Inigo Montoya

This is sadly such a common opinion that at first I googled it to see if it was maybe one of those bots that strikes forums all over. It's like the "elephant in the room" for the T. I don't mean this directed at your personally, just that this is so common and sadly it is affecting Cayman T sales. I also felt this way at first when I first started looking at Porsches about 2 months ago. So first of all, I do consider myself a bit of an oddity. I come from an autocrossing, performance over fluff and I am not a Porschephile. I recently sold my amazing BMW 1M coupe and just like you say skipped over the T at first. I spend countless nights spec'ing Caymans all the way up to the GT4 just like you say and never gave the T a second thought. Then I saw one in person, in white, then one in Yellow and saw the cloth seats. You see for me, probably 6 other guys in the world, cloth seats are the real deal for performance. Yes, Alcantara too, but even my two BMW 330i ZHPs use cloth in the center and alcantara in the bolsters. This one detail impressed me that Porsche still makes a good manual and now cloth seats and THIS made me think Porsche still had a few people that "get me." So I went ahead and drove the base Cayman and S side by side and true the S motor recovers quicker from low rev range to pull you out of corner but when you start to add all of the T options, it's about $14K more and despite what every freakin' reviewer says you can just buy an S for a couple thousand more. So I call BS on everyone that says that. You can get a Base S but it will have silly chrome headlight washer, some not very exciting wheel choices, hideous look-at-me red calipers, chrome badges and rear pipes, shiny interior trim, base seats not in cloth, no sport -20 pasm, no LSD, no sports chrono, no active mounts and most of all no GT4 shifter.........actually for that matter, you could scale all the way up to the GTS and it doesn't have the GT4 shifter as well! Only the T and GT4 get it. Only the T gets the bespoke black dash trim. Yes you can can add all of that stuff and then take your S to the dealer and have them add the short shifter for an additional cost or even DIY for $300 but the point is, that all of the reviewers are misleading people at the expense of the T. I just watched Matt Farrah and he says the exact same thing but not correct. by the time you add all of the options you are at about $84-86K . So if you are an automatic guy, then you don't care about the shifter value the extra thrust, that is not bad but you shouldn't be in a T anyway. The T is for a select few people like me that grew up in the heyday of sports cars in the late 80s and early 90s where there were so many moderately priced, focused, light sporty cars that are all gone. We don't look at resale value as I see this obsession as a someone new to Porsches. My first experience at a Porsche dealer as well, the sales lady didn't mention any of the intrinsic goodness of the cars, she said "resale value" and value to me about 10 times before I just excused myself and next time I came, spoke to someone else.

So this is why it's not easy to just step up to an S:
1. Manual Transmissions are going away and the GT4 and Cayman T have the highest evolution of the manual transmission today with their short shifter. While you can retrofit, this is not available in any other model. So if you want the best factory version of a manual, the T and GT4 are it.
2. Cloth seats. You cannot get cloth seats in the S or Base Cayman. Not even in the GT4! Yes alcantara in the GTS and are more beautiful and just as good for grip and comfort, but they require more care and not as easy to clean as cloth. So if you live in a hot climate like I do and care about grippy funcitonal daily seats that stay cool then there is only one Cayman that offers cloth and that is the T.
3. Cool Trim Options - The mirror caps, special wheel color, blacked out trim in the rear and blacked out washer in front and most of the all the black dash trim are really cool. Even in the GTS you you have to spec something different to not get shiny metal interior trim and you still don't get the plain black plastic trim that only comes in the T. black aluminum is cool for sure but adds more money. Unpainted carbon fiber is tacky when done for looks not for strength/weight reasons in my opinion but the black interior trim is such a small touch on the T yet looks perfect.

So there are no giant things in the T that you can hang your hat on but the combination of all of these small details add up to make a car that feels special, even more special than the bigger motored S variant for me. The T reminds me a lot of watching a baseball game with my father in law who played in 3 world series and coached in the majors for over 30 years. I would just look at baseball and fall asleep. It's boring when you really don't understand or know the small things but once he was explaining the strategies, decisions, player histories, pitching types, it became a whole lot more exciting.

slilley

Well put, @Inigo Montoya. Thanks for providing that counterpoint! Fellow BMW ZHP owner here - sold it last year after 16 years and 104K miles of happy ownership to a fellow BMW enthusiast who would be better than me at the upkeep required by an aging E46.

One question for the T owners out there: is there a way to get the PCM center screen and Apple Carplay without spec'ing the Nav option? Every build I do for the Cayman T shows a giant storage bin in the dash where the Porsche PCM screen should be, whereas in a Base or S they include the screen. That might be one reason people look past the T.

worf928

In the U.S.? Yes, order it without Nav and you get PCM. Wired Carplay is standard.

In the US, requirements for blind distracted SUV drivers effect low-slung sports cars. So, with rearview cameras required by Federal regulation, a screen is required. Thus PCM. And with PCM comes Carplay.

In the rest of the world where rearview cameras are not required, PCM is optional and lack of PCM is standard in the T.

Why the US configurator shows it incorrectly? Dunno.

Inigo Montoya

Yes, there is an issue with the configurator in the US. It doesn't give you the option to add the radio back in because taking it off is not an option but it shows the hole in the dash which can confuse people. Also yes, keeping my old ZHPs running is a fools errand but there are few cars as balanced and well rounded as the manual ZHP so being a fool, I continue to constantly fix it as well. Finally another problem with the configurator is that they tell you that you must get the smartphone system in order to get a USB drive in the armrest shell but that is not the case now. The USB comes in all new Caymans so you can plug in for the standard Apple Car Play. Worf already answered the other questions...thank you sir.

worf928

Why don’t you start a new thread with your questions that are not related specifically to the ‘T’ models.

You might get more people to read and respond.

TXshaggy

Why is it confusing? It’s exactly as stated, hard-wired to phone for CarPlay to work.

TXshaggy

No, there is no Wireless CarPlay in the 718. You can buy a bluetooth dongle that will give you that capability.

Every model line is updated separately ... some support wireless CarPlay.

worf928

yellolab

Close: you can swap $99 for a dongle, and like magic you will have wireless...

https://cplay2air.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQj...QaAktEEALw_wcB