fancying for a porsche - part 6

It turns out the photo of the white Cayman GT4 Clubsport that I so enamored belongs to a for sales advert. The brand new race car belongs to 9xx Racing in Berlin. Actually they have two of these for sale, with different amount of options.

Of all the white Cayman GT4 photos that I have seen, these are the best in the angles, lighting, and composition. The Clubsport MSRP in the US is about $165k and I am under the impression that it is no longer available new. If I have a place to store one and a trailer for it, I would seriously consider buying this one given the current strong US dollar and weak Euro. Though I have not research the import duty.

I so dig those wheels but alas, here in the US most buyers chose the almost satin-black wheels for the "baddest ass" look; this is one best composed photo of the white car in this angle

I am not a fan of the satin black wheels. They do not photograph well because the wheels are always in the shallow and the rims and the tires melt into black mess with little delineation. I hope I would change my view when seeing them first hand in different lighting conditions.

out of hundreds of photos of the white car with black wheels these are the few that the photographers took the effort to bring out the beauty (kudos goes to Porsche of Colorado Springs); note that the side is more illuminated than the horizontal surfaces

Examining more closely the above photo and many others that were taken by the same photographer I suspect the location of under the highway overpass was no accident. The photo was not taken with HDR, but the person took advantage of the natural lighting to achieve the result (without the wheels and tires melt into a black glob).

I started off really wanting the GT Silver color. Having seen the white and spent time with countless photos on the web I am extremely glad that I bought a white one. Silver is very subdue which was why my initial choice. Being the nature of the car for me white is my favorite. I would however grudgingly take a red, then a yellow. I will admit that had I were offered the allocation to order a GT4 new, I would likely order a GT silver and only to later regret that I didn't choose white. When I was configuring my Mini Cooper S back in 2004 I spent ample amount of time with the Mini's excellent online configuring tool and ultimately choose the creamy white, the cleanest looking wheels, and chrome mirrors. 12 years later I would still choose the same combination, and yes, without the sunroof option.

Until now I only have a vague idea that the tires are costly. The Michelin Sport Cup rear tire costs $525 each and that is before shaving and shipping. It is close to 1 foot wide. They last only a few track days' use.

this must had been taken in very overcast sky; I wonder if HDR mode of a smartphone was used

naturally the GT4 clubsport has the excellent Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) when 1/100 of a second counts

full factory rollcage

Here are some video that I found during my early research of the new Cayman 718 S. Like the saying goes, it is now water under the bridge. To me this is still an excellent sports coupe for daily use, especially if you choose the manual transmission. Yes, I would choose PDK for racing, and manual gearbox for daily road use including in traffic jams.

Here is a side by side illustrations of the Porsche manual gearbox and the PDK. The most astonishing is the PDK transmission is only about 10 to 20 pounds heavier. You can see that the main difference is the manual single clutch versus the computer controlled dual clutch assembly.

Porsche manual gearbox versus the paddle-shift/automatic PDK transmission

And the most amazing part is, the manual differential integral gearbox looks remarkably like that one in the humble 4-speed manual Vanagon. That right. Vanagon gets no respect from even drivers of even Yugo or Tata.

propaganda video on the B4 engine








this is an interesting video on the 718 Cayman S in Chinese; which must be produced by Porsche China (Taiwan) for domestic audiences


Funny that the exchanges of comment in Chinese on Youtube are just like those found in English.

Speaking of Chinese. Do you know the first generation Porsche Cayman and Boxster has a Hong Kong connection? Pinky Lai didn't just involved in the styling of the early Boxster and Cayman, but also the water-cooled 911 (991) which brought Porsche from the brink of insolvency. In Hong Kong Porsche is translated to 保時捷, translated as the reliable and swift keeper of time. So German and so apt.

Here is an interview with Pinky Lai, and an article in South China Morning Post.