This Is How The Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Was Born

"I was very close to Wolfgang Hatz, and he said, 'Hey, come on, let's take a GT3 engine, and put it in a GT4. I know it doesn't fit, but we have to weld a little bit and use tools, just to see how it feels'. This must have been sometime in 2015 or 2016. So that's a great idea, but we never did it because it was just too much to do. And then his birthday came up, and we said, OK, we'll make a surprise for him. We'll make a prototype with the GT3 engine in a 981 because we wanted to do it anyway. And that was how the first test mule came into life." This tidbit of information was revealed to TopGear in what seems to have been a very playful, memorable conversation.

The first attempt at a GT4 RS was apparently so loud that it was nearly undrivable, but with a manual gearbox at play, it was an insane amount of fun.

"The car was absolutely amazing," beams Preuninger. "It was super loud so we already had the idea to get the air from the rear windows. And it was almost undrivable loud. But it was so much fun and it had a manual gearbox and we did a little bit of livery for his birthday. Anyway, we hid it in his garage and everyone's waiting in his garden for a surprise party and I was sitting in the garage and when he came, I cranked up the car and pumped the gas, and he's going 'what's in my garage?' and the garage opened and the car came out." Seriously, working for Porsche must be the best job on the planet.

Preuninger and Hatz were so impressed with the creation that they took it to a CEO meeting at Weissach proving ground, and everyone present was instantly blown away. After that meeting, things got on a serious roll, but the project would not be able to fit in the 981 life cycle, so it was decided that the 718 would play host to this beautifully crazy idea.

For those not in the know, the 2022 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS is powered by a 4.0-liter flat-six making 493 horsepower at 8,300 rpm and will spin right up to 9,000 rpm. A peak torque figure of 331 lb-ft is also made high up in the rev range. The GT4 RS will bolt to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, and top out at 196 mph. Power is sent to the rear via Porsche's PDK wizardry.

In a world where fast ICE cars are a dying breed, the Cayman GT4 RS stands as a bastion of exuberance, and the manner in which it was birthed was just as jaunty.