In The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS, Getting Lost Is The Best Part Of The Drive

I'm a big fan of technology in cars. For the most part, I feel most people's worries about it taking over the driving experience and making the car you're driving less enjoyable is a whole bunch of bull. However, after spending a week with the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS, I think those Luddites may have a bit of a point. You see, the 718 Cayman is at the end of its life, which means despite its near-$214,000 price tag, the car is saddled with tech that would have already been considered a bit old school when the 982 Cayman first debuted back in 2016.

While that might be a massive issue in other $200,000+ cars, I think the Cayman GT4 RS is all the better for its outdated, barely functional tech. It's an extreme car that encourages extreme amounts of your attention, and that's not something you can give if you're fiddling with your playlists or messing with myriad vehicle settings. This is a car dedicated to driving, all other things be damned, and it's probably one of the last that'll ever do it quite like this. I literally got lost in the GT4 RS because the navigation system was next to useless and my phone flew away in a high-speed corner, but what I found was something truly wonderful.

Full Disclosure: Porsche lent me a lovely 718 Cayman GT4 RS with a full tank of gas to do with as I please for a full week.

The day I picked up the GT Silver Metallic Cayman GT4 RS I'd be driving for the next week, I missed no fewer than five turns. While I am a New Jersey/New York native, anyone from here will tell you that between the roadwork and traffic, it's best to throw on your navigation if you want to get where you're going, even if you know the roads well. I was all set to plug in my phone and use Apple CarPlay. The issue is, though, that the only way to screen mirror a phone to a 718 is by using a USB-A port. I, being a person who lives in the year of our lord 2025, do not have a USB-A cable anymore, so I resorted to the car's standard onboard navigation system, shown through the car's tiny 7-inch infotainment screen. If you're wondering how that went, well... like I said, I got lost five times.

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While hunting for the Lincoln Tunnel in Midtown Manhattan and I-95 North once I was in New Jersey, it proved to be a rather brutal affair between the deafening intake noise of the mid-mounted naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six, the rock-hard suspension and my constant missed turns. But my destination was worth more than the price of admission: Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park, about 50 miles north of The City. Yes, I know Los Angeles has better roads — better roads by miles, even — but if you live in the same area I do, you know that this is just about as good as it gets. And on a weekday (I may or may not have played hooky from work to put 200 miles on this car in a single Monday), the roads are tremendously quiet.

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Do you know what wasn't quiet, even for a second? That flat-six borrowed from the 911 GT3. It howled from its 800-rpm idle speed all the way to its 9,000-rpm redline. It's almost shrill in the way it wails, and if I had spent any more time in the car, earplugs may have been a necessity — especially if there was more highway driving in order, as engine speeds remain very high at highway speeds. Luckily, there wasn't, as Harriman is full of some of the most lovely roads you'll ever find, with tree-lined twists and turns past mountains and lakes alike. Oh, and there are plenty of long straights mixed in, so I was really about to wring out all 493 horsepower and 331 pound-feet of torque on tap while going up and down the seven gears of the lightning-quick PDK gearbox with ease. Porsche says the car can lay down 3.2-second 0-60 times, but I don't believe it. My ass tells me this is a sub-3.0-second car, and I trust my ass... even if the standard full bucket seats made it fall asleep just a little bit.

0-60 times don't really matter, though. Outright speed is not what the 718 Cayman GT4 RS is about. It's about losing track of time on your favorite bit of road and having your girlfriend call you, asking where you are. Of course, I had hooked up my phone to the Cayman's Bluetooth, but the noise of the engine was so extreme that she couldn't hear me even when I did finally answer her repeated calls. Like money, time is an easy commodity to lose track of in this car thanks to the GT4 RS's wonderful steering, taut suspension and oodles of grip courtesy of the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires fitted to my tester.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

From the outside, this is an intimidating machine with its massive rear wing, stripes and bodykit, but it's actually a bit of a breeze to drive. While the car does come with adjustable suspension, anyone from this area will tell you the roads aren't good enough for the Sport suspension setting, so I left that off. Everything else, though? Full kill mode. It's only right.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

I really cannot think of any cars on sale today that offer more feedback from the front wheels than the 718 Cayman GT4 RS does. Every single pebble I drove over, I could tell what rock formation it had chipped away from in the Prehistoric Age. Cornering is, as you'd imagine, very flat, and since this is a mid-engine car, rather neutral. However, there is a slight push from the front end when you're really cooking, but that can be easily dispelled by either adding in a bit more power or pulling back. Eventually, that rear end will want to come out and play. Obviously, I was driving on public roads, so there wasn't really any 10/10ths driving to be had here.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

Even if I got myself into trouble, I knew the safety net of my car's brakes — while not the $8,250 carbon-ceramic units that are an option — would be more than enough to get me out of trouble. They may not be ceramics, but they were still squeaky as hell. And don't worry, this car had plenty of options despite lacking the fancier brakes. With a base price of $164,200, adding things like the $13,250 Weissach Package, $15,640 forged magnesium wheels, $3,040 front-axle lift and $3,540 Race-Tex interior, among a million other little options, brought its as-tested price to $213,755, including destination. I'm not sure it's the most expensive Cayman ever specced, but it's probably close.

The 718 Cayman GT4 RS isn't a car that's long for this world. Eventually, we'll get the electric Cayman and Boxster we've been seeing spy shots of for years, and I'm sure that'll be brilliant. We're also going to get a new gas-powered model to run alongside it (likely only in GT4 and GT4 RS guises), and it'll almost certainly have a more usable infotainment system than the glorified Leapfrog system this car is fitted with, but it probably won't be as captivating as this car.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

I hate to bring watches into it, because that's such a tired, miserable, dogass cliche, but I like this car for a lot of the same reasons I got rid of my Apple Watch a few years back. Again, I like tech, but at some point, I found it to be far too much. Today's cars — even the sportiest ones — are a lot like smart watches. Every once in a while, it's just nice to put on an old mechanical watch, pay no attention to what time it actually is, go for a walk and get lost. And, there's nothing better to get lost in than a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS.