consolidated

some do, but we all have our hang ups.

nova996

I went with leather, which also allowed me to get the brushed aluminum shifter.

otisdog

They say when you do the leather, you get the brushed alu on the dash. Not the doors?

matttheboatman

No, leather gives you brush aluminum on the doors, and Alcantara bits on the lower doors and lower dash. Standard interior has the black plastic trim on the doors.

jphughan

I was going to go with the aluminum shifter, but looking at pictures of other 981s, it appears that only a small portion of the shifter is aluminum and the shift pattern is still on a plastic cap of some sort. For the money, I would've expected the shift pattern to be engraved into brushed aluminum. The cap actually makes the shifter look more "busy" to me. And to be honest, even before I discovered that, I questioned the wisdom of specing a shifter that could become very hot to the touch after the car has been left outside in a Texas summer.

nova996

Yes! Welcome to Porsche value for money, right?

Yeah, I actually like the look, but agree it is busier. And yes, in TX (or if I parked outside often) I would worry about this.

In the past, the Al shifters have been a bit heavier than the standard ones. That's something I like with shorter levers. We'll see if that's true for this one.

Mike981S

Something I saw in Geneva was that the alcantara steering wheel seems to have the yellow wheel position indicator (which is not visible in the configurator):

Porsche Cayman GT4 interior by Michael Rys, on Flickr

Does anyone know if that will be preserved if you go with the leather option?

PS: I really felt that the middle if the wheel looks and feels cheap though... the single piece I did not like while sitting in the car in Geneva.

user1029

joe12pack

A very old topic but I am not finalizing my config and saw this.

I'm torn between leather and Alcantara. The Alcantara looks more sexy than leather. I also noticed when configuring a regular Cayman S that the upgrade to Alcantara for the steering wheel and shift **** were over $700 for both ($450 for the steering wheel alone). I could only see the leather option for the steering wheel was $250. Seems like Alcantara is a more premium upgrade and you don't see that on a lot of cars. Any updates or thoughts about durability since this was discussed 3 months ago?

Maverick1

I'm definitely going with the smooth leather option, I had Alcantara and it got really matted down and shiny and looked nasty.
Too much work for me.

jphughan

Alcantara does look more sexy when new. Whether it stays that way depends a lot on how you use the car and how much time and effort you're willing to put into cleaning it, preferably with a toothbrush. It probably is more expensive to buy aftermarket if for no other reason than it's a lower-volume part; I'm not sure if Alcantara is inherently more expensive than leather, but it's actually viewed as a less premium material compared to leather in several non-US countries. Anyhow, I don't think the cost of the item should be your main deciding factor.

I got to try the Alcantara wheel on a GTS and while it definitely felt nice, I didn't fall in love with it, and in fact I'm not even sure that I liked it more than the feel of leather. So I'm going to go with leather because it stays nicer longer, requires less maintenance, and is more of a known quantity, the only downside being that it will be hotter to the touch after the car has been out in a hot climate. I wouldn't mind seeing a picture of it on a GT4 though.

But to help you make your decision, here's a long thread on the subject in the GT3 section: https://rennlist.com/forums/991-gt3/...ing-wheel.html