The 2022 Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Is the Best Modern Porsche

This is the new 2022 Porsche Cayman GT4 RS, and it's the ultimate Cayman. In fact, it's one of the ultimate Porsche models period, as it has 500 horsepower from the 911 GT3's engine and some other fantastic upgrades over a regular Cayman. And today, it's time for a full review. Before I get started, be sure to check out Cars and Bids, which is my enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era, now with free listings. You can list your cool car for free and auction it on Cars and Bids. And we've had some fantastic sales recently, including this Audi R8 V10 Competition sold for over $140,000. This Ferrari 360 Spider brought $87,000. And this fantastic Lamborghini Gallardo Spider sold for $117,000 with a gated manual transmission. If you're looking to buy or sell a cool enthusiast car from the modern era, the 1980s and up, Cars and Bids is the place to do it with daily auctions and great selection at CarsAndBids.com. So let's talk GT4 RS. For years, Porsche has been expanding the performance envelope with its mid-engine Cayman sports car. It debuted back in 2006 with the Cayman S, and then eventually they did a Cayman R. And then, of course, there was the fantastic GT4, and now there's this, a full-on RS car, the GT4 RS, with 500 horsepower and some fantastic performance. And today, I'm going to review it. Now, I first got my hands on the GT4 RS back in December when I did a little preview video and a tour, but that was a pre-production model and I couldn't drive it. Today, I can give you a full review, a thorough tour followed by a drive. So let's do it. First, I'll show you around the GT4 RS, and I'll show you its quirks and features. Then I'll get it out on the road and drive it, and then I'll give it a Doug's score. All right, I'm going to start the quirks and features, the GT4 RS, with its most important part, and that would be the powertrain. This is a Cayman with the engine from a 911 GT3, which is something that Porsche enthusiasts have been asking for pretty much ever since the Cayman debuted 15 years ago, but it's something that we thought would never happen because you didn't want to steal sales from one model and give it to the cheaper model and blah, blah. Well, here it is, the GT3 powertrain in the Cayman. Now, just in case you need a refresher, this is a 4-liter, naturally-aspirated flat-six, and it makes about 500 horsepower, which is an amazing number in a car like the Cayman. And it's about 80 more horsepower than the regular Cayman GT4, which is already a seriously fast car. But to be exactly precise, I should point out that the GT4 RS has 493 horsepower, which is important to note because the GT3 with the same engine has 502 horses. So this is a little less powerful than the GT3. Now, Porsche swears this power difference is because the mid-engine Cayman has a longer exhaust than the rear-engine 911, and so it loses a little extra power. But I have a suspicion that they wanted to make sure the GT4 RS didn't have the same or more power than the GT3 so that the mid-engine car wasn't more muscular than the famed 911. Now, as for torque, the numbers here aren't quite the same level of advantage over a regular GT4. This has about 330 pound-feet of torque, roughly 15 pound-feet more than a GT4, and about 15 pound-feet behind a GT3. But this car is about a lot more than just increased power over the standard Cayman GT4. In fact, Porsche made changes to just about every aspect of this to create the GT4 RS. And today, I'm going to show them to you. And I'm going to start outside with one of the most obvious changes, this massive wing. Porsche calls this the swan-neck wing design because the supports for the wing go over the top of it and kind of look like a swan neck. As you can see, this wing is really massive, absolutely huge, and an easy way to distinguish a GT4 RS from a regular GT4 with a much smaller wing. Now, I consider this to be a fixed wing in the sense that it doesn't rise up at a certain speed and then go back in. It's always stuck here, but it's worth pointing out that it is adjustable. You can manually adjust the wing a little bit, the angle, to precisely tune the aerodynamics to maximize your track-driving performance. And of course, the changes to the outside go much further than the wing. Up front, also quite a few noticeable upgrades, starting with this front splitter, which is absolutely huge, massive, intended to improve performance. And it includes these little vents on the side where air can pass through to improve the car's aerodynamics, as you might expect. Now, speaking of vents, the GT4 RS also adds these very distinct vents on the top of the front fenders. You can see them here. The intent, I guess, is to relieve pressure that builds up in the wheel well. And this is also a characteristic design element of the newest 911 GT3 RS models, as well. They have these, too, so I guess it's a touch that's being added to the RS cars. I will say, I'm not exactly sure how functional it is to relieve pressure, but it does throw road debris up on the fenders, as you can see. Driving this car on a rainy, wet day, you get a lot of debris coming through these vents and onto the fenders, which I guess is a little bit of a drawback of functionality. And next up, another impressive and rather obvious change on the outside of this car comes on the side, where you can see the rear window has been replaced by an air intake. That's how you know you're getting into serious performance levels when you're trading visibility for induction. The air intake here does functionally bring more air into the engine, which is necessary. It's a bigger engine than what you have in regular Caymans. It needs a lot of air to come in, and so this is one of the spots where it draws in air. And the cool thing here is the induction actually goes through the interior, because in a Cayman, the interior is all one pod, basically. The seats share the interior with the cargo space and the engine bay all in one with no, like, blockage in between. And that means the air comes through the side, and you can see the induction vents actually going through the interior compartment and into the engine, which means you can hear induction noise while you're driving along. More on that in a few minutes when I drive this car. But anyway, next up, not all the exterior changes to the GT4 RS are quite as obvious as the ones I've just showed you. There are also quite a few little subtle detail changes as well. One is here. These air vents on the side have been enlarged for the GT4 RS, again, to provide more air, more cooling, compared to a standard Cayman, where they just don't need to be as big, but they're bigger here. And next up, another somewhat subtle change on the outside of the GT4 RS comes to the hood, where you can see it's not just one piece of solid sheet metal. Instead, it has these ducts on either side. These are called NACA ducts, and a lot of high-performance sports cars use them. They're intended to draw in air, either to improve airflow or aerodynamics, and they're unique in this case to the GT4 RS. Maybe more important with this hood, or I guess luggage compartment cover, it's made of carbon fiber to save weight compared to other Cayman models. In fact, weight savings is a big focus of this car. The overall curb weight is just a little over 3,200 pounds, which is pretty good for a modern car in today's world, and means this car weighs about 50 pounds less than the Cayman GT4, which is already the lightweight track-focused version of the Cayman. Well, this is even lighter. And next up, another subtle detail on the outside of this car. This is one of my very favorites. The front wheel arches aren't complete circles. You can see the front part is a circle, but then the back is sort of flattened out, I guess to improve aerodynamics. Not exactly sure what function this has, but it certainly looks cool, and it helps to set this car apart from the GT4 and other Porsche models. Although, worth pointing out here too, just like those vents on the fenders, it adds a lot of debris to the side of the car. You can see the circle part of the wheel arch is totally clean because all the debris is going underneath, but the flattened part, well, a lot of stuff is kicked out there on a rainy day, and it dirties up the car rather quickly. But again, the price you pay for performance. But anyway, speaking of the wheel arches, and specifically the wheels, you'll notice if you look closely, this car has center-lock wheels, meaning it doesn't have lug nuts, but instead there's one giant hub in the center that's locking the wheels in place. A lot of high-performance cars and race cars have this. This is the first time center-lock wheels have ever been used on the Cayman on the GT4 RS. And behind the wheels, you can see the brakes. These are carbon ceramic brakes, and they are massive. 16.1-inch brakes up front, absolutely huge, and about 15-inch brakes in back. So this car is stopping, and it's stopping fast. Now, speaking of first for the Cayman, one other thing worth noting in this area, the GT4 RS has an axle lifter for the very first time in the history of the Cayman. This is the first Cayman ever to offer, and you can see you lift the axle up, and the front end raises to clear like driveways or curbs or that sort of thing. Axle lifter is actually pretty important in this car because that front splitter is so low and so forward that you kind of need some help raising up the front so that you don't scrape it. Now, the drawback here is the axle lifter isn't standard. In fact, it's very optional. It costs over $3,000 extra. Personally, I find it to be kind of an essential feature for this car because it's just so low in front. And next up, let's talk badging. Now, I'm talking about subtle things on the outside of this car, and some of the badging isn't quite so subtle like the GT4 RS on the doors both sides, which makes it very clear exactly what you're driving. You also have GT4 RS on both sides of the rear wing. It's a little more subtle there since it's kind of imprinted into the plastic. You have GT4 RS in back like you usually do in Porsches, and you also have GT4 RS printed on the front splitter, meaning you have six different GT4 RS badges on the outside of this car, which is a little bit on the excessive side, but that's what they're doing. Now, more interesting with badging is the fact that all of these logos aren't like raised chrome lettering like in most cars. Instead, they're decals, and that's most especially notable up front. The Porsche crest isn't a metal emblem. It's just a decal stuck on the front luggage compartment lid. Porsche insists this is to save weight, even though car badges weigh like a tenth of an ounce, but any little bit of weight savings, I guess, is important, and so this car has decal badges instead of traditional emblems. And next up, speaking of some subtle changes on the outside of this car, it is lowered compared to a standard Cayman, roughly 30 millimeters lower than a standard Cayman, which is a little over an inch, and that's about the same amount that the GT4 is lowered as well. But next up, one important item to mention, a feature that this car does not have, is the optional Viseok package, which in some Porsche models dramatically increases performance, although in this car, it really just improves the look and makes it seem faster and cooler. Now, when I did my original preview walk around of the GT4 RS back in December, that car did have the Viseok package, so I'm going to link that video in the description if you want to see how the Viseok package looks on one of these. But for a brief overview of what you get if you choose the Viseok package, there's a lot of exposed carbon fiber on the outside of this car. The Viseok package has an exposed carbon front luggage compartment, as you can see, which looks cool, whereas if you don't get it, it's just painted like it is here. The Viseok package includes an exposed carbon fiber rear wing, which also looks cool, but if you don't get it, it's just painted like it is in this car. And the Viseok package includes exposed carbon fiber for the air intakes on the side, both the one next to the window and the one next to the door, which also looks cooler. But here, those pieces are just in plastic, which obviously doesn't look as exciting or thrilling, and maybe it's intended to motivate you to choose the Viseok package. Now, other upgrades with the Viseok package include titanium rear tailpipes, which you don't have on this car, and a giant Porsche script in the back window, which I think looks ridiculous, but it's included in the package. Plus, there are also a few other sort of minor interior changes that you get with Viseok that you don't get with this car. Like I said, it's pretty much all cosmetic, but it is very expensive. It costs over $13,000 just for all that stuff, but it's the ultimate if that's what you want. Now, in terms of performance, the Viseok package does offer one upgrade over the standard car, and that is it unlocks the ability to order magnesium wheels as an additional option. Magnesium wheels save weight. Porsche says about six pounds per wheel, which is actually a pretty significant weight savings down there in the wheel area, but they are costly, around $15,600 extra in addition to the $13,000 Viseok package just to save 24 more pounds on the outside of this car. But again, if you want the ultimate, you want the Viseok, and you want the magnesium wheels. And speaking of money, let's talk pricing. This car starts around $142,000, which makes it about $20,000 cheaper than a 911 GT3, but around $40,000 more expensive than a regular Cayman GT4. So it's quite a bit more expensive than a standard GT4, but it offers a lot more. So around $142,000. However, none of these cars will transact at that price point, probably ever, frankly, since I don't really expect this car to depreciate much. It will never sell for that. For one thing, there are options. You start adding Viseok packages and magnesium wheels and front axle lifters, and it's easy to option this car to $175,000 or $200,000. And then there's the markup. These cars are not technically limited production in the sense that there's no numbered amount that they're going to build, but they're not exactly going to be a Toyota Camry. These are going to be incredibly rare, incredibly hard to find, and demand will radically exceed supply. I have some friends who are interested in getting one of these, and they're telling me Porsche dealers are asking $75,000 to $100,000 over the sticker price for these cars, which means you can expect to pay around $250,000 to $300,000 for one of these, at least right now while it's still really, really hot. $250,000 to $300,000, that's a lot of money for a Cayman. But why spoil the fun of this car with talk about silly things like how much it's going to cost? Let's move on to more quirks and features. Now in the interior, you open the door, and the first thing you notice in here is the seats. You have these serious-looking carbon fiber bucket seats, one piece, so they don't really have all that much adjustment except for backward and forward, and they are pretty tight-looking sports seats designed to keep you in place when you're going around hard corners on the racetrack. Now, it's important to point out these aren't the only seats available. There's also a more comfortable, power-adjustable, more rational seat if that's what you want, but these bucket seats are the ones that always keep their value better when you go to resell the car. It's true in GT4s, GT3s, so these are the ones you want if you want to maximize the desirability of this car down the line. But anyway, the next thing you notice when you open up the door and look inside is it looks like this car has a manual transmission. You can see it there, the shift lever, the shift boot. It looks like a manual, but it isn't. This car is only offered with Porsche's PDK dual-clutch automatic transmission, and Porsche says that's just how they do it for RS cars. These RS models are all about maximizing performance to the highest possible degree, and the automatic is simply faster than the manual, so the RSs all have automatics, just like the GT3 RS, same deal, automatic only. Now, the 911 GT3 and the Cayman GT4, you can get an automatic or manual, but once you step up to the RS, it's auto only, and that includes this car. But the consolation prize is that the automatic shift lever looks like a manual shift lever, as you can see. You press the top part to shift it into gear, you're going to drive or slide it over for manual mode, and then you can at least go upshift and downshift with your PDK gear selector. Now, speaking of the transmission, some changes were made to Porsche's PDK in order to maximize its performance in this car, shorter gearing being the very most important of them. Shorter gearing provides for better acceleration, and this car just has lightning-quick shifts, unbelievably fast to get into the next gear, again, to dramatically improve acceleration. There's even a sport mode. This little button here, you tap it, you go into PDK sport mode, which tightens up shift times even more to improve acceleration even further. The goal was to maximize performance, and they've really done that in this car. Porsche says 0-60 is 3.2 seconds, which frankly seems a little conservative to me, and Porsche also says the GT4 RS is about 24 seconds faster around the Nurburgring than a GT4. Not a regular Cayman, but a GT4, so this car is dramatically faster, and again, more on that when I drive it in a few minutes. But anyway, more interior quirks and features. One other transmission-related one, this car revs to 9,000 RPM. You can see on the tachometer it actually goes all the way to 10, but of course, red line is a little lower than that. This is a seriously high-revving powertrain like you'd expect from a GT car, and specifically an RS car. Next up, back to the center console, I want to talk over some of these buttons in here. This one is for suspension. You tap that, and you go into a sportier suspension mode. The regular mode is already pretty sporty and pretty harsh, again, more when I drive the car, but you can go sportier with that. You also have this button here for your axle lifter. You press that, the front end lifts up like I showed you before, and directly above that, that's your sport exhaust button. You press that, and you get more of an exhaust sound from your fun sport exhaust. But anyway, other interior items worth noting. One is the carbon fiber trim throughout this interior. Even if you don't get the Viseok package, you get a lot of carbon fiber. In the center console, you can see it all here around everything. Same deal on the dashboard over on the driver's side, a lot of carbon fiber. And the door panels, as you can see, also have some nice pieces of carbon fiber to emphasize this car's sportiness. And by the way, speaking of the door panels, you can see instead of a traditional handle to get out, you have this fabric loop, which is there to save weight. According to Porsche, the plastic handle goes away and a loop goes in instead, which I think is tremendously performative and stupid, especially because it's mounted directly next to the power windows and mirrors, which obviously don't save weight, and also to the door speakers of the stereo system. If you really wanted to maximize your weight savings, you would just have like a strap in the door panel and nothing else, but they want to have some comfort in there and they add in the fabric loop to make their customers feel like they're saving weight. It's kind of stupid, frankly. Next up, another item you have a lot of in this interior is Alcantara. You can see some on the door panel here around the yellow strap. There's a lot of Alcantara with nice stitching, but you have it in a lot of other places too. The steering wheel is all Alcantara, as you can see, and the shift lever, Alcantara, the lever and the shift boot have a lot of it, and the lower part of the dashboard, like for instance, the glove box is an Alcantara, which looks nice and feels good. Now, it's worth noting the upper part of the dashboard is in leather, but if you've got the Viseok package, that would also be Alcantara. Porsche actually calls it Racetex, but it's Alcantara, and that would be on the upper part of the dashboard and it would look nicer, I guess. But with that said, you do have a lot of storage compartments in this car, a surprising amount of practicality. In the door panel, for instance, you have not one, but two different storage pockets where you can stick stuff, and you have a glove box in this car, which a lot of high-performance cars eliminate, but you got that here for even more practicality. The Cayman also gives you a front trunk, as you can see. Pop it open, and there's a relatively large space in here for cargo storage, again, to increase the practicality, and you also have a rear cargo compartment, as you can see back here. Fairly large rear storage plus front storage, plus that stuff inside, so it's a pretty practical car. Now, this rear trunk shares its compartment with the powertrain. It's all under a cover, but you can see it there. GT4RS on the top, and this angle gives you a pretty good look at those intake tubes bringing air from the sides of the car into the engine inside this compartment here. It all just looks very cool, and you see it every time you open up your luggage compartment. Now, back here, it's also worth noting you do have two caps mounted on either side of the compartment. One is for oil, as you can see. You twist that off to add oil, and the other is for water or coolant. You twist that off to add water to cool down the engine, but that is your shared powertrain luggage compartment in the GT4RS. Pretty cool. And so, those are the quirks and features of the new Porsche Cayman GT4RS. Now it's time, I can't wait, to get it out on the road and see how it drives. All right, driving the GT4RS. Oh, that's nice. Wow. Oh my God, that is, that's something. So, let's talk about this car. Wow. Okay, talk. Must tell you things. Amazing. I mean, amazing, amazing, amazing in every way. Okay, so, performance. Acceleration is absolutely fantastic. One interesting thing about this car, you do have to get into it to get the power. There's a lot of power, but quick push of the throttle, it's, the power is not available at initial throttle tip in, and it's not available low in the rev range much. There's a lot there, but not anywhere near what's possible. And so, you kind of, you do have to gear down, really get into it, in order to really get some power out of it. That point was not a criticism. You do have to get into it, but you just stay in it, and it goes, and it goes, and it goes, and it is so fast. Porsche says 3.2 0 to 60. I guess it feels like that. Maybe it feels just a little bit quicker to me. It is an incredibly fast car, but that is nothing compared to the dynamics of this car. The chassis, the way it, oh, the way it goes around corners is just unbelievable. I have always preferred the mid engine cars to the rear engine 911s. You can go back through all my videos and watch me talk about it. I think that mid engine is the way that God intended a sports car. The engine's in the middle, the weight distribution is perfect, and it is just great. And this car exploits the mid engine chassis like no Porsche before. And then we have the transmission. Porsche says shorter gears in this transmission, and I guess that's probably true. I'm not a huge expert, and frankly, I've never driven an automatic GT4. Why would I? But it doesn't, it feels just so fast. It's not just gearing. The shifts are so quick, and that's always been true of PDK, but they feel even quicker here. Now I'm driving this in PDK sport mode, and so it's even quicker still, but it's unbelievable. You have this optimal transmission for amazingly quick shifts. You have an unbelievable steering and handling situation, chassis and dynamics, and you have fantastic acceleration. You have all these things in the GT3, but it's a larger car. It's rear engine. To me, it just doesn't quite have the focus and the like little zoom ability of the Cayman. And so I think combining the two is just the coolest damn thing in the world. There are drawbacks to this car. The biggest is unquestionably the ride quality. It's rough, man. It's harsh. You're going over bumps and you're feeling it. I mean, it is just harsh. This is for the people who really want focused driving 95% of the time. The GT4 is for people who want it 75% of the time. If you want to go out and have some fun in a GT4, but also maybe commute to work or run some errands, that's the car you want. This car, there's going to be people who drive it every day. I can do it. I can handle the suspension. Okay, cool for you. But most people, I think, will come out of this and say it's so focused that it moves into the side of like performance car, track car, Canyon car, but not really something you want to use with any frequency. And so driving it around, it is quite harsh. And I can't believe there's a suspension sport button because regular is harsh enough. Another drawback of this car unquestionably is the price tag. Porsche is going to say $175,000, $100,000 to $200,000 for well-equipped versions of this car starting at $140,000, but that's just not the truth of this market. $75,000 to $100,000 over, I think is going to be the way it is, at least for the foreseeable future, which means, like I said, paying $250,000 to $300,000 for a Cayman. Is it worth it? More on that in a sec. To me though, the biggest drawback of this car unquestionably is the lack of a manual transmission. I really truly believe that. A lot of my colleagues believe that also. And then they went to the launch for this car and met with a lot of Porsche PR people and got some free dinners and suddenly came away saying, no, it doesn't need a manual. Interesting how that happens. I don't feel that way. I think a manual would still be an amazing thing in this car. Now, Porsche doesn't do manuals RS cars because they're trying to maximize performance. And I get that, but they did once remember there was a 911R, which was a manual GT3 RS. And so it could happen. And I think a GT4R or a Cayman, new Cayman R, whatever they want to call it, I don't care, but manual transmission to exploit the true enjoyment of this car, I think would complete the package. And I think if they did that, you could make an argument that it's the greatest Porsche non-super car of all time. I really believe that. Now I want to be clear, PDK is great. And in this car, it's really great. And it's so quick. So if you want ultimate performance and track time and everything, that's the transmission you want, and it's going to be great for it. But a manual, I think really would change the, it would take this car from being one of the great modern Porsches to one of the great Porsches. Also, I do want to mention one other thing that I think is a benefit that I forgot earlier, and that is the sound, obviously the exhaust sound. But the induction sound is absolutely amazing. It is incredible to hear all the sound coming, air coming in. One of the coolest sounding cars that I've ever heard in my entire life. One annoyance, by the way, about this car, the rear wing from your angle, you can see behind me, but from where I'm sitting a little higher up, you can't, I can't see. It literally is exactly in the middle of where cars are. And so I can't look for cops, which is annoying. It would be nice to see a little better. Okay, so final conclusion, I want to get back to pricing. $250,000 to $300,000. When I've been reading about that, I've been saying to everybody, 300 grand for a Cayman, that's ridiculous. Driving this car, I don't know, it might make sense. It's great. It's, it's the greatest. Now the way Porsche could hurt values of this car is if they come out with a manual one in a year or two years or three years. And Porsche has on the record said, they're not making cars for collectors. They're making cars for drivers. And so the value is the, you know, the market value is not something they're directly paying as much attention to as the people who buy them. So they might actually do that. And if they do, they'd make an amazing car. But right now with no manual available, I got to say, I don't see how you, I get why you'd pay the money. And I think it's not going to lose much. It's not, it's not a numbered limited edition car. It doesn't matter. It's a very special car. They're not going to make a lot of these. This is going to be rare and special in perpetuity. I know it's a lot of money, but it's a lot of car. And I would get this over any 911. I just, I think the GT four already is an amazing car, but this it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. And so market pricing is market pricing. It's what these cars go for. Cause everybody wants one and I don't blame people at all. So that's the Porsche Cayman GT four RS. This is a fantastic car. I wish it had a manual transmission and the ride is incredibly harsh, but the performance is unrivaled, amazing, incredible focus. Just fantastic. Truly one of the best modern Porsches and frankly, one of my favorite Porsches ever. And now it's time to give the GT four RS a Doug's score. And the Doug's score is here 67 out of 100, which places the GT four RS here against rivals. It falls just behind the new 911 GT three losing slightly in styling and comfort, but it beats out the standard Cayman GT four gaining three additional points in the weekend categories, but losing in the daily score is the regular GT four is just so much more rational and reasonable, but the GT four RS is amazing. And the Doug's score has it closing in on supercar territory, which makes sense. It has supercar performance, supercar thrills, and in the current market, a supercar price tag.