Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS review: you’ll never want to get out of it

Porsche’s GT4 RS is is phenomenally loud even before you push a button to make it louder still. But oh, my sweet lord, what a sound.

Sounds like thunder: the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS

I was drawn recently to some YouTube footage of a new idea for home car storage. It’s like a shipping container with no sides; you drive in, press a button, and the whole thing slides underground, leaving no trace on the surface. I think the idea is that if you live in a city you can have secure off-street parking as well as a small garden, which is located on the roof of your “garage”. But it would be perfect for people, like me, who want to hide their guilty secret. You have mates round for a barbecue and they won’t realise, as they’re having a cold beer among your geraniums, that they’re right on top of your thousand-horsepower destroyer of worlds.

This came to me after a man from Porsche dropped off the new GT4 RS, which I figured would be a red rag to all of the plant-based types who live around this neck of the woods these days. It’s a car you might want, but it’s not a car you’d want to have on your drive.

I was wrong. Everyone who came to my door while it was out there swooned and cooed and wanted to sit in it. One girl, who has a shop selling linen with little flowers on it, even asked whether it had Pirelli Cup tyres. It was strange, but then it turned out that all of these people have spent the past few weeks watching Drive to Survive on Netflix and they’re all now fully paid-up petrolheads.

The GT4 RS is weird because in essence what Porsche has done is taken the naturally aspirated flat-six, four-litre engine from the bigger and more expensive 911 GT3 and plonked it in the smaller 718. It wasn’t that simple, obviously. It needed a new exhaust system that would fit round the rear suspension, for example, and that’s why it’s not quite as powerful as it is in a GT3. But you end up with a whopping 368kW in a car that is lighter and smaller, and therefore more nimble.

I liked the sound of this because, in recent years, the 911 has been getting a bit big. It was becoming more of a supercar really, and that’s not what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a sports car. And sports cars are little. Think MG. Think Spitfire. Think Mazda MX5. And now think Porsche GT4 RS.

Actually you can’t think GT4 RS because when you’re in it it’s so loud you can’t even hear what’s happening in your own head. You can’t hear anything at all, except the engine. It is phenomenally loud even before you push a little button on the centre console that makes it louder still. But oh, my sweet lord, what a sound. It’s not what I call a “cheat” noise either. It’s not created by moving flaps around in the exhaust pipes or amplifying the noise through the stereo speakers. It’s the sound of this car breathing in through its carbon fibre ears, which are located where the rear side windows used to be. The downside is that you can’t see what’s coming at oblique junctions, but the death or serious injury that may result from this is a small price to pay.

A lot of enthusiasts will no doubt moan that it’s not available with a manual gearbox, but I didn’t mind at all. In fact I just happily tugged away at those flappy paddles as I was going along. Not because I wanted to change gear especially; I was simply using them like organ stops.

Now at this point you might imagine this car was designed mainly for track days. Not so. It’s stiff, for sure, and it has all the carbon fibre and downforce talking points that are necessary among track-day people, which, thanks to Drive to Survive, is now everyone, but it’s surprisingly compliant on the road. It may not have the GT3’s double-wishbone front suspension, but it doesn’t really matter. You can literally fling the GT4 RS around the place and it reacts like an excited puppy, squealing and wagging its tail and making barky noises. In a GT3 you nod sagely when it does something well. In its baby brother you burst out laughing.

In fact, you won’t have to worry about where you’re going to park it because you’ll never want to get out of it. I came home from the local pub in it last Saturday, via Exeter, which is 200km away. And I deliberately left my wallet there so I’d have to go back.

Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS

ENGINE: 4.0-litre six-cylinder petrol (368kW/450Nm). Average fuel

13.2 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Seven-speed twin-clutch automatic, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: From $300,800

RATING: ★★★★