PERFORMANCE CAR OF THE YEAR
PORSCHE CAYMAN GT4 RS
WORDS ROWAN HORNCASTLE
The origins of a mid-engined Cayman powered by the GT3’s mighty 4.0-litre, 9,000rpm flat six may not be what you think.
“I was very close to Wolfgang Hatz [Porsche’s R&D chief],” Andreas Preuninger, boss of Porsche’s GT car department told TopGear. “One day he said ‘Hey, come on, let’s take a GT3 engine, and put it in a GT4’.”
Requiring retooling and a lot of surgery to get a new heart in, the GT department knew it was a pain to do, so they left it. But, some time later, Wolfgang Hatz’s birthday came up and Andreas Preuninger didn’t have a present for him. That’s when he had a lightbulb moment knowing an iTunes gift voucher wouldn’t quite cut it.