Polemicist

It's taken several weeks but today I finally enjoyed a passenger ride in a good friend's new Guards Red Cayman S, with PDK. Along with a few other extras, it has the Sports Chrono Pack (which I assumed was merely a fancy analogue clock...), but actually includes several bits and bobs to make the car more track friendly.

I have had an epiphany about Porsches.

This thing is seriously fast and the operation of the PDK is quite awe inspiring.

It's very cold up here, and even with summer tyres the level of grip was quite astonishing - demonstrated by some very interesting roads and roundabouts, but also by two runs with the launch control.

Factor in two luggage areas, supremely comfortable seats, excellent ride (even in Sports a Plus mode) and this has to be one of the finest and quickest machines for getting from A-B as quickly as possible.

At not a lot shy of £60K for the car with its specification, it isn't cheap, but for what it is and what it does, I would say it offers fantastic value for money. And it sounds fantastic.

I'm very, very envious.

Ultra_Nexus

That is exactly what I thought!!

What gets me is how massive they are now. I remember my uncle getting his 996 back in 98 and thinking how small it was. Now, they're huge (Admittedly, so are a lot of cars) and certainly compared to an S2000.

I still class Porsches as an image car. If another company developed and released that same car you'd be looking at it costing £45k and not £60k. Infact pretty much every German car is being marketed on one's self image perception to others (Have a listen to the latest VW Passat advert for the radio it's hilarious!).

What is the competition for it though? Nout. I suppose you have the Lotus Evora but that isn't in the same ballpark in terms of fit and finish I'm sure. And people who drive these cars realistically aren't going to be 'drivers' in the true sense so other companies will not go after the segment based on the fact that Porsche will win because it's a Porsche.

And the ultimate irony is that the Sports Chrono pack will probably never be used for its manufactured purpose as these cars don't go near the track in my experience (911 GT3s do, but I have only seen one 986 Boxster at a Lotus trackday).

However, to feel like a hero I'm sure it does the job well

Starlight

I would have to agree with you, the PDK is just brilliant, the sports exhaust on the GTS is also bloody amazing I love it and do not miss the manual at all.