HARD ACTS TO FOLLOW

At long last, Porsche has made: RS. Matt Saunders finds out whether it's a hardcore equal of the BMW M3 GTS and Mercedes-AMG SLS Black Series

This 982 generation of Porsche's Boxster and Cayman sports car siblings was supposed to be all about engine downsizing and efficiency. Remember that? How have we ended up here, you might well wonder, having started somewhere so different? 

When these cars arrived in 2016, they did so with those much-derided four-cylinder engines. And now the Cayman is going out with the very maddest, fieriest, fastest-revving flat six that Weissach could possibly squeeze into it, before switching to electric power in its next generation.

That's what you call a balanced powertrain strategy. Either that or a "let's just chuck the kitchen sink at it and see what sticks" approach.

The main thing, as far as long-time fans of this sports car will be concerned, is that they've made it. The 718 Cayman GT4 RS is here on UK roads. And it's a car that you absolutely have to listen to. The 493bhp 4.0-litre atmospheric boxer in the car's middle, donated by the celebrated 911 GT3, is one of the all-time great performance engines but in this new application, it feels like something else again. It's like a perfectly remastered version of your favourite studio album. It opens up your senses and lets you experience something entirely afresh that you thought you already knew. And it does it all at up to 9000rpm and a staggering 109dBA, according to our road test noise meter (when most performance cars don't surpass 90dBA at their very noisiest).

The many and varied sounds that the engine makes come at you in waves, from different sources, blended like some mechanical symphony that's entirely yours for the conducting. The rising turbine howl of the exhaust is unmistakably and inimitably Porsche. But there's also the constant background chatter of rocker arms and the sneezelike 'pfffsst' of the dual-clutch gearbox with every paddle-shift change. It's a little as if each of the latter is an invitation to listen in itself.