The original Porsche Cayman GT4 marked a new zenith for a car often cast aside as the 911’s little sibling when it was launched back in 2015. More than just the most performance-oriented and track-focused variant of the 981 model, the GT4 broke new ground for the Cayman nameplate on a whole, giving it a new but well-deserved persona as a serious mid-ship sports car that’s as desirable as it is engaging. 

It didn’t take long for Stuttgart to have a second go at a car that took so long to arrive it skipped the first generation of Caymans entirely. With such a lofty benchmark set from the get-go, the latest 718 Cayman GT4 has a lot to prove to justify its badge and price; the latter starting from a whopping RM958,632 in Malaysia. Having gunned it over a few laps around the southern half of the Sepang International Circuit, here’s what we can safely conclude…  

3. Its back-to-basics formula trains you to be a better driver around Sepang’s technical corners

From attainable hot hatches to the hyper-est of hypercars, a great deal of modern-day cars built with performance in mind are overly compensated by sensors and electronics that end up doing a bulk of the hard work for you when the going gets tough. The Cayman GT4 is not entirely innocent of this ‘crime’, with its auto rev-matching doing a staggeringly good job of transforming the clumsiest of gear shifts into expertly-timed manoeuvres; a PDK dual-clutch transmission is also available as an option. But it stays true to its no-nonsense, drive-it-yourself charm by allowing you to switch such aids off completely and truly take control of the elements. 

A couple of laps in, doing so exposed us for the frauds we were, with the previously slick gear changes turning into an amateur racket that can be heard from the paddock. As a true extension of its driver, the Cayman GT4 isn’t afraid of being vulnerable and opening up its top-end potential to the most casual of drivers. That you’re forced to row your own gears while managing a source of power you can count on being much more linear than a heavily turbo-ed mill really gets the brain more invested in things like braking points, steering angles and racing lines; a driving geek’s dream so to speak, one which really maximises every inch of the track and every minute on it. That the GT4’s driving limits stretch far and wide by the standards of a rear-driven, track-focused sports car is another bonus altogether.  

For seasoned track-goers, this buff in aerodynamics paired to the Cayman’s sticky Michelins, linear engine response and lovely mid-engined balance allows you to fully explore the GT4’s grip thresholds while hunting apexes in a way that’s immensely rewarding yet relatively low on risk. This addictive sensation is highly scalable; accessible to even to the wariest of amateurs who have never done a lap of Sepang in their lives, such is the powertrain’s charm and the chassis’s sound setup. 

5. You can simply drive it home once you’re done on the track

For all of its talents on the circuit, the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 is still a road-legal car, even if it does have a roll cage and full bucket seats that can be specified with a six-point harness. While we can’t validate this for certain, there’s a nagging suspicion that it’ll excel on public roads too due to how easy it is to modulate the GT4’s throttle and shift through its gears, especially with auto rev matching left on. And although its suspension and optional ceramic composite brakes are clearly specced with track days in mind, they’ll still come in handy on weekend jaunts up your favourite B-roads.