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@FormerHangie , are there any nice CPO Caymans to be had? My brother scored a cherry 25kmi CPO Cayman a few years back, the car is awesome and he let someone else take the initial depreciation hit.
Still, I understand the buy new thing. You know it wasn't abused, and you can make sure it is maintained by the book.
There are a few around, but the inventory is really thin. I think I'd really like to have the active suspension, and it doesn't seem like many of the base models have it.
The Cayman is a better platform than the 911. GT4 is the trim level to get though.
If you're wanting to mostly track it, certainly, but I suspect it's a little hard edged for daily use. Plus it's an addtional $40,000.
Before you go with the automatic (yes I realize it's a dual clutch whatever they call it, but it's an automatic
), let me offer a couple of points to consider for the manual.
1) You said this is primarily going to be a street car, not a race car. The concept of super-fast shifts is something that matters much less in a street vehicle. If anything, you can have a more relaxing drive with more relaxing shifts vs. instantaneous shifts that make it feel like "Must be racing" and might make the car more boring in normal use. I say might because for me it would absolutely make it more boring in normal use, but I understand that's a personal preference.
2) You're not going to be competing on the track from what you've said. Track Night in America doesn't even have a "place", it's just about having fun on a track. So sure, for the few nights a year you do that it might feel more appropriately racey, but I would submit that at your point in driving it's about having an enjoyable time on the track rather than fully attempting to win because there's nothing to win.
Sure, competitive nature comes in for those of us who have it. But it seems to me that the automatic is spec'ing the car to be more race-ready when that's not what you really need out of the car.
The wife may prefer the automatic too, and that's certainly a consideration. But how much does she drive your car? My wife can drive manuals, although she always seems to prefer the automatics. She also rarely drives the manual transmission vehicles in the house. She has her cars, I have mine.
I had originally planned on getting one of the new 2.4 liter Subaru BRZs. If I were going to get that, I'd get the six speed manual for sure, I don't want a conventional hydraulic automatic in a sports car. Two problems with that, my wife would never drive it since she refuses to drive a stick, and while I've always wanted a Porsche, I've never really wanted a Subaru, so there's two good reasons to go with a Cayman. She rarely drives my car, usually about once a year when her car needs something, but she has no reason to want to drive my Fusion rather than her Explorer, she may feel differently about a Porsche. When we met, she was driving a Honda Prelude.
When I was 12 years old, my dad bought a VW based Meyers Manx clone dune buggy. One of his friends and I went out in it, and he asked be if I wanted to try driving it. Of course I did, and I stalled it once, after that I had no problems driving it. I drove exclusively stick shift until I was 33, when I traded my GTI for a Ford Aerostar van that I needed to pull my Formula Ford racecar. I drove that van for 10 years, but during almost all of that time, I had a Moto Guzzi V50 and the Formula Ford. When I quit racing, I got another stick shift car and drove it for 12 years. My current car is a plug in hybrid, because I needed an automatic to teach my daughters to drive. I thought I'd miss shifting, but I really didn't. Like I said earlier, I Turo'd a Mazda MX-5 last summer because my younger daughter wanted to try driving a stick, (she did great) but I found it didn't do much for me. I felt like I was trying to micromanage the drivetrain when I knew it would have been able to do a better job than I could.
For the last few years, I've been getting in a little track time here and there, both by renting Mustangs and a Camaro to do Track Night events, and also doing supercar drives with Xtreme Xperience. All the cars that XX provides are automatics of some type, they couldn't do what they do if the cars had a stick. I've driven an Audi R8, a Nissan GTR, a Ferrari 458 Italia, the C8 Corvette, and 911 GT3 and GT3 RSs, the Porsches three different times. I don't find that the dual clutch diminishes the driving experience, quite the opposite. One of the deals with track driving is that unless you're really well heeled and have a lot of spare time, you never get enough track time, and having the ECU handle shifting lets you focus on driving. It may not be what you'd want, but it is what I do.
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I don't disagree on the platform itself, but the problem for me is that to get to the overall performance of the 911 you have to spend $$$ to get it there and you're basically spending 911 money at that point. The base model Cayman isn't worth it, to me. Getting the GT4 would be my only option if I were going Cayman, just because of the 3.8L powerplant, but it's something like $90K which is where the 911 starts.
The best handling Porsche is the Cayman; I'd get one of the last six bangers, and not a base model, if I was going that way.
While I love the sound of a naturally aspirated flat 6 Porsche engine (and that's what I'd go for personally), part of what the OP is looking at is the experience of picking up his new car in Germany. That's something I've always wanted to do, and it's enough to make me consider buying a brand new German car, if and when I could afford such a thing.
Caymans are available with four engines, the base comes with a 2.0 liter 300 hp four, the S comes with a 2.5 liter 350 hp four, the GTS 4.0 which has a 394 hp normally aspirated six, and the GT4, which has a 414 hp normally aspirated six, so you can get a new one with a six. In my case, I already feel a bit self indulgent spending another $20,000 on top of the $75,000 that the base model would go for. I'm also looking for some balance between the amount of power a car has and its grip. I'll be approaching age 65 if and when this happens, I don't need something overly fast to where I can't get close to the car's limits, because my personal limits won't let me.
A wealthy friend who is a Porscheophile is a believer in 3 year leases. New ones are fairly maintenance intensive and you move to the next one before the big dollar stuff hits.
Another friend, less wealthy, was using a Cayman as his daily driver (Marietta-Cartersville) and was *real surprised* the first time it needed tires and brakes. He immediately made it "not the daily driver".
Me? I'm a bit old school. I've been looking at early 70's 911's. Much friendlier to the DIY mechanic. But prices on 10+ year old Boxsters are attractive. Prices on 10 year old Miatas are attractive too, as are maintenance costs.
But I'd love to have a current Cayman.
The real answer is "Do you want one, and can you afford it?" After that, it is about priorities.
Every year or so, I prepare a document for my wife with all our financials, in case I suddenly kick the bucket. I did that last week and came to the conclusion that we can afford this, and it wouldn't affect any of our other priorities. A number of years ago, I started talking about getting a Porsche one day, and that the best way to do that was tourist delivery, and she didn't seem to mind the idea. When we bought the boat six years ago, I thought it was gone, but looking at things now, I do believe it's possible. Hopefully my wife will agree. She ought to, I haven't spent very much on my cars since we've been married, far, far less that what we've spent on hers, plus she got that stupid expensive kitchen remodel a few years ago.
