Porcupine on this board graciously let me take a spin in his Cayman S on Angeles Crest. A very interesting experience.
My 930 is a very heavy feeling car. The steering's heavy. The brakes are heavy. The clutch is definitely heavy. Even the throttle pedal takes a conscious effort to depress. There's engine noise (the good kind
). But once underway, it feels sublime. Everything's perfectly weighted. None of that parking lot heft.
The Cayman, on the other hand, is so very light. There's no feel at all to the thing--the steering, throttle, clutch. It's all weirdly effortless. Like a video game. Trying to get underway, I couldn't hear the motor. I thought I'd stall the car because I couldn't feel the clutch engage. (Mind you, this is immediately after hopping out of my 930.) But as I rolled onto the road, I was half afraid I'd just float the thing off the side of the road.
However, once underway, all that overboosted feel went away, and the car was perfectly balanced, like a Porsche should be. The new car handled as intuitively as my 20 year-old one. Not with as much drama as the older car. In the Cayman, I felt insulated from the noise and harshness of my 930, but still with great feel as to what the car was doing. It was easy to see how one can wind up effortlessly driving that car stupid-fast. (Not to say that's why Porcupine's faster than I; he waxes me even when he's in his box stock 11 year-old GTi.)
And parked side-to-side, the Cayman makes my 930 look positively frumpy.