Porsche 718 GT4 RS spied | Update

Is there a more desirable car in the 2020 pipeline than Stuttgart's most extreme Cayman?

It's conceivable that you don't need updating on the progress of the GT4 RS. But we're going to update you anyway, because it's hard to think of a forthcoming model better equipped to get the juices flowing. Like 911s bearing the badge, the first RS Cayman is set to be an ultra-specialist model, maximising the performance of its platform in a low production run. Porsche hasn't done one before for the same reason it hesitated doing a GT Cayman - it didn't want to step on the toes of its more famous, higher-priced sibling. Plainly, it has overcome that concern.

That's a very good thing because the GT4 RS obviously has the potential to be something special. Using the same 4.0-litre as the GT4 but with even more GT3 components, expect it to produce comfortably more.power while leaving sufficient headroom for the latest 911 GT3 to be designated the more senior offering. As the latest spy video confirms, it will have earned a richer flat-six soundtrack, and almost certainly be PDK only.

The 'standard' GT4 is already an astonishingly capable track car, but expect the RS to shift the handling bias even more toward circuit driving. We’re expecting significant weight loss to be accompanied by GT4 Clubsport-aping chassis settings, on a platform that’s dwarfed by the 992. As the new footage shows, not even the rough stuff of the Nurburgring’s Karussell upsets the car’s composure; the big aero and swan neck wing suggests it’ll deal with high speed stuff equally well.

It’s not yet clear how far back the lockdown period has pushed Porsche’s development schedules. 718 GT4 RS test cars have been running with very little camo since August last year, so this freshly-sighted model’s lack of covers doesn’t necessarily mean its arrival is imminent. The GTS 4.0 – the lowest-powered Porsche to use Stuttgart’s new flat-six – is now fully launched, following the latest GT4, suggesting there’s space in the calendar for the 718 GT4 RS’s arrival in the coming months. But Porsche is being tight-lipped, so we don’t know for sure.

Don’t forget, too, that Porsche is looking to reignite 718 sales after the switch to four-pot power triggered a slight reduction in popularity for Europe and America. The RS offers the model a halo-grade model to remind people that the Cayman is fully back to its best. Not that Porsche needs that excuse to launch one of its most exciting cars in years. We. Can’t. Wait.

Original story | 19/09/2019

Potentially the most exciting car to come out of Frankfurt motor show week was not even at the show. While brands were pulling the covers off shiny new things under event spotlights, a team of Porsche engineers were busy testing an even racier version of the 718 Cayman at the Nurburgring. Now, as if to reaffirm that a GT4 RS is indeed in the works, they’re back out running the anticipated 450hp-producing machine, which shamelessly leaves a swan-neck rear wing and RS bonnet almost completely uncovered.

We’re expecting the usual mix of intoxicating specifications to be thrown at this 718 range-topper, including a bump in power and revs from its naturally aspirated flat-six thanks to internals borrowed from the GT3 4.0-litre, a pared-back cabin with bucket seats and optional harnesses and half roll cage, as well as race-derived brake cooling. In fact, both the anchors and powertrain are set for more cold air, as shown by carbon fibre NACA ducts on the nose and slats in the back (and probably lightweight plastic) windows.

With such a brilliant starting point in the GT4, we’re not expecting any drastic changes underneath the RS. Instead, a fine-tuning of existing hardware with geometry inspired by the Clubsport racer and a shifting of damping parameters towards the firmer side seems likely. We don’t need to explain what potential those chassis changes, coupled to a body producing more downforce and carrying less weight, would do to a mid-engined machine like this. Cue an afternoon of daydreaming that dream drive…

As the most performance-focussed version of the 718, however, the GT4 RS will almost certainly follow suit of 911 RSs and be PDK only, using the same ‘box that the ‘regular’ GT4 will receive as an option in 2020. But RS models are usually so razor sharp that the brilliantly quick shifts of Porsche’s dual-clutch transmission feel totally appropriate and add to the experience. An RS Porsche is, after all, essentially a set of stickers and slicks away from going full racing car.

The lack of camo on the development car suggests we’re not too far from meeting it officially. Naturally, we’ll all want one, but something tells us only those with £100,000 spare and close connections to a Porsche dealer are likely to find themselves behind the wheel of a GT4 RS in 2020. For the rest of us, there's an extended range of flat-six Caymans to get excited about, or these ready and waiting used GT4s.