New versus used: Porsche Cayman S or Lamborghini Gallardo

The Cayman sends drive to the rear wheels only whereas our 2004 Gallardo drives all four with the help of a limited-slip differential at each axle. 

Climbing in, you immediately notice how much more luxury the Gallardo offers. There’s Alcantara on the ceiling and stitched leather not only on the seats but also on the door cards and the dashboard. Adding extra hide to the otherwise plastic-heavy Cayman would cost an additional £1428. 

The Gallardo’s cabin is unmarked, save for some thinning of the helm’s Alcantara, but the Porsche’s slick instrumentation and stylish yet robust switchgear have a clear edge over the Lambo’s chunkier fare, which features interesting toggle switches alongside more mundane Audi-sourced buttons and outdated red LEDs. Unsurprisingly, the Porsche’s modern sat-nav wins, too.

Hitting the road first is the Cayman S. Were this a track exercise, I’d have been glad of the bucket seats’ security, but their limited adjustment and thin padding do little for comfort. That aside, the driving position is ergonomically sound.

Within moments, you’re treated to what could be the sweetest manual gearbox on sale. It’s light yet mechanical feeling, with a joyous lubricity that seems to suck the shifter into each nook.

With the hard-biting carbon-ceramics making in-roads near the top of the brake pedal, you need to be pressing on to make heel-and-toeing tenable, but a rev-matching function (part of Sport Chrono’s Sport Plus mode) lets you enjoy rasping, seamless downshifts even during dull commutes.

I could leave the £1530 sports exhaust, though. The contrived fun of the grumbles that it emits on the overrun in Sport mode is outweighed by its overbearing constant-throttle volume, even in Normal mode, and the flat six – from its tractable bottom end, 4500rpm pickup and free-revving, howling upper reaches – already offers plenty of entertainment.

The Porsche is genuinely rapid when pushed, but power is dispatched with incredible composure thanks to the Sport Chrono pack’s vibration-quashing active transmission mounts and the assured deftness of the chassis.

PASM’s Sport mode gets knobbly on rippled B-roads, but even in Normal mode, the Cayman retains excellent body control and you can feed it through corners with huge confidence. Get over-exuberant with the throttle mid-corner and the torque vectoring brakes the inside rear wheel to keep the car turning, while the limited-slip diff produces very strong grip on the exit.

But the Porsche isn’t just at home on twisty roads – it’s pliant in town and calm on motorways, too. This is an extremely usable sports car.

The Gallardo’s gearbox is a delight for different reasons. Its open gate lets you gaze inside at the greased linkage and rings with every strike of the lever. It’s a delightful point of interaction with the charismatic 5.0-litre V10, which needs fewer revs to come on song than the Cayman’s six-pot and lets out a race-worthy scream towards its 7750rpm red line.

The approach of a corner initiates an indulgent sequence: lean on the powerful, ventilated discs, blip the skinny throttle pedal between downshift ‘clacks’ and a single ‘pop’ of sniper fire follows from the exhaust.

Roll is marginal and the four-wheel drive system lends a totally planted cornering stance. You can feed power in early, but the pace it produces is in a different league from the Cayman’s, so full throttle can’t be laid on with anything like the same abandon without triggering the traction control.