Porsche Cayman or Lotus Evora?
We’ve tackled the Cayman in this series and got excited about prices starting below £20,000 for the first Gen 2 cars of 2009. However, you’ll need another £10,000 to get into an early 2009/10 Evora, although it will have half the mileage of a £20,000 Cayman.
About £30k is a hefty sum, but your faith will be rewarded with a 0-62mph sprint time of less than 5.5sec, track-tuned handling and steering, and a magic-carpet ride. You’ll also net a bulletproof Toyota V6 with low running costs and two more seats than the Cayman.
In the eight years since the first Evora went on sale, no serious reliability issues have raised their head. The engines are still doing a shift, as is the Eaton supercharger on S models. The loose gearbox cables that blighted some early cars have been tweaked, and the floppy door handles have been rectified.
The interiors on well-used early examples may be looking a little tired and the front anti-roll bar bushes may be starting to knock, but that’s it.
The Evora was launched in 2009 with a mid-mounted Toyota 3.5-litre V6 producing 276bhp and 258lb ft and driving the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox. Its three-section composite body (with easily replaceable plastic bumpers) houses a 2+2 cabin (although there are some Evoras with two seats and an extended parcel shelf) and a boot large enough for a set of golf clubs.
But you won’t want to waste time on the links when you’ve an Evora to play with. Double-wishbone suspension, Eibach springs and Bilstein dampers, brake parts by AP Racing and standard-fit Pirelli P Zeros (18in items at the front, 19s at the rear) make sure of that.
The first cars got the Launch Pack, comprising Tech (sat-nav, parking aids, cruise control), Sport (cross-drilled discs, a deeper spoiler and uprated exhaust) and Premium (extra leather, heated seats, reversing camera). All the goodies became available singly, too. Another option was a close-ratio Sport gearbox.
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Porsche is so boring
Never seen one
steve-p wrote:
Because most know no better. You see the attitude in the comments section on reviews here. It's always "for that money you can get a Boxster/Cayman". Mainly from retards who've probably only ever seen one going in the opposite direction on the road, let alone actually owned one. They're good, they're made by the greatest sports car company in the world but in reality they can be a little boring.
Do you mean the Evora can be
No, he meant the Porsche.