Instant Alert: We drove a $95,000 Porsche Cayman to see if the sports car lives up to the hype — here's the verdict

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We drove a $95,000 Porsche Cayman to see if the sports car lives up to the hype — here's the verdict

by Benjamin Zhang on Mar 14, 2018, 9:27 AM

Porsche 718 Cayman and the 718 Boxster makes up the company's mid-engine lineup.
In 2017, Porsche debuted the third generation Cayman sports car with a pair of new turbocharged, flat-four-cylinder engines.
The new engines proved to be controversial as they delivered great performance, but lackluster sound.
Our Porsche 718 Cayman S was powered by a 350 horsepower, 2.5-liter, turbocharged flat-four.

The Porsche 718 Cayman is arguably one of the most overlooked cars on the market today. And it's not because it isn't a good car. It's actually a great car. A world-class sports car of the highest order if I may be so bold. But it also lacks the superlatives that have been heaped on its corporate siblings.

Here's what I mean by that.

The 911 is Porsche's heart and soul. While the 718 Boxster is the car that saved Porsche from financial ruin in the late 1990s. The money it made from the Boxster paid for the Cayenne which revolutionized the luxury SUV market while the Macan is the best selling Porsche in the world. And then there's the Panamera, the critically acclaimed luxury sedan has been the darling of the automotive industry over the past year. It's also Business Insider's reigning car of the year.

That brings us back the to Cayman. For many, it was simply seen as the Boxster with a fixed roof. (Technically, that's true and Porsche recent decision to move the both the Boxster and the Cayman under the 718 moniker only serves to reinforce that notion.)

But the reality is that the Cayman is a mid-engined, built-from-the-ground-up, pure-bred, Porsche sports car with a personality of its own.

For years, the rumor has been that Porsche restricted the Cayman's performance, preventing it from realizing its true potential in order to protect the iconic 911. Well, they aren't anymore. With the introduction of the Cayman GT4 in 2016 and the new turbo 718s, Porsche seems to have loosed the reins on its pint-sized sports cars.

Business Insider had a chance to experience the new 718 Cayman S first hand in December on the roads in and around Atlanta, Georgia.

Our 2017 Porsche 718 Cayman S test car started $66,300. The Cayman S carries over for the 2018 model year with no mechanical changes. However, the base has been raised slightly to $67,700 to account for inflation and Porsche's new standard maintenance plan. Options and fees tacked on $28,625 to our 2017 test car and pushed the as-tested price to $94,925. An identically optioned 2018 Cayman S would cost $96,890.

Here's a closer look at the Porsche 718 Cayman S:

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