SportAuto has a thing about taking some interesting new rides at the Hockenheim GP, and for their latest venture, they chose the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4.
The formidable German sports car is part of a dying breed. It has a 4.0-liter, naturally aspirated flat-six that works in conjunction with a six-speed manual transmission, ditching the turbocharging/dual-clutch combination that has practically taken over the sports car market.
With 420 PS (414 hp / 309 kW) and 420 Nm (310 lb-ft) of torque available on tap, performance is on par with older supercars. Nought to 100 km/h (0-62 mph) takes only 4.4 seconds, and flat out, it will do 304 km/h (189 mph).
Watch: 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Meets 991 GT2 RS, 997 GT3 RS For A Tire-Slaying Fest
Thanks to the numerous improvements, the new Cayman 718 GT4 is 10 seconds faster than its predecessor at the Nurburgring Nordschleife. It also lapped the Hockenheim GP in 1:55.00, but what does that mean?
By looking at the unofficial lap times posted by FastestLaps, we can see that it was actually quicker than the modern Honda NSX by 0.3 seconds, and faster than the Mercedes-AMG GT S, BMW M5 Competition and M2 CS, as well as the Corvette Grand Sport, Lamborghini Urus and Aston Martin Vantage. If you’re wondering about the M2 CS, which was just introduced this week, SportAuto had the chance to lap the track with a camouflaged prototype in September (see video here).
The 718 Cayman GT4 was equally fast to the 911 Carrera S Cabrio and nearly half a second slower than the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. The (discontinued) McLaren MP4-12C Spider posted a time of 1:54.10 and the 991 GT3 did a 1:53.90.
You can watch what is arguably one of the best driver’s cars to come out of Weissach go from apex to apex, fighting the clock, in the following video.
