Porsche makes a return to rear-drive rallying with a new Cayman racer
What with all Porsche’s success in circuit racing, it’s rather easy to forget its presence in international rallying. It was a while ago now, of course, but there were three consecutive Monte Carlo wins in the late 1960s and the pair of Dakar wins in the 80s, plus numerous triumphs for private entrants in various Porsches over the years.
More recently, specialists Tuthill had its incredible 997 GT3 homologated for WRC use and Porsche teased a Cayman rally car at the end of last year. Following up on the latter, there is now this, the official 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport R-GT car, spurred on by the positive response to the 2018 concept.
It’s based, of course, on the GT4 revealed just a couple of weeks ago, using the same 425hp 3.8-litre flat-six and seven-speed PDK. With R-GT regs aimed at being relatively low cost, using a spec close to the production car makes sense. Porsche says a focus “was put on performance, drivability and sustainability” when creating the R-GT Cayman; or rather, the natural fibre used in construction of the track car is also found here, only now with spotlights on the front and spikes on the tyres.
Still, the more rear-wheel drive rally cars in the world can only be good news. The GT4 R-GT made its debut at the GP Ice Race over the weekend, with Richard Lietz driving (and presumably having lots of fun). Porsche expects the car to be ready for the 2020 season, which should hopefully spur more manufacturers to develop R-GT racers. See the below video of the GT3 for further proof of why sports car rally cars being the best rally cars…
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