Gadgetory

but caiman this is the hardtop cousin to the Boxster but this is no ordinary Cayman this one's 120 pounds lighter about an inch lower about 10 horsepower stronger than any other car that wears this badge you're going to break your butt getting into it and sweat it off once you do and you're still going to love it let's drive to 2012 came and are and check the tip okay first it tells you're getting into a caiman arm is Oh God that pain in your lower sacroiliac this thing's got these racing seats that have these unforgiving bolsters on the side it's a good indication this is not your normal everyday road going Porsche from there you start to notice right away how they've saved late on this little guy and that's tough to do on a car that's already small and light in it's more pedestrian trim but things like this that's a door pole there's no handle or even a nice little plastic cover to hide that screw head this that's a heater there's no air conditioning you can even get rid of the stereo and have two great big ole empty gaping storage bins right there unless you option this thing up with Bose or the PCM navigation head unit which I wouldn't do in this car you're stuck with a real crappy sounding stereo system but here's my real gripe on this head unit it looks like hell grayscale lousy typography now here's our standard no extra charge six-speed manual gearbox on this guy but if you've got 3700 more burning a hole in your pocket and you've got a lazy left leg you can get the Porsche PDK that's their dual clutch automated manual super easy spotters tip to idea Cayman are normally on a Boxster for example or most of the 911s now you've got an electric wing back here that pops up under a motorized situation out on this guy you've got a fixed kind of a fast and furious deal here real ugly but make it easy to pick one of these out of the crowd now came in like a Boxster is a mid-engine car so front back doesn't matter what lid you lift you're not going to see any motor in this thing until you go under and getting under is a trick because this guy is almost an inch lower than a standard came in which is not exactly a high rider oh and check this out not often you see a car where you jack up the back and the whole front comes up too that's a stiff shell okay this is the portion of course we're looking at a flat six three point four liter horizontally-opposed engine dry sump lubrication hence you don't have some big crankcase hanging down 330 horsepower 273 foot-pounds of torque gets this guy up to sixty and four point seven seconds through the gearbox which you can see sticking out the back here rear wheel drive only but this isn't a dragster it's a canyon car let's go see so again 330 horsepower out of a 3.4 liter naturally aspirated engine direct injection in this car and variable valve timing to the enth degree do wonders to have it always on camp but the real reason you buy Cayman is because it's mid-engine because you're on a road like this or it feels like God's stuck a spike through the thing right back behind me and everything turns right on that axis but this car isn't so overwhelming that you can't drive it at even 50 percent of its limit you can even ring 70 percent out of it when you're on an ice road and that's the kind of car I like as you probably know by now not some car with 500 horsepower and turbos and crazy spikey power that isn't about the real world here's a car you can really stretch your legs out in while it stretches its legs out on the pavement and does a real nice job of that very linear very predictable I really enjoy this caiman are but it's a car that I would buy simple and keep it simple that means you're gonna start around 67 grand and not go much higher yeah you can load it up with ceramic brakes and Bose audio and Navin sport chrono and who knows how many interior tweaks but that's gonna push you perilously close to the base price of a 911 GTS and that's a modern classic with I think substantially different investment value than this guy buy it light keep it light and manage that grin on your face you'll be busy enough