SNAPPY DRESSER

THE NEW CAYMAN GT4 LOOKS THE PART AND IS BUILT TO BE DRIVEN, SO WE GIVE IT SOME STICK. SADLY, LITERALLY

- SCOTT NEWMAN

YOU EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE all sorts of sensory assaults after a long, hard drive. The nose-wrinklingly acrid smell of brake pads, the ring-ting-ding three-piece of hot metal contracting and expanding, and the sight of feathered tyres and spots of fluid overflow. However, those spots are now slowly but surely spreading into an unusually large stain on the tarmac. It’s also red-tinged and slightly oily to touch. Coolant.

Identifying the cause doesn’t require the detective skills of Horatio Caine, because it’s still embedded in the radiator. A piece of wood has ricocheted off the front splitter, punched through the protective wire mesh and wounded the Cayman. Game over. The nice people at Porsche are very understanding, though understandably want to know what I hit. Sadly, I’ve no idea; something substantial enough to flick up and over the GT4’s ground-scraping snout, yet not big enough to register from behind the wheel.

It’s the last time the car will move under its own power today, but thankfully everything bar the static photography is done and to get to this point has meant covering 60km of unrelenting mountain road. It should have provided ample opportunity to get beneath the skin of Porsche’s latest motorsport division product, but instead I’m left with as many questions as answers, for reasons that will become apparent.