ROAD RACERS

The GT2 RS, GT3 RS, GT3 and 981 GT4 line up to welcome the very first 718 GT4 to land in the country. A world exclusive!

THE RUNWAY IS EMPTY. THERE’S SILENCE YOU can slice with a knife. The dozen-odd sports and supercars, members of SpeedFest Track Days have thundered down the drag strip one last time before turning off for Mumbai, to make a late Sunday lunch. The stench of burnt rubber has lifted. The dust has settled. After the hectic morning hours, punctuated by the roars, howls and screams of highpo engines being spanked, whipped and dominated, we are now left with a strange calm. Deep breath. Only one car has been left behind, and it happens to be the newest of the lot. The first and only 718 Cayman GT4 in the country. evo’s 2019 Car of the Year. Nat-asp engine. The best manual gearbox in the world. And the running-in period has just been completed.

Another deep breath before firing it up. There’s a deep, resonant boxer thump that’s audibly different from the MA1 in the old 981 GT4 that only moments earlier was being flung sideways onto the runway before flat-shifting out of sight. A push of the exhaust button on the centre console increases the volume markedly, although it’s still on the polite side of raucous. The 981 GT4’s MA1 flat-six has been laid to rest, a victim — like everything else — of emission norms, but instead of massaging the 718’s turbo-four as everybody feared, the new GT4 gets an all-new engine. Based on the turbocharged 3-litre flat-six from the 992 it has been taken out to 4 litres, and there’s not a turbocharger in sight. A new naturally aspirated performance engine in this day and age is an exceptionally rare occurrence; one fitted to a six-speed manual ’box rarer still. This one makes 414bhp and 420Nm of torque, and thanks to the fitment of a heavy, but effective, gasoline particulate filter, it meets all the emissions regulations forthcoming over the next few years.