The Long and Winding Road - First Impressions
Because I live far, far, away from Porsche Centres, and Porsche Chester in particular, I had the best possible opportunity to give my brand new GTS a decent run-in on the long journey home to my abode in the Highlands. As the weather was good, I decided to take the scenic Cairngorm mountain route from Aberdeen, via the superb A939 Corgarff- Tomintoul road to Grantown-on-Spey, then onward to my home on the Moray Coast. Those of you who are familiar with this route will know just how enjoyable it is.
I commenced my journey from Porsche Chester on Thursday January 3rd with the odometer reading 8 miles, and by the time I arrived home on Saturday January 5th, the mileage reading was 494 miles.
The first 350 miles of my journey was on boring motorways and dual carriageways. Steering movements were minuscule, only a few degrees from dead centre, and the PCCB brakes were occasionally only lightly brushed, while cruise control kept the speed regulated to strict legal limits on the speed camera infested M6, M74, and A90. This is not driving as I understand it. I do not envy those who have to endure this over-regulated environment on a daily basis.
The remaining 150 miles to my home town was of an entirely different category. The A939 is part of Visit Scotland's so called Snow Road. The route originally was the Old Military Road built by General Wade following the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. This road has featured in many motor magazine road tests and is one of the most satisfying driver's roads in the UK. For this final leg of my journey I selected Manual shift and Sport mode. As I am always diligent with running-in my new cars I kept the revs below 4000 rpm. This proved no impediment to very rapid progress on the crests and dips, hairpin bends, and open fast-flowing corner combinations that abound on this fabulous route. Due to the time of year the road was practically empty of other traffic, and the road surface was dry with excellent visibility.
First impressions of the 2019 718 Cayman GTS.
My car has the Gasoline Particulate Filter (GPF) fitted, to comply with the World Light Vehicle Testing Protocol (WLTP) which came into effect on September 1st 2018. On the 718 the GPF is a single large diameter unit designed to remove soot particles from the exhaust gasses. The GPF is in addition to the normal catalysers. The resulting exhaust note is different from my previous 718 CS, only by a small margin perhaps but a step in the right direction. I was surprised to see the Porsche Sports Exhaust still fitted to the GPF 718, I had been under the impression that this option had been discontinued. To my ears, I would say the difference in sound is on the positive side. The GTS has a new upgraded variable vane turbo, and a revised induction tract with modified ECU engine mapping to produce an extra 15hp, giving 365hp and another 10nm torque, now upped to 430nm on PDK cars. In real terms, on the very familiar road I was driving, this translated into a noticeable performance gain compared to my previous 718 CS. This seemed far more than the modest extra torque gain on paper. The maximum torque graph on the 718 GTS covers the best part of 3000 revs, (2100rpm to 5000rpm), compared to 2600 revs, (1900rpm to 4500rpm) on the S engine. This torque gain resulted in very robust acceleration exiting uphill hairpin bends for example. The GTS has a novel torque graphic on the instrument cluster. This displays a torque and revs graph with an orange blob which moves along the graph as the torque builds leaving a fading comet-tail trail behind it. Very amusing. For driving safety, best not to get to fixated on this toy during the heat of the moment. When the torque kicks-in big time, progress is very rapid indeed.
On the handling, I would say the GTS has a revised PASM map. Compared to my previous 718 CS, which had identical suspension, wheel and tyre combinations to my GTS, the new car rides decidedly firmer when in Normal mode. On my previous CS Normal mode had a more compliant nature over surface ripples and undulations. Not so with the GTS. The Normal mode ride is more akin to the 987.2 Cayman R in my opinion. Switching between Normal and Sport modes on the GTS the ride firmness did not seem to change that much. Only when Sport Plus was selected did the suspension revert to the extreme hard ride more suited to the race track than on the public road.
Steering, tyres and brakes.
I cannot overstate the importance of specifying the Power Steering Plus (PSP) option in conjunction with the 20mm lower Sports PASM. The resulting extra road feel this gives to the Electric Power Steering (EPS) when driving on fast twisty roads or on track days is a highly significant benefit for the keen driver. As yet, I have not made any adjustments to the wheel alignment geometry, this will be done next month after the suspension springs and control arm bushing has bedded-in. Even so, the enhanced steering feel of the new 718 GTS with PSP is uncannily good. It has come a long, long, way from the mainstream 981 models where the steering feel fell well short of expectations for the keen driver.
To my utter dismay, my new car came from the factory fitted with Pirelli P-Zeros. This was despite my requests for Michelin tyres to be fitted. As previously mentioned on my previous thread, the P-Zero N1 tyres appear over-stretched on the wider Carrera Sport rims. It's almost as if they are a section size too small for the rim width. This is particularly noticeable on the rears. Following my extensive pleas from the heart to Porsche Chester, we came to an arrangement whereby Michelin Pilot Sport 4S N0 tyres were retro-fitted for a small extra premium. For my purposes this was acceptable. It made my new car perfect and my grin even wider at the handover.
This car is the first of my 5 Caymans to have Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes (PCCB) fitted. There's no denying it's a very expensive option at a tad over £5k. Before deciding on this significant inflation of my final invoice price, I spoke to many Porsche owners at the various track days I attended last year regarding their experiences with PCCB. All were positive. Superior stopping power, handling benefits due to the much lighter unsprung weight, lack of brake dust, were the main benefits expressed. There were also benefits come re-sale time, as Porsches equipped with PCCB earned an improved trade-in value than those cars without the ceramic brakes. On my mountain route north I had ample opportunity to explore the performance of the PCCB in normal road driving conditions. (Normal for the Scottish Highlands that is!). The pedal feel is absolutely superb, neither over-firm nor over-sensitive. Huge stopping potential was ably demonstrated on the steep downhill sections of my route. I am very much looking forward to testing the PCCB brakes properly on my next track day at Oulton Park on March 8th.
So there we have it for now. My first 500 miles up and so far I'm delighted with my new 718 Cayman GTS PDK. It's an expensive car when specced with the keen driver's options such as PCCB. The invoice price for my car was £74,196. When you consider the entry level 911 is now over £90k, and the Carrera S tops £100k when specced with only nice paint, a well specced 718 Cayman GTS fills the bill quite nicely if you are in the market for a current model new Porsche sports car with PDK. Also, the 718 Cayman GTS PDK is 911 quick.
So far I'm delighted.
Some photos for your interest follow.
Brian
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