For the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show, Porsche finally released a 718 Cayman with the engine taken from the 911 GT3 RS. It’s everything enthusiasts have wanted to see from Zuffenhausen’s “baby” sports car, which will radically change for its next iteration. How is that so? Well, the company’s GT boss strongly suggested the replacement for the mid-engined Cayman coupe and its Boxster roadster sibling will be heavily electrified.
In an interview with Top Gear magazine, Andreas Preuninger said “the future of the mid-engine platform might have a lot to do with electricity.” Since the larger 911 is rear-engined, it’s pretty obvious the head honcho of the GT cars was referring to the 718 models. He went on to say the recently unveiled GT4 RS represents the “high time to have a big party on the platform of the 718 with an atmospheric, normally aspirated engine with 9,000 rpm.”
Reading between the lines, the hardcore Cayman GT4 RS represents an epilogue for the conventionally powered engine. To which extent the next-generation model will be electrified remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t necessarily exclude a purely electric drivetrain. After all, the Mission R concept shown earlier this year at IAA Munich came without a combustion engine.
In fact, Porsche representatives have already expressed their desire to get “elements of this [Mission R] in future production cars,” adding they will do their best to “find a way to realize a car such as this.” The concept will morph into an electric race car in 2025 for a dedicated racing series, and the middle of the decade could be when the Boxster and Cayman will lose their gasoline engines.
Around the same time, Porsche is expected to come out with a hybrid version of the 911 featuring a rumored 700 horsepower and a whopping 738 pound-feet 1,000 Newton-meters of torque. An all-electric derivative is planned, but it won’t arrive before 2030 at the earliest.
Source: Top Gear
