2025 Porsche’s Cayman GTS review: a riot on the road

Remember when life on the road was one of simple pleasures? Of naturally aspirated engines, manual transmissions and cars that felt under no obligation to scold you if you broke a speed limit by 1mph or dared avert your gaze from the road for a fraction of a second to turn up the volume on the radio? To the common-or-garden tester of modern cars, such days feel as distant as they do enchanted.

And it’s getting worse. Microphone-equipped cameras are now popping up measuring your exhaust noise, and if it’s any louder than its certification documents say it should be, you’re going to get billed. Someone told me at the Bicester Scramble that they’d been pinged for not turning off their engine at some traffic lights…
And it is indicative of how miserable is the lot of the modern motorist that my first thoughts upon climbing aboard this Porsche Cayman GTS were not for its fabulous 4-litre flat-six turbo-free engine, the balance of its handling or the lucidity of its steering, but the fact it’s probably the last new car I’ll ever drive that lets you do just that: drive. No bings, no bongs, no electronic brain thinking it can steer better than you. Just get in, belt up and drive.

So of course you can’t buy one any more. The Cayman and Boxster were killed in Europe some time ago because their security systems were deemed to be not up to regulatory snuff and now they’ve gone in the UK, to be replaced by new cars that sit on an all new EV platform.

Of course the new electric Cayman and Boxster were conceived when people thought electric cars in general would be rather more popular than has so far transpired and electric sports cars in particular: the MG Cyberster is the only one on sale in the UK, just 360 have been sold in the last 18 months according to the How Many Left? website, of which close to 20% are now currently for sale again on Autotrader. The Porsches will, of course, fare better for all sorts of reasons, but the company is clearly nervous about it, and sufficiently so to communicate very recently that ‘top’ models will be fitted with internal combustion engines after all, which would require more than a little re-engineering to achieve.

The outgoing car is simply gorgeous. I took it across my favourite Welsh mountain roads as a kind of valedictory rite and to see, hear and feel it one last time. The Cayman has always been Porsche’s slowest-selling car despite the fact that I could build a sizeable argument to say that, for the money, it is its best too. And this version is the best of them.

Too soon we forget how well-engineered, large-capacity, multi-cylinder engines behave, because there are barely any left. The way the power arrives, not all at once as in an EV, or after you’ve waited for boost to build in turbo motors, but steadily, with ever-increasing urge and aural excitement is a rare delight. If you’ve been driving turbo cars for years you’ve probably forgotten what proper throttle response feels like, or an engine that goes to eight grand sounds like. The Cayman does all this.

“On roads like these, the calibre of this car’s handling is of the highest order”

And yet what is most remarkable about this car, and the key differentiator between it and a 911 (besides price and number of seats) is that the flat six, for all its undoubted glories, is not the headline act in the same way it is in its illustrious stablemate; it’s the supporting cast, letting the real star turn shine brighter.
Find yourself on roads like these and you’ll know in an instant what it is, for the calibre of this car’s handling is of the highest order. People so often equate handling with grip when it is, at best, a small component of what makes such a car memorable to drive. So many other factors that never get mentioned – the driving position, the location of major controls, all-round visibility and even something as apparently minor as the material from which the steering wheel rim is covered are, to me, just as important. And the Cayman gets every one of them right.

You don’t drive it in time-honoured ‘slow-in, fast-out’ 911 tradition to maximise the advantage and attenuate the drawbacks of having your engine outside the wheelbase; in the Cayman ‘fast-in, fast-out’ is the order of the day. Carry the speed, keep off the brakes, maintain the equilibrium and watch this fly. Feel it too as the suspension takes the strain and the grin widens. And when you’re done, cruise home quietly and comfortably, and marvel at its bandwidth.

That’s why I’m going to miss it. There’s so little to criticise. The fuel consumption ain’t great and the interior looks old – but that’s about it. Like all the best Porsches it’s not merely how fun it is to drive, but how that fun is so easily accessed.

So I wait with breath duly bated for its replacement. What an act it has to follow. It’s just as well, then, that no one will know that better than Porsche.

Porsche Cayman GTS

• Price £75,300
• Engine 4.0 litres, six cylinders, petrol
• Power 394bhp
• Torque 317lb ft
• Weight 1435kg (DIN)
• Power to weight 275bhp per tonne
• Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
• 0-62mph 4.0sec
• Top speed 179mph
• Economy 28.0mpg
• CO2 230g/km
• Verdict Gives instant, total confidence.

What’s the big idea?
Look out Range Rover, here’s Hyundai’s SUV
Yes, the Hyundai Ioniq 9 is a vast electric SUV. Not as attractive as the Range Rover, nor does it ride or handle with the same aplomb, but it’s far more spacious and therefore better at the business of getting a large number of people from over here to over there. At £65,000, it’s worth a look.
Verdict: It knows what it’s for and does it.

Twingo a-go-go
Another retro-styled EV from Renault
A new Twingo, the fourth generation, is due in mid-2026, shamelessly apeing the style of the original, and after the rapturous reception enjoyed by Renault’s 4 and 5 EVs, hopes will be sky-high that the Twingo will be another cracker. It will be priced from around £17,000.

Ferrari ev takes shape   
Technical details released about the Elettrica 
I’ve seen no evidence that a significant percentage of high-net-worths are stoked by the idea of electric supercars. But the Ferrari Elettrica is still coming and will be
a 1000bhp, two-door, four-seater capable of 0-62mph in 2.5sec. It will likely sit in the same space as the long-gone GTC4 Lusso, but at prices starting at £350,000.