'Vette vs. Cayman

[John B]

So... know ya don't wanna talk about it... musta been 'traumatic'...

but what's the deal on the Forester?

It kept whining at me. I just wanted it to shut up.

[John B]

I've been in that Subaru.

I still have my 2012 legacy GT, you've been in that one. The Forester was new in 19 , a loan car while the takata recall was done to mine . The new Forester was a snivelling car, I think it wants counselling.

[Kevin T]

Yes. Cayman/boxster.

Kevin - did you have to do the IMS bearing change?

No I have not, and I don't hear a lot about that particular problem with the Cayman, early 90's 911's like the C2 absolutely, but not so much with the Cayman.

Stilleto: As far as the Cayman being simply a Boxer with a roof, actually it is not, it is a complete clean sheet of paper new design according to Jutta Deis in his collaborative book; "The Cayman - The Thrill of the Chase"

It is a piece of sculpture on wheels, and yes I am completely biased, in fact unabashedly so.

[John B]

I've always liked that model Cayman, great to hear you're enjoying it.

[George Jung]

Huh. Apparently I've been reading the wrong stuff!

I thought they were 'same platform', body etc except roof.

[David G]

Or... for the nostalgic among us... a souped-up P1800 mod. My woodworking instructor had the wagon version, and I loved it!! Since he knew I enjoyed sports cars, he let me take it on errands occasionally. They're obsolete now, of course, but even now I kinda want one.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-...hp-info-price/

[Kevin T]

Kevin T I totally agree with your sentiments and statements about the Cayman. I like the original design and not so much the changes in the later version. It is sculpture that is functional and not yelling about how powerful it is.
I have a 2017 TTS..and will have to stay with that if I want to stay married. "No more car changes" she says. I would find a Cayman like yours and get it, but that ain't gona happen.
Yes, my car is ok, I still have the Porsche envy and the Cayman is the one.

It's funny you should mention the TT. I remember reading an article, I think it was in Road & Track, when the TT first came out and the editors were of the mind at the time that the 911 had become overly technical, too much road isolation and overly bloated with too much of everything. If I am recalling the article correctly, they posited that the TT was more Porsche in its honesty and straightforward approach to driving. They also mentioned something about the rear deck lip versus cars without the rear deck lip, something to do with high speed handling if I recall.

I went to a Porsche sponsored driving event a few years back and there were a ton of drivers and techs from both Porsche Experience Atlanta and the as of then, the yet unopened, but soon to open Porsche Experience Birmingham and out of the 30 or so Porsche Experience and Factory drivers I spoke with, all but one drove a Cayman as their personal vehicle.

In fact, it has been written that had mid-engine technology been available in 1948 when Dr Ferdinand built the first Porsche he would have went the mid-engine route due to it's superior weight distribution, balance and handling and instead of course went with the rear mounted engine and the rest as they say is history.

To protect the vaunted 911 they have done everything in their power to make sure it remains the standard bearer, although that is finally starting to loosen up with the release of 2020's 718 Cayman GT4 and its blistering 414 HP and 309 lb-ft of torque all wrapped up in a tick under 3200 pounds of curb weight. Which if your doing the math is 1 HP for every 7.7 pounds of weight, which isn't too shabby. I could talk Porsche all day and all night. Thanks for your kind words.

[Paul Pless]

if only they made a cayman with the charm and simplicity of an aircooled flat six. . .

[Kevin T]

Times change, manufacturers move on I guess.

[John B]

When I sold my old E type in , in? 2014 or so the cars I considered as replacements were the Cayman S, S 2000 or Elise. But in the end I went for another classic and bought the MG. Not exactly in the performance car category of those, but my licence is intact ,sofa. They corner better when you wear goggles and yell 'Fangio' at the apexes.
Maybe I should.... no , can't do it.

[Art Haberland]

In fact, it has been written that had mid-engine technology been available in 1948 when Dr Ferdinand built the first Porsche he would have went the mid-engine route due to it's superior weight distribution, balance and handling and instead of course went with the rear mounted engine and the rest as they say is history.

Porsche was playing with the Mid-Engine layout as early as 1953 with the 550 spider.

[LeeG]

There's more to driving pleasure than raw speed, especially when comparing vehicles that are both fast by any measure. Most of the time, you can't get past second gear on any modern high performance car without risking license and limb. That makes the most tactile and well bolted together vehicle the most enjoyable to drive day to day.

Also, try finding a Vette for $66K. Ain't gonna happen.

tactile, that’s a good word. When I was a skinny light rider, no really it happened, I splurged on fat silk Clement sew ups for my rides from the coast inland on dirt and paved roads in Mendocino. 145 lbs on 30mm silk sewups was a miraculous combination of grip and speed and on some surfaces was like floating on a cloud.

[David G]

Young kart driver chooses stock 718 Spyder to set new world slalom record --

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/p...ear-old-racer/

[Jimmy W]

[David G]

And looking mighty pretty while doing it. I don't get why people pan the looks of the whole 718 line. I think they look sharp.

[Jim Mahan]

Regardless, or even irregardless, either way, that has to be the lamest car driving video on the web. If I were on the fence about the Porsche, this wouldn't sway me, but I didn't watch the whole thing. Was there a kitten or something else of interest in the second half?

[Paul Pless]

And looking mighty pretty while doing it. I don't get why people pan the looks of the whole 718 line. I think they look sharp.

they look like toyotas <yawn>

[David G]

I guess there's a reason 'vettes are 'bargain sportishcars' ---

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-s...213257151.html

[formerlyknownasprince]

What a vapid article the original test was. Cayman wins 13 of the categories, Chevvie wins 3, one of them by 10 to 1 (so that the result can be close?) - with no real explanation as to why the Cayman got the 1, or the Chevvie got the 10. And three pages in and no-one here picked up on that?

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

I really like the Cayman - but have no desire to have a 'super car'. Don't need the speed; once I get over 120 mph, I get sweaty. So a few steps down, is preferable.

Surprising to see the Miata has so much more HP than the Fiat cousin. Both really nice cars, however. And in a price range I can be comfortable with. $100K for a toy.... not for this dutchman! And besides - I'm not Lew!

That's because the Fiat has a smaller Fiat engine. 1.5L I think.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

that's great and all. I prefer real switches. I really dislike the HVAC controls on both my Landy and Abarth because you have to take your eyes off of the road to see the settings. I am more referring to the idea of the row of switches along the "spine" of the console. Seems like a really bad place to put them and done only for stylistic reasons.

No space for all those switches on the dash with a large touch screen, and be within easy reach, and differentiated enough in location to operate without looking at them. It's cheaper to put all the switches on the dash in one place, one module. If they spread them out, there's a reason for it.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

if only they made a cayman with the charm and simplicity of an aircooled flat six. . .

Point taken, but the flat six part is the charm.

Liquid cooling gets you
- better cooling
- better durability
- more power
- more spark advance, less detonation
- less oil burning
- better compression
- lower emissons
- better fuel economy
- better cabin heater
- better intercooling, if equipped
- quieter, and sounding less like a VW Beetle

[David G]

Point taken, but the flat six part is the charm.

Liquid cooling gets you
- better cooling
- better durability
- more power
- more spark advance, less detonation
- less oil burning
- better compression
- lower emissons
- better fuel economy
- better cabin heater
- better intercooling, if equipped
- quieter, and sounding less like a VW Beetle

Stop Making Sense.

You should know by now that Pless prefers his illusions to reality.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

I guess there's a reason 'vettes are 'bargain sportishcars' ---

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-s...213257151.html

Hmm... so many engineering questions come to mind.

But this is why I don't like aftermarket wheels, they usually are not tested to as high a spec as OEM ones. But now the reverse may be true.

This is also why I don't like very low profile (section height) tires, also known as "rim protectors", not enough sidewall cushion, drastically increases impulse loads.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

There's a strong point there but even Miatas are turning sub six second 0-60 now. You have the Miata (and Fiat) and the Subaru/Toyota twins and that's all the low cost sports cars available here. The next step up is Cayman/GT4, most 911s, Lotus GT, BMW/ToyotaZ4/Supra and as always the Corvette. Some bit players come and go but that's what sports cars are now. These are the XK-E/ Austin Healy of our era, the Miata is quite literally the Elan of our era. . I will include my Lotus as a top tier sports but not super car rather a focused pure example of the breed. Super cars these days are something else.

My definition of sports car doesn't include Mustang, Camaro or any car evolved from a shared passenger car platform and not purpose built.

That's pretty much what I have understood sports car to mean for years and they always get faster. At some point raw speed isn't just superfluous, it's counterproductive so the upper tier sports cars do become mixed up with supercars. The vette crosses that line. With the rear engine dynamics, there are gonna be tons of crashed ones. The understeer won't be enough to save some of the guys who will be buying it.

(bold) This has been bouncing around in my head for several weeks. The C6 and C7 Corvettes (front engine), even with really good suspension geometry and mass balance, are no cakewalk in terms of inherent stability, they have enough power to easily break loose the rear traction, and especially with limited slip, can easily go out of control (one rear tire spins, torque goes out the other side with traction, yaw moment, spin). Multi-level traction control helps enormously. Mark Reuss, a GM exec with training, notably lost control and spun a C7 ZR-1 acting as a pace car at the 2018 Detroit (Indy car) Grand Prix, my guess because he had the traction control off, wanting to "light'em up" out of a turn. Last night, a friend was watching teammates on F1 teams driving the Nurburgring in high performance passenger cars, and it was drizzling, and every one of them had the traction control ON, and you could tell it was working by the occasional abrupt wag of the rear end as it lost traction and the traction control kicked in. But getting back to the subject: If properly designed, the C8 will not be any more unstable than the front engine 'Vettes that proceeded it*. That means tire sizes proportional to loading, good suspension geometry (particularly things like bump steer and compliance steer, things that were bad on earlier 911s), and with truly great computer simulation software that gets things really close before even prototype #1, I'm sure they have. Immense torsional rigidity of all these new chassis helps a great deal, but that's another conversation. Also, on really low mu (friction) surfaces like ice, I don't care how good the design, traction control, and driver is, it's real easy to lose control and hard to haul it back in.

* A note about that: Porsche designed their first front engine car, the 928, to be more "user friendly" with "high polar moment of inertia"; Engine in front, transmission in back, like end weights on a barbell, this makes changes in direction happen more slowly, good, although once you lose control it can be harder to bring things back in (just like with old fighter aircraft with wingtip fuel tanks in spins). This runs counter to design of race cars, putting the mass toward the center for high agility, which is why 928s were never raced, and they were relatively heavy versus 911s, but 928s were great, versatile (2+2 seating and cargo space) daily drivers in a performance car. Anywho, 20 years later, GM debuted the C5 Corvette with front engine, rear transmission, which helped balance, improved interior space, and also allowed a much smaller diameter and lighter driveshaft as it never had to transmit torque multiplied by the transmission, it was always spinning at engine speed. But I digress.

A further note: Pontiac Fieros (rear-mid engine) were treacherous in handling at the limit. But it wasn't the engine location. The rear suspension design was pirated off the front of one of their front-drive cars, and had terrible geometry for a driven rear axle. Couple that with a short wheelbase and wide track relative to it, and it was really easy to spin that car at the limit, and hard to haul back in with the slow, heavy manual steering. That was corrected for the final year of production (1988), but it was too late as sales had already nosedived.

Sorry for the TL: DR

[George Jung]

Purty nice.

[Bob (oh, THAT Bob)]

^ 4 lugs, 8 spokes. Symmetry. Is that SO hard to do?

6 or 9 spokes on 5 lugs just bothers the sh-- out of me.

[Lew Barrett]

(bold) This has been bouncing around in my head for several weeks. The C6 and C7 Corvettes (front engine), even with really good suspension geometry and mass balance, are no cakewalk in terms of inherent stability, they have enough power to easily break loose the rear traction, and especially with limited slip, can easily go out of control (one rear tire spins, torque goes out the other side with traction, yaw moment, spin). Multi-level traction control helps enormously. Mark Reuss, a GM exec with training, notably lost control and spun a C7 ZR-1 acting as a pace car at the 2018 Detroit (Indy car) Grand Prix, my guess because he had the traction control off, wanting to "light'em up" out of a turn. Last night, a friend was watching teammates on F1 teams driving the Nurburgring in high performance passenger cars, and it was drizzling, and every one of them had the traction control ON, and you could tell it was working by the occasional abrupt wag of the rear end as it lost traction and the traction control kicked in. But getting back to the subject: If properly designed, the C8 will not be any more unstable than the front engine 'Vettes that proceeded it*. That means tire sizes proportional to loading, good suspension geometry (particularly things like bump steer and compliance steer, things that were bad on earlier 911s), and with truly great computer simulation software that gets things really close before even prototype #1, I'm sure they have. Immense torsional rigidity of all these new chassis helps a great deal, but that's another conversation. Also, on really low mu (friction) surfaces like ice, I don't care how good the design, traction control, and driver is, it's real easy to lose control and hard to haul it back in.

* A note about that: Porsche designed their first front engine car, the 928, to be more "user friendly" with "high polar moment of inertia"; Engine in front, transmission in back, like end weights on a barbell, this makes changes in direction happen more slowly, good, although once you lose control it can be harder to bring things back in (just like with old fighter aircraft with wingtip fuel tanks in spins). This runs counter to design of race cars, putting the mass toward the center for high agility, which is why 928s were never raced, and they were relatively heavy versus 911s, but 928s were great, versatile (2+2 seating and cargo space) daily drivers in a performance car. Anywho, 20 years later, GM debuted the C5 Corvette with front engine, rear transmission, which helped balance, improved interior space, and also allowed a much smaller diameter and lighter driveshaft as it never had to transmit torque multiplied by the transmission, it was always spinning at engine speed. But I digress.

A further note: Pontiac Fieros (rear-mid engine) were treacherous in handling at the limit. But it wasn't the engine location. The rear suspension design was pirated off the front of one of their front-drive cars, and had terrible geometry for a driven rear axle. Couple that with a short wheelbase and wide track relative to it, and it was really easy to spin that car at the limit, and hard to haul back in with the slow, heavy manual steering. That was corrected for the final year of production (1988), but it was too late as sales had already nosedived.

Sorry for the TL: DR

Mid engine dynamics are sufficiently different such that it takes an experienced driver to respond to the dynamics on all but the most benign of these cars when driven at the limit. Their lift throttle behavior is different to what most people are used to so it takes time and desire to learn the ropes. Is the average Corvette buyer interested in developing such skills or are they content with scalding quarter mile times? I don't know but tend to doubt most people's interest in learning how to really drive such vehicles at speed. It's true that todays engineering offers a big safety net but I don't trust most American drivers to develop the car handling skills required at the edge of their envelopes. People will be buying these cars without a full understanding of their capabilities nor the skills to handle them at the extremes, which some will nonetheless less explore at their peril.

[Paul Pless]

Mid engine dynamics are sufficiently different such that it takes an experienced driver to respond to the dynamics on all but the most benign of these cars when driven at the limit. Their lift throttle behavior is different to what most people are used to so it takes time and desire to learn the ropes. Is the average Corvette buyer interested in developing such skills or are they content with scalding quarter mile times? I don't know but tend to doubt most people's interest in learning how to really drive such vehicles at speed. It's true that todays engineering offers a big safety net but I don't trust most American drivers to develop the car handling skills required at the edge of their envelopes. People will be buying these cars without a full understanding of their capabilities nor the skills to handle them at the extremes, which some will nonetheless less explore at their peril.

why we continue to hold the american sports car and american sports car driver in such contempt

i can cite you a dozen such headlines as below from google in less than thirty seconds

Driver crashes new £215,000 McLaren just 10 minutes after taking delivery

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tel...-taking-d/amp/

[Paul Pless]

this is impressive, in so many ways

What Happened When a McLaren 570S Flew off the Road, Rolled Twice, and Landed 297 Feet Down

A NASA scientist and an accident-reconstruction agency team up to find out why the spectacular crash ended with nobody even hurt.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.car...297-feet-down/

[Paul Pless]

$2 million Ferrari F40 crashed during test drive


8EBF60A9-F05B-45D3-A855-58CA910C1971.jpg

[Hugh Conway]

It ain’t just a US thing.

[Art Haberland]

why we continue to hold the american sports car and american sports car driver in such contempt

i can cite you a dozen such headlines as below from google in less than thirty seconds

Driver crashes new £215,000 McLaren just 10 minutes after taking delivery

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tel...-taking-d/amp/

I have owned three mid-engined cars. A Fiat X1/9 and a Lancia Beta Montecarlo/Scorpion (depending on where you are from) and a Porsche 914. Yes, the dynamics of a mid-engined car are very benign until you push past their limits. Once you lose control, the centralized mass prevents the car from letting either end from leading the spin, making it very hard to recover from. I also had an early 70's 911. That car wanted to spin if you even thought about letting up on the gas while turning.

[Ted Hoppe]

77 dbs in the corvette behind the wheel... no thank you.

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[Ted Hoppe]

Corvette maybe the worst date car/date car ever. This car is obviously designed for old men.

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