ness" all wrapped up, but in heavier, less fleet-footed packages - plus they return considerably worse mileage, if anyone cares.

So I can't say the Cayman S is for everyone. It's only got two seats, it's expensive, and other things offer more performance in some metrics for the dollar.  But as far as I can tell, none of them hit all the bases in the same manner as the Cayman S.  Which is why it's probably the best sports car you can buy, at least in this range, right now.