Top Gear

Hello! Hello, and welcome to Top Gear.

It's the last episode of the series.

But don't worry,

because we are really pushing the boat out for this one.

Literally. We made a boat and we pushed it out.

Into the sea. Really!

But that's a little later in the show.

First, a question -

£50,000, a two-seat sports car - what do you go for?

Tell 'em, Chris.

Well, unless you were completely mad, traditionally, you'd always

have gone for this -

the Porsche Cayman, the model sports car.

Pretty much un-improvable.

But now there's a new Cayman,

and Porsche says it's even better than before.

Here it is.

It still looks like a Cayman,

but one that's been drawn with sharper pencils.

It still has the engine in the middle...

..power at the rear...

and it still costs about £50,000.

It's the same story inside, where, thankfully,

Porsche hasn't messed with all the things we liked about the old car.

I've still got three pedals, and this lovely,

wiggly, wand-like thing to change gear.

But if you delve deeper...

you'll find a million teeny-tiny upgrades.

For starters, the Cayman's big brother - the 911 -

has given up its steering and brakes.

The lower rear suspension arms are from the last generation Cayman GT4.

The anti-roll bars are larger diameter all around.

The front springs are now variable rate.

The rear tyres, well, they are 12mm wider.

Much of which is not interesting.

What is interesting is more horsepower.

The Cayman S now has 345 of them.

This car will do 0-60mph in a sneeze over four seconds.

And it won't stop accelerating until you hit 177mph.

Braking!

And that extra horsepower also means something else.

If there was a fault with the old Cayman,

it's that it didn't have quite enough power to explore the limits

of that lovely, mid-engine chassis.

This new one, however...

Oh, yes!

Yes, yes, yes!

I could do that all day long.

The trouble is, I'm not enjoying this as much as I should do.

Allow me to explain.

That there is the old Cayman S.

Six cylinder, normally aspirated engine, and it sounds like...

Well, judge for yourself.

That is engine sound perfection.

If you asked Daft Punk to create intake noise, it'd sound like that.

But for this new Cayman, Porsche ditched the lovely old

six-cylinder engine for a new, turbocharged, four-cylinder engine.

And it sounds like...

..an old Beetle.

This is a big deal.

Because, I'm sorry,

but the way a sports car sounds is a huge part of its personality.

It's the same as humans. Voices matter.

I mean, take, say, Rod Stewart and put him on mute,

and he's just a Scottish bloke with ladies' hair.

And the reason for this vocal transplant?

The Cayman needed a smaller turbo engine

to pass the latest emissions exams.

Yep.

Forget sound and soul. These days, apparently what's important

is that this car will officially emit 184g of CO2 per kilometre.

But let me show you how you must drive to achieve those 184 CO2s

using this rather elegant piece of equipment behind me

and some very clever men over there.

Here we go.

'Right, so, Chris, to get the best mpg, lowest CO2,

'build up the speed gently.'

'Lovely, lovely and sedate.'

No, no, no.

'Don't overdo it, that's probably a little too fast.

'You can back it off slightly more, I'd say.'

Boring.

Boring, boring.

CO2, boring.

After a few more tedious minutes,

I pulled over to find out my exam results.

OK, boss, how was that?

That was 184g per kilometre of CO2.

About 35 miles per gallon.

OK. The reality is that, in the real world,

if you drive like a normal person with feet,

no car comes close to matching its official emissions figures.

And turbo engines are the worst offenders.

In fact, in the hands of any of us lot,

I doubt this engine's any more efficient than the one it replaced.

It is a real shame.

The old Cayman wasn't broken,

but Porsche has been forced to fix it anyway.

Now we've got this different personality.

And I have to say, I just don't like it as much as it was before.

So the big question now is, if you're after

a two-seat sports car for about 50 grand, what's the alternative?

The Alpha 4C.

Look at that.

Carbon fibre tub, Italian styling.

Build quality of a Glastonbury tent.

Go away.

Ah, the Jaguar F-Type.

But, of course, you want the supercharged V8 one,

and that's 90 grand, so, I'm afraid, disqualified.

The Lotus Exige.

Perfect, should you happen to live at a racing circuit.

Which, of course, you don't.

Ooh, the Audi TT RS.

400 horsepower, five-cylinder turbo-charged engine.

And lashings of understeer.

And that really is your lot.

Which leaves us, well, pretty much back where we started.

If you've got 50 grand to spend on a new sports car, you should buy...

a new Cayman.

Even a mildly ruined Cayman is still better than the rest.

You might want a pair of these though.

Great, nice job.

Nice job. OK, so...

So, they made it more powerful, they made faster,

they made it cheaper to tax, all for the same price, and you

don't like it because it doesn't sound quite as good as the old car?

Do think that maybe, just maybe, you're being...

slightly oversensitive?

- I'm really not. Sound is so important. - Mm-hm.

This car, six-cylinder engine, it's just musical,

it's the heart of the car. And the intake noise - fantastic.

This new version, turbocharger, no intake noise, four cylinders -

it sounds...

...parpy.

Oh.

Nice.

You don't get a lot of parpy these days.

OK, one more thing.

I noticed in the film that you called this the Porsche Cayman.

Yeah.

But it isn't, is it?

This is the Porsche 718 Cayman.

I refuse to acknowledge that badge.

What?

You can't refuse to acknowledge it.

It's right there on the back of the car.

And it's pedigree - the 718 was a Porsche racer from the '50s, right?

This is Porsche exploiting its wonderful motorsport history

for the sake of a badge on a modern car. It's terrible!

Are you done?

- No, we can... - Can you try to be done?

- Look... - Let's pretend you're done. OK.

It's time to find out how quick the new 718 goes around our test track.

And you know what that means. It's time for...

The Stig.

Off the line.

Looks like a Porsche, sounds like a,

well, it sounds like a Subaru, doesn't it?

Down there to the first corner. Let's have a look at this,

cos the chassis is great, the Cayman's so well-balanced.

He carries great speed in, very little understeer,

using all the track as usual.

And the braking stability into Chicago, just fantastic.

And he'll hold a tight line, will he?

He let it run out a bit, but again

you can tell he's got power to play with.

345 horsepower.

The amazing thing is, it's a smaller-capacity engine -

the turbocharger has 37 foot-pounds of torque more than the old Cayman.

So it's now a monster.

Braking well again. Doesn't it look stable? It's flat, crisp.

A tight line. Let it run out now.

Look at that - just controlled, relaxed.

Heading now down towards the follow-through.

It's really fast. Again, competent.

And doesn't it sound absolutely terrible?

Can you hear it?

Braking into second to last.

Now, heading - ooh, using all the track there, aggressive -

over Gambon, and a very impressive, terrible-sounding lap.

OK.

And the Porsche 718 Cayman S went around

in 1:21.6.

That is seriously respectable.

That's the exact same time as the Jaguar V8 F-Type.

And the Jaguar V8 F-Type costs nearly twice as much.

- Yeah, and it sounds twice as good too... - Look, you're done.

Rory!

I'm just going to say it -

you know what other sports car you can have for £50,000?

Ford Mustang, the one with the V8.

- Can't argue with the way that sounds. - No, you can't, no.

All right, now it's time to welcome this week's guest.

He's got a lot of platinum discs,

he's got a lot of cars and he's got a lot of...hats.

Please welcome Jay Kay.

I'm so pleased!

Thank you.

All right, awesome.