Porsche Cayman (05-) 3.4 S 2dr Coupe

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Porsche Cayman (05-) 3.4 S 2dr Coupe

Test date 24 January 2006 Price as tested £44,250

For Pretty much everything

AgainstExpensive when decently specified

Porsche’s ever-expanding model range has been built around creative component sharing and, in the case of the Cayenne off-roader, engineering partnerships. Few people were surprised, therefore, when Porsche announced that it would be making a coupé version of the Boxster.

What did raise a few eyebrows was just how close to the final specification of an entry-level 911 Carrera the Cayman S actually is. At £53,061 as tested, the Cayman is just £5319 cheaper, 26bhp weaker and two seats smaller. Is this a niche too far for Porsche?

You can imagine that the temptation to ask ‘will there be a convertible?’ was too much for some people when the Cayman was revealed. Sniggers aside, it would take a liar to deny that the fundamentals of the Cayman are anything other than pure Boxster.

From the waist down it is structurally identical, sharing track width and wheelbase but not overall length; the Cayman’s longer nose adds 12mm to that dimension. Market positioning and identity were always going to be the most difficult aspect of Porsche’s job with this car: the company insists that the 911 must always be the performance flagship, so the Cayman can’t offer more performance than a base 911 does. But it also needs to offer something tangible over a Boxster S.

The difficulty is that the performance difference between these two cars is relatively small. Finding a slot between them was never going to be easy, but Porsche insists it has found one.