Porsche Needs 100 Buyers To Make The Cayman GT4 Rally Car Happen

Okay, so who's in?

Last August we learned of the existence of Porsche’s Cayman GT4 rally car, based on the outgoing 718 Cayman GT4. It looked incredible. Unfortunately, we couldn’t confirm whether or not it was slated for production, even in limited numbers.

Fortunately, Top Gear received an answer from Porsche’s motorsport chief Frank-Steffen Walliser. “We had drivers, teams, fans, everybody excited (about the GT4 rally car)”, he said. “Even the WRC’s top five drivers all wanted to drive it. It’s pure rear-wheel drive and just the sound of the car as it comes through the woods, it’s really loud.” Walliser and his team even built a demonstration model to get “some experience, (and) how to set up and where to put a spare wheel. What to do with tires, everything.” So, why not build it?

Well, Porsche wants to, though under one condition: “We need to sell 100 to get the green light,” Walliser said. The prototype built has, more or less, resolved all outstanding mechanical and technical questions, thus making a production version good to go. But this business, and any business has to make money. Porsche’s bean counters have done the math and concluded the minimum number of buyers required. So, any takers out there?

If you need any additional convincing, Walliser also told Top Gear why the Cayman was chosen to be transformed into a rally car. In short, its size. “Just by the width of the car, the Cayman helps because it fits exactly the WRC track.”

Furthermore, it sounds like there's a solid chance the GT4 will race, assuming it’s built. “We are in conversations with the FIA about the RGT category. I expect if we enter a category, others will follow.” To be clear, Porsche has no intention of running its own rally team. A Dakar rally return is also ruled out. The Cayman GT4 rally car would be solely for private teams.

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Audi TT RS, BMW M2, Porsche 718 Cayman S Battle For Sports Car Crown

We love when civil war breaks out in Germany.

If there’s such a thing as an addiction to the sound of snap, crackle, and pop, then we sure as hell can’t be counted among those who feed it with Rice Krispies cereal, bubble wrap, or fire crackers. Engines with an uneven mix of cylinders or computer-controlled explosions undergoing crisp downshifts are our preferred way to feeding that, and the Audi TT RS, BMW M2, and Porsche 718 Cayman S are all purveyors lying in the mid five-figure range.

The three recently went to a track to prove why the 0-130 mph test is superior to the industry standard 0-60 mph run, and the winner of the competition was the Audi TT RS. It’s the most expensive of the group, but it has reasons for this. In this case, that would be the all-wheel drive system adding the cost but helping it win the previous competition.

This time around, DriveTribe takes all three cars to the Anglesey Circuit for a third round of vetting. All-wheel drive could either hurt or help the TT RS depending on how the Audi tuned it but at least it has a solid lead. Up until this point, the Audi has won it all, dyno test and 0-130 mph run included. Lap times, however, are a different ball game entirely. The BMW M2 is well-known for its love of corners, though it has a bit of trouble not lighting up the rear tires, and the Porsche has its credentials given to it by the fact that it’s a Porsche but DriveTribe questions its ability to set a good pace. No spoilers here, but it’s safe to say that you can’t go wrong with either of the three.

Audi Debuts 2018 TT RS With 400-HP And Puts Every Cayman S Ability To Shame

It’s quicker, cheaper, more powerful, and sounds miles better than the four-banger in the Porsche corner.

A gorgeous futuristic interior peeled straight out of our wildest iRobot fantasies and a rich blend of angular yet smooth lines of the current R8 may have made every critic of Audi’s feminine design approach a believer, but to most, the Mk2 generation TT was still too rounded to look the least bit tough. To some, it even echoed the design approach of the Volkswagen Beetle, but thankfully Audi remedied that with the more confident looking Mk3 released late in 2014.

While Audi spent plenty of time talking about the ultra-rapid RS version that would soon make it to market, the automaker has just backed up that talk by announcing the US launch of the mid-engine 2018 TT RS ahead of its official debut at the upcoming 2017 New York Auto Show. In terms of hardware, there isn’t much we haven’t already heard about the car. Four wheels will be supplied by a steady stream of 400 horsepower and 354 lb-ft of torque courtesy of a 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-five engine. The TT RS’s main competitor, the Porsche Cayman S, has both less power and a more conventional turbo four in its midsection, which means it sounds nowhere near as good as the five-cylinder.

A quick listen to the two cars side by side confirms Porsche fan's worst nightmares. Despite the lack of balance, Audi engineers have managed to harness the chaotic engine and channel its power through a clever all-wheel drive system that helps anchor the lightweight aluminum-framed coupe in the corners and rocket it to 60 mph from a dead stop in 3.6 seconds before topping out at 155 mph or 174 mph when optioned with the Dynamic plus package. Orchestrating the entire show is a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, and while the quattro all-wheel drive system reserves the right to send nearly all of the power to the rear wheels when it senses the need for it, the TT, like all other Audis, will not come with a drift mode.

It will, however, install four drive modes including Comfort, Auto, Dynamic, and Individual in order to get the software to properly sort the hardware to meet driver requirements. A starting price of $64,900 is a direct argument against the less powerful $67,700 Porsche 718 Cayman and should be a lesson to Porsche that it should probably find a way to make its small displacement cars sound better. If a Fiat 500 Abarth can do it, we’re sure Stuttgart can manage.