Alright, this might be controversial but it needs to be said; the Porsche 911 uses an inferior drivetrain layout.
For obvious reasons, having the engine hanging out behind the rear axle is not ideal. Porsche knows this, but because of the 911s history and heritage, they can’t simply throw up their hands and say “We were wrong! The new 911 will be mid-engined!”, because Porsche fanboy’s would cry ‘sacrilege!’. That would be like Ford building a mid-engined Mustang. Obviously it would be a much, much better car, but every Mustang fanboy across the land would proclaim “You can’t change the Mustang, it’s been like that for fifty years!”. If you don’t believe me, look at the uproar rehashing the 2.3L turbo Mustang created.
Porsche therefore built the mid-engined Boxter many years ago, which eventually grew a roof and became the Cayman. Nobody ever thought Porsche would build a fast Cayman for obvious reasons; with a proper mid-engined layout and sufficient horsepower, a faster Cayman would render the 911 irrelevant. Well, they did, and it’s called the Cayman GT4.
The Cayman GT4 is a gearheads wet dream. With the front end suspension pulled straight from the 911 GT3, the 3.8l 385hp flat-six from the 911 Carrera S and a good ol’ six speed manual gearbox, has Porsche finally built the Cayman that will kill the 911? Motortrend investigates: