Porsche Cayman S on the Targa Florio

Former Car editor Mel Nichols revisits old and hallowed turf to drive the new Cayman around the Targa Florio in Sicily

Friday
We're six hours south of Rome now and the autostrada is weaving enticingly as it climbs from the coast to the hinterland. It's still two narrow lanes, like most of the ancient and often decrepit A3. But this will do. I can start letting the Cayman's revs run, flick the paddle shifts, work the lines. Now its spirit is emerging. It's flowing, staying flat, going exactly where I ask. Unfussed, like a cheetah at a lope. It'd be nice to let it go all the way.

911 RSR won final championship Targa in '73

For most of the 370 miles we've been good boys. Italy's average speed Tutor system has been watching. My pal and co-driver Peter Robinson - Robbo to all and sundry - lived a long time in Italy. Stick to a 80mph cruise, he'd advised.

So we've been drifting along chatting, pleased by the Cayman's fine ride even on 20-inch wheels and fixed-angle sports seats that site us lower than we'd like but are perfectly shaped for hours at the wheel.

At the 81mph speed limit we have a choice of third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh gears. In seventh, that's 2,300rpm. No problem for the endlessly flexible 3.4-litre flat six but with the sports exhaust there's a drone between 1,900-2,400 that's only just acceptable.

Long haul travel never looked so appealing

Mist through the highest peaks evokes Enzo Ferrari's comment after he drove to Sicily to race in the 1919 Targa Florio. "We found ourselves in a blizzard and facing a risk we had never bargained for: we were chased by wolves," he recalled. "They were put to flight by shots from the revolver I always kept under the seat."

Anyway, now we're a bit over an hour from Villa San Giovanni and the 20-minute ferry trip across the Strait of Messina to Sicily. We're on a pilgrimage. It's 40 years this spring since I flew from Australia to see the last 'proper' Targa Florio, the world's toughest motor race. It's 21 years since Robbo drove around the 44-mile course in an Alfa Romeo SZ with local hero Nino Vaccarella who won in a Ferrari 275 P2 in 1965 and an Alfa T33/3 in 1971. It's a place of magical memories for both of us.

Boring motorways done the Targa beckons

Perfect destination for a new Cayman S, we'd thought. Not so long ago on these pages Chris Harris said "this car is one of the supreme modern driving experiences; it wants to be driven down twisty roads." The Targa's 567 bends seem suitable.

In Messina, it's just minutes to the autostrada along the north coast of Sicily. The sat nav says we'll reach our hotel in Cefalu, near the Targa course, in well under two hours. On the sinuous old road, we'd have needed more than three hours for the 118 miles. With the Cayman settled in the 90mph bracket and above the drone zone, we're eating the distance into clearing weather and a pleasing sunset.

We stop with 550 miles ticked off. Very satisfying. Check in, then switch to our waiting Fiat Abarth Punto Supersport photocar and head west another hour to pick up our photographer who's flying in from Rome.

After the calm of the coast roads come the corners

Saturday
Now for the meat. Out early, west from Cefalu to Campofelice where the SS113 coast road uncharacteristically gives the old Targa course an arrow-like straight more than three miles long. As at Le Mans' Mulsanne, hard-pressed drivers could take a metaphorical breather here while letting their cars stretch their legs to beyond 200mph.

A few miles more and we're in the curves heading south to the SS120 which punches down through Cerda into the mountains. First, the old pits and start/finish line. We linger wistfully. The sound and the colour, the haste and drama are just memories; scenes in old images. A few years ago, Alfa Romeo paid for the mural pinned to the northern grandstand to evoke it all. Porsche won the most Targas though: 11, to Alfa's 10 and Ferrari's seven.

The first corner of note is a long right hand hairpin. Second in the Cayman, well up the rev band, feeding in power. Hello - what's that? There's a sudden, disconcerting twitch at the rear. Feels like it's flicking into oversteer but doesn't. It's the PTV (Porsche Torque Vectoring) kicking in. If you push in assertively enough it brakes the inside rear wheel, loads extra yaw movement around the car's vertical axis and tightens its line. It's a bit weird the first couple of times then you get used to it. Doesn't seem to happen in gentler, higher-speed bends.

Fun in the Cayman but imagine it at race speed...

Cracking on then, it takes the power beautifully, there's consistent grip and it balances magically against the steering. Fly on for another four miles into Cerda, first of the three towns the Targa cars roared through. The red Cayman causes a stir. A boy exclaims 'Ferrari!' His error makes a point though; the new Cayman has visual bite.

Higher up, the bends come thick and fast and confirm how clean and confident this car feels, how instinctive it is. Its consummate suspension soaks up the bumps, soothes the dips and plunges, and keeps it secure over the crests. Trust is a precious thing.

We can only deploy all the flat-six's 325bhp (at 7,400rpm) in short bursts. But by crikey it likes to rev. It's linear and mates faultlessly at whatever revs to the seven-speed PDK transmission. If there's room, with the Sport Chrono pack it'll let you have 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds and 0-100mph in around 10.5. Interesting to note how close that is to the four-second 0-62mph time of the 911 Carrera RSR that won the 1973 Targa for Herbie Müller and Gijs van Lennep, and the Cayman's 175mph top speed is slightly higher.

Epic scenery, epic roads and an epic race

For all that the Cayman's powertrain and chassis are exemplary, its brakes are a further joy. Potent, linear, silken, with the pedal lined up perfectly for your foot to slide back across to throttle. No-one betters Porsche here.

In Collesano, three-quarters of the way around, we stop for a bite then pore over the pictures in the Targa Florio museum. If you won here, you were good.

The run down to Campofelice and the coast is slower; it's raining now. Head home to Cefalu, wander the ancient Norman town and find a good restaurant.

Sunday
South above Cerda and cranking on too soon, I miss the left turn for the Targa course and forge on. Robbo, in the Fiat behind, doesn't flash to pull me up. We enjoy five miles of road that's just as bendy but better surfaced. With Sport and Sport Plus both on, the engine is changing down at every opportunity and hanging on to its gears for grim death, with the exhaust spitting and popping; it's a bit over-dramatic.

No torque vectoring nonsense going on here

The Abarth Punto is doing a sterling job keeping in touch. It demands more effort and look-out for torque steer but proves how strong a gutsy modern hatch can be even in exalted company. Its absorbent ride makes it work well here and its amazingly flexible brio-packed 1.4 turbo four puts on a fine show for Italy.

Nothing we encounter for the rest of the day, driving the course again, diminishes our respect and affection for Cayman though.

Monday
Will another 550 miles back to Rome dent our view of it as a grand tourer, too?

Unlikely. The distance slides by with an uplifting effortlessness. There's a high point when Robbo's behind the wheel on an empty stretch of A3 that's winding around mountainsides, weaving in and out of tunnels; inviting him beyond a cruise.

Cayman in its element on the Targa course

The Cayman is gorgeous: gifting its guttural yowl, responding instantly to Peter's tugs on the shift, following obediently the roll of his hands at the wheel, glued flat, never deviating, as he works through the curves at 90 to 110mph. In a 991 here we'd be getting some of that longitudinal up and down motion and need to adjust more. Robbo comments, "This has much more consistent handling. You can really, really load it up in a way you can't a 911. There's still an issue with the steering's centre vagueness but it turns in better and you can use more power."

The remaining 340 miles fade. We pull up in plenty of time for dinner without fatigue. The deep buckets have been fine, though we'd choose the standard, adjustable seats. A standard Cayman S is £48,783. The bells and whistles make ours £61,885.

So we're back in Rome and we're sure about the Cayman's irresistible ability as an all-rounder. In the morning, we'll hand this one back to Porsche's driver who will knock off the 680 miles home to Stuttgart. Fact is, we'd happily drive on there right now if we needed to.

Photos: Mel Nichols, Wheels/Wolfango Spaccarelli, LAT

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