wikedgolf
10-10-2005, 02:53 PM
http://motortrend.com/features/news/112_news0508_porsche_l.jpg
First Drive: 2006 Porsche Cayman
Son Rise: The spirit of the early, edgy 911 is born again in Porsche's new Boxster-derived coupe
By Paul Horrell
Photography by the Manufacturer
Motor Trend, July 2005
Heinz Bernhard does it so you don't have to. In the Arctic, he endures temperatures so cold they'd make you cry, and the tears would freeze to your cheeks. Through high summers in South Africa and Death Valley, he throws himself into nature's ovens, working in air so hot it's violent. He drives on rough, remote tracks, avoiding the comfort of strangers. He seeks out humidity and dust. Wherever across the globe there are road conditions inimical to the automobile, Bernhard has probably spent time. As head of testing for Porsche, he has to find the best ways to punish and erode and curtail the lives of the company's prototypes. It's by surviving life with Bernhard that Porsches emerge so fit and strong.
His latest charge is the new Cayman S. By the time Motor Trend joins the program, the Cayman's already survived the horror phases of its test regime. It's had its suspension--Boxster but more hard-core--set up at full tire-melting pelt. Its engine--an amalgam of Boxster and 911--has been engineered, dyno'd, proven, and calibrated. The complete car has done its cycles of hot testing, cold testing, endurance testing. Vital work is still underway, but on this sunny day, Bernhard can perform his duties free of any great physical discomfort. Hey, we're even close to some fine vineyards and quality restaurants, and, as I soon happily discover, when the chance arises Bernhard likes to treat himself and his crew well.
The dateline is April, in South Africa, six months ahead of the car's international public reveal at the Frankfurt auto show. (And in exchange for such access, we had to sign scary legal indemnities not to publish before now.) A casual look at these prototypes, bar the disguises, might not distinguish them from the finished article. Today's task list is all about checking driveability and chasing down rattles and squeaks. Even though the main modules of dash, doors, and seats are basically Boxster stock, everything above the waist and aft of the driver in this feisty-looking hatchback coupe is new and needs proving.
I'm driving as Bernhard directs our convoy along a coarsely surfaced roadway. Next to me is Cayman project managing engineer Jan Roth. From somewhere behind us, there's a faint twitter from the trim. Roth is delighted at the lousy quality of the road Bernhard has found. "The frequency of bumps is just ideal," he grins. As I drive, he cranes his neck around the cockpit, trying to isolate the rattle. No success. So he climbs out of the passenger seat, wedging his not inconsiderable frame into the thin space between engine and rear windshield. From there, he uses a short-range microphone linked to amplified headphones and a noise analyzer, scanning the boot area and isolating a rattle so faint I've been barely hearing it.
We stop the car, and the two Porsche mechanics who've been following us jump into the trunk, strip away the trim around the tailgate, and refit it with new, plumper rubber cushions. The change is logged, and that new rubber will--once it's been checked several more times, of course--find its way into the production spec.
Each car carries a thick logbook, its cover marked STRENG VERTRAULICH in big red capitals ("strictly confidential," but doesn't it sound so much more fierce in German?), where every observation and fault and change is meticulously logged. An entry also is made this hour about a 5400-rpm exhaust boom on the silver prototype. Meanwhile, the techs plug in a laptop that records and checks some 40 engine parameters: temperature, pressure, mixture, electronics, and performance.
We have two cars, a silver six-speed stick-shifter with the optional switchable adaptive dampers and a five-speed Tiptronic outfitted with the Sport Chrono pack (where pressing a button tightens up the throttle response and loosens the stability program). This one also has ceramic brakes--certainly a wow factor, but with an autobox it's an uneasy tux-'n'-sneakers combo. Both are on 19-inch wheels, which will be an option.
On those 19s, wearing 235/35 front and 265/35 rear tires, and with the other hot options of PASM and ceramic brakes, rally weltmeister Walter Rohrl has hustled a prototype Cayman S around the Nuerburgring tracks in eight minutes, 11 seconds. Compare that with an eight-minute, 17-second time for a Boxster S and eight minutes, seven seconds for a 911 (both with all the go-faster option boxes ticked), and you see how Porsche can legitimately claim the Cayman S fills the slot between Boxster S and 911. To make things clearer, there'll be no base Cayman for at least a year.
And, yes, from the narrow, clinching driver's seat, this car circulates the blood even faster than the Boxster S. For a start, the engine blows through your brain like a typhoon. It's noisier than any Boxster or even most 911s, not just because it's right behind you, but because sound also ricochets off the rear windshield. The effect is glorious, though the engineers kept asking whether I thought it was a bit insistent on a cruise--they've spent much effort quelling it. Well, it's certainly never inaudible, but why buy a mid-engine flat-six and not want to hear it? The engine performs as insistently as it sings. It's not just the 295 horsepower as the rev-counter homes in on 7000, it's the even spread of torque and instant punch that adds to the all-around throttle-foot friendliness. The secret of this midrange is the 911 cylinder head: It has Porsche's variable valve timing and lift system, Variocam Plus, a tweak the Boxster S does without.
To better make use of a body shell that's twice as strong in bending stiffness as the Boxster's, the suspension is more stiffly set up. Oh, it still feels like a Boxster derivative, and that's a great thing. It still has that perfectly damped feel--that sense of using all four tires to maximum advantage--of pivoting directly around your spine, of avoiding pitching and corkscrewing. But now you get even less roll, sharper responses, and amazing grip. The special gainer is the steering. It was always accurate and lucid, but with the extra body stiffness, it's found an even deeper transparency now, sending up an awesome real-time feed from the tire treads. And, remember, we're on some crappy roads, where it does the miracle combo of filtering away any kickback over bumps while still passing on the adhesion news. And the stiffness hasn't killed ride comfort. Even on 19-inch wheels it still knocks all the sharp edges off the worst roads. I know this because occasionally I swap into the Cayenne chase car, and that thing shakes like it's having a fit.
Swapping from Cayman to Cayenne gives different angles from which to eye up the Cayman's style, even with its frustrating disguise. Most striking is the rear-quarter view. Roth is proud of it, so on one four-lane highway, I drive the silver Cayman in echelon with the blue one up ahead, so we can take the long view of those curvy hips and the sexy valley between the fender tops and the tapering fastback glass. Roth says the manufacturing of that fender pressing was one of the engineers' most challenging issues. The Cayman also has different side pressings from a Boxster's: The rocker panel has a contour that sweeps up to the side intake vent, which itself has angled slats rather than the horizontal ones in the Boxster. All in all, the Cayman looks purposeful: strong, waspish, and compact. Whether that'll be enough to differentiate it from the Boxster by the degree Porsche hopes for is another question. Most cars are cheaper in coupe form than convertible. If you view the Cayman S as a hardtop Boxster S, you might ask why that pricing structure is reversed. Is another 15 horsepower enough compensation? Only if you consider the sharper, sportier driving experience that comes along with it.
We can't claim this as a road test, because--and the frustration corrodes every fiber of my being--even on these sensational empty mountain roads, I have to stay in close convoy behind that Cayenne. But that's the deal with prototype testing--you test what you're there to test. And you stay in the convoy, because otherwise the secret might get out. If you accelerate away from the convoy, you're unprotected prey. Stay in it, and you're under Bernhard's obsessively protective wing.
At one point, I'm in the Cayenne, chatting away with Bernhard, and we round a corner to see a guy with a camera focusing down the road toward us. Almost certainly just some holidaymaker snapping a mountain, but he's got the bad luck to be aiming at us. Without a word, Bernhard steers the Cayenne off the road, straight toward the hapless tourist, jamming on the brakes, and coming to a halt in a judder of ABS and flying gravel just inches from his face. Simultaneously, he's on the two-way radio, urging the convoy on up the road to safety. And when the Caymans pass, he instantly steers off in pursuit of them. All without ever making eye contact with his poor victim.
For a man who gets almost everywhere, Heinz Bernhard sure hates leaving a trail.
Click here (http://motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0508_porsche/) to read more and see more photos.
http://motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0508_porsche02_l.jpg
First Drive: 2006 Porsche Cayman
Son Rise: The spirit of the early, edgy 911 is born again in Porsche's new Boxster-derived coupe
By Paul Horrell
Photography by the Manufacturer
Motor Trend, July 2005
Heinz Bernhard does it so you don't have to. In the Arctic, he endures temperatures so cold they'd make you cry, and the tears would freeze to your cheeks. Through high summers in South Africa and Death Valley, he throws himself into nature's ovens, working in air so hot it's violent. He drives on rough, remote tracks, avoiding the comfort of strangers. He seeks out humidity and dust. Wherever across the globe there are road conditions inimical to the automobile, Bernhard has probably spent time. As head of testing for Porsche, he has to find the best ways to punish and erode and curtail the lives of the company's prototypes. It's by surviving life with Bernhard that Porsches emerge so fit and strong.
His latest charge is the new Cayman S. By the time Motor Trend joins the program, the Cayman's already survived the horror phases of its test regime. It's had its suspension--Boxster but more hard-core--set up at full tire-melting pelt. Its engine--an amalgam of Boxster and 911--has been engineered, dyno'd, proven, and calibrated. The complete car has done its cycles of hot testing, cold testing, endurance testing. Vital work is still underway, but on this sunny day, Bernhard can perform his duties free of any great physical discomfort. Hey, we're even close to some fine vineyards and quality restaurants, and, as I soon happily discover, when the chance arises Bernhard likes to treat himself and his crew well.
The dateline is April, in South Africa, six months ahead of the car's international public reveal at the Frankfurt auto show. (And in exchange for such access, we had to sign scary legal indemnities not to publish before now.) A casual look at these prototypes, bar the disguises, might not distinguish them from the finished article. Today's task list is all about checking driveability and chasing down rattles and squeaks. Even though the main modules of dash, doors, and seats are basically Boxster stock, everything above the waist and aft of the driver in this feisty-looking hatchback coupe is new and needs proving.
I'm driving as Bernhard directs our convoy along a coarsely surfaced roadway. Next to me is Cayman project managing engineer Jan Roth. From somewhere behind us, there's a faint twitter from the trim. Roth is delighted at the lousy quality of the road Bernhard has found. "The frequency of bumps is just ideal," he grins. As I drive, he cranes his neck around the cockpit, trying to isolate the rattle. No success. So he climbs out of the passenger seat, wedging his not inconsiderable frame into the thin space between engine and rear windshield. From there, he uses a short-range microphone linked to amplified headphones and a noise analyzer, scanning the boot area and isolating a rattle so faint I've been barely hearing it.
We stop the car, and the two Porsche mechanics who've been following us jump into the trunk, strip away the trim around the tailgate, and refit it with new, plumper rubber cushions. The change is logged, and that new rubber will--once it's been checked several more times, of course--find its way into the production spec.
Each car carries a thick logbook, its cover marked STRENG VERTRAULICH in big red capitals ("strictly confidential," but doesn't it sound so much more fierce in German?), where every observation and fault and change is meticulously logged. An entry also is made this hour about a 5400-rpm exhaust boom on the silver prototype. Meanwhile, the techs plug in a laptop that records and checks some 40 engine parameters: temperature, pressure, mixture, electronics, and performance.
We have two cars, a silver six-speed stick-shifter with the optional switchable adaptive dampers and a five-speed Tiptronic outfitted with the Sport Chrono pack (where pressing a button tightens up the throttle response and loosens the stability program). This one also has ceramic brakes--certainly a wow factor, but with an autobox it's an uneasy tux-'n'-sneakers combo. Both are on 19-inch wheels, which will be an option.
On those 19s, wearing 235/35 front and 265/35 rear tires, and with the other hot options of PASM and ceramic brakes, rally weltmeister Walter Rohrl has hustled a prototype Cayman S around the Nuerburgring tracks in eight minutes, 11 seconds. Compare that with an eight-minute, 17-second time for a Boxster S and eight minutes, seven seconds for a 911 (both with all the go-faster option boxes ticked), and you see how Porsche can legitimately claim the Cayman S fills the slot between Boxster S and 911. To make things clearer, there'll be no base Cayman for at least a year.
And, yes, from the narrow, clinching driver's seat, this car circulates the blood even faster than the Boxster S. For a start, the engine blows through your brain like a typhoon. It's noisier than any Boxster or even most 911s, not just because it's right behind you, but because sound also ricochets off the rear windshield. The effect is glorious, though the engineers kept asking whether I thought it was a bit insistent on a cruise--they've spent much effort quelling it. Well, it's certainly never inaudible, but why buy a mid-engine flat-six and not want to hear it? The engine performs as insistently as it sings. It's not just the 295 horsepower as the rev-counter homes in on 7000, it's the even spread of torque and instant punch that adds to the all-around throttle-foot friendliness. The secret of this midrange is the 911 cylinder head: It has Porsche's variable valve timing and lift system, Variocam Plus, a tweak the Boxster S does without.
To better make use of a body shell that's twice as strong in bending stiffness as the Boxster's, the suspension is more stiffly set up. Oh, it still feels like a Boxster derivative, and that's a great thing. It still has that perfectly damped feel--that sense of using all four tires to maximum advantage--of pivoting directly around your spine, of avoiding pitching and corkscrewing. But now you get even less roll, sharper responses, and amazing grip. The special gainer is the steering. It was always accurate and lucid, but with the extra body stiffness, it's found an even deeper transparency now, sending up an awesome real-time feed from the tire treads. And, remember, we're on some crappy roads, where it does the miracle combo of filtering away any kickback over bumps while still passing on the adhesion news. And the stiffness hasn't killed ride comfort. Even on 19-inch wheels it still knocks all the sharp edges off the worst roads. I know this because occasionally I swap into the Cayenne chase car, and that thing shakes like it's having a fit.
Swapping from Cayman to Cayenne gives different angles from which to eye up the Cayman's style, even with its frustrating disguise. Most striking is the rear-quarter view. Roth is proud of it, so on one four-lane highway, I drive the silver Cayman in echelon with the blue one up ahead, so we can take the long view of those curvy hips and the sexy valley between the fender tops and the tapering fastback glass. Roth says the manufacturing of that fender pressing was one of the engineers' most challenging issues. The Cayman also has different side pressings from a Boxster's: The rocker panel has a contour that sweeps up to the side intake vent, which itself has angled slats rather than the horizontal ones in the Boxster. All in all, the Cayman looks purposeful: strong, waspish, and compact. Whether that'll be enough to differentiate it from the Boxster by the degree Porsche hopes for is another question. Most cars are cheaper in coupe form than convertible. If you view the Cayman S as a hardtop Boxster S, you might ask why that pricing structure is reversed. Is another 15 horsepower enough compensation? Only if you consider the sharper, sportier driving experience that comes along with it.
We can't claim this as a road test, because--and the frustration corrodes every fiber of my being--even on these sensational empty mountain roads, I have to stay in close convoy behind that Cayenne. But that's the deal with prototype testing--you test what you're there to test. And you stay in the convoy, because otherwise the secret might get out. If you accelerate away from the convoy, you're unprotected prey. Stay in it, and you're under Bernhard's obsessively protective wing.
At one point, I'm in the Cayenne, chatting away with Bernhard, and we round a corner to see a guy with a camera focusing down the road toward us. Almost certainly just some holidaymaker snapping a mountain, but he's got the bad luck to be aiming at us. Without a word, Bernhard steers the Cayenne off the road, straight toward the hapless tourist, jamming on the brakes, and coming to a halt in a judder of ABS and flying gravel just inches from his face. Simultaneously, he's on the two-way radio, urging the convoy on up the road to safety. And when the Caymans pass, he instantly steers off in pursuit of them. All without ever making eye contact with his poor victim.
For a man who gets almost everywhere, Heinz Bernhard sure hates leaving a trail.
Click here (http://motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0508_porsche/) to read more and see more photos.
http://motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0508_porsche02_l.jpg