Hype vs. Reality: Living With the Porsche GT4 RS

Story by Tina Chau. Photography by Travis Gallatin.

Breaking the Box: The GT3 Engine in the Mid-Chassis

For decades, the Porsche Cayman was relegated to a carefully guarded box: lauded by some experts as possessing the superior chassis, it was always deliberately hamstrung by the factory to avoid overshadowing the flagship 911.Then came the 718 GT4 RS. Porsche finally did the unthinkable—they shoved the 9,000-RPM engine from the 911 GT3 explicitly into the middle of the Cayman, creating a piece of mechanical art projecting symphonic intake noise and a wonderful display of carbon fiber. It is the Avant-Garde GT car of Porsche.The GT4 RS was initially notorious for its difficulty of attainment and dealer markups that pushed its price into Ferrari territory. But now that the smoke has cleared, what is it actually like to own?