ExMB

How much do you want to bet the cleaning lady knows.

Ferrarisimo

If we're speculating and adding to a wishlist, my theories include:

• Detuned X51, making 415HP
• Shorter gearing
• PDK-R as an option

Other than adopting the styling changes that the 718 went through as well as things like the latest generation of PCM, I think those would be the only meaningful changes to the car.

But again, this is speculation.

Vintage72

the only certainty is a healthy jump in PRICE

James88

This ^^

Snowman.

Ok so this is a bit off the 718 GT4 topic - but my understanding is this GT2 RS project is a lot more political than anything else. Porsche did not run a factory WEC LM GTE 911RSR at Le Mans this year. They applied to the ACO for them to be allowed to build a new car with the engine mid mounted rather than the traditional rear engined and this has been knocked back.

The rumours I'm hearing is the purpose behind this GT2 RS is that it will be the first "mid-rear" engined 911 - obviously turbo - and and it is being designed pretty much solely for homologation purposes for their next gen race cars - much the same as the Ford GT road car was designed to suit their Le Mans requirements.

It's speculation mind you - but it makes a great deal of sense if at the expense of tradition.

jphughan

^ VERY interesting.... I'd heard Porsche was trying to get an exemption to race a mid-engined 911 (transmission behind engine) despite the road cars being rear-engine, but I hadn't heard it had been rejected. I'm curious to see how this goes! If the new 2RS does turn out to use a flipped driveline, being the first to do so would likely make it a collector car though, possibly more so than the 911 R that's apparently already trading at $1.3 million.

zedcat

Next GT4- small hp bump, PASM tweaks. Price increase but not a big bump. Just traditional Porsche increments. PDK is the interesting question. Can of course be done, but will they?

And please, please no centerlocks

Selo

It's funny that some of you believe pdk as an option is making it better, when one of the reasons for it's great success has been that it addressed the need for manual transmissions. Same with the 911 R. Manual has been the key to their success. Personally, I think adding a pdk option would be a bad idea. Keep it pure.

jphughan

I think people are advocating PDK as an option, not a replacement. PDK makes the car faster, and to some that's what matters most. It also makes it more DD-friendly for people who want to drive it more but might not due to traffic on their route, and also more accessible to some people with health issues that prevent them from operating a clutch. Remember that there are many threads around here with 991 GT3 owners saying they were skeptical/disappointed about PDK but found that they loved it after actually trying it.

All that said, I personally would still have picked manual even if PDK had been available even though I DD mine, and maybe those PDK converts on the GT3 side will convert right back to manual with the 991.2.

rk-d

The complete lack of PDK in this car was a statement. Manual or nothing. I love the purity of that. I hope it doesn't change.

twentyseven

Those who want PDK should be steered to a 718 S. That car will likely be similarly quick on paper (much like GT3RS vs TTS) and is the very version of the Cayman they built to be daily driven.

Also recall the GT4 was NOT built for lap times..

981.2 GT4 base price will still be under 100k. Everyone but the fanboys knows it's already a lot of money for 400hp these days. PAG already found the sweet spot on the current car - supply came just short of demand after all the dust settled. Those if you who say "Porsche was caught off guard" haven't seen the countless rows of corporate offices for the people they employ to study these things and get it right.

Unless they start using a detuned/destroked GT3 engine to reduce costs moving forward, the 9A1 will probably come back with a Powerkit of some sort. A 911R gearbox would be the biggest reason I can think of for the price to go up, otherwise there won't be much development costs to inflate the price of the car. 718 is already using subframe bits they learned from GT4.

As for GT2/GT2RS, standard GT2's have never sold well. The widowmaker reputation doesn't help, and PDK+AWD of the standard Turbo means it actually launches faster than the RWD+Manual combo ever could for less money. And while the GT2RS simply serves a very different purpose, it was not that dissimilar from parts used on other 997's....

jphughan

True the GT4 wasn't built for lap times. But the 991 GT3 was, and now they're apparently going to offer a 991.2 GT3 with a slower manual option that won't be, so I see no reason to rule out them doing the reverse for the GT4.

I think at least some in Porsche were very much caught off guard. What I've read (and can't confirm, though it seems plausible) was that there were essentially two factions within Porsche. The enthusiasts like those in the Motorsport division knew that they had a hit on their hands and that the market would respond. The bean counters on the other hand looked at this and said you're starting with a model that already sees low sales volume, and now you're going to offer it only with the transmission that has a far lower take rate AND want to charge more -- not an obvious winning formula on paper. I think the marketing/product planning teams were worried this might be a lead balloon, and so they attempted to mitigate that risk by pricing it aggressively, at only about $8K over the GTS -- which as we all know now only stoked high demand even higher, perhaps higher even than the enthusiast faction had expected. It also seems pretty clear that they ended up giving out many more allocations than they had originally planned, so the fact that they ended up making enough to hit their target on the supply/demand curve doesn't mean they planned it that way from the start.

718 GT4 engine is still a very open question due to topics like the cost/logistics of keeping a 9A1 around just for the next GT4 (especially in the wake of dieselgate, the bill for which Porsche seems to be paying a disproportionate share of as the most profitable brand in the VW Group) and the potential for the GT4 to be a trial balloon for transitioning a previously NA GT car over to turbo before potentially doing it on the upmarket models -- but on the other hand Porsche must realize that NA was a selling point for the current car and that switching to turbo would incite similar responses that switching the GT3 to PDK did. Cost no object, sure it would almost certainly be NA, but you don't get to making the money that Porsche does by not considering costs, and even though some customers could and would even be willing to spend crazy money for a GT4 with a GT3 engine, it doesn't mean Porsche will do it, because that may not represent a large enough market for them -- and that's before considering any model hierarchy concerns.

Ferrarisimo

This is the only part of my theory that gives me pause. Like most car companies, Porsche runs a just-in-time production model. They don't warehouse anything for me than a day or two, let alone engine blocks. And while no one is suggesting that they'd keep some 5,000 9A1 blocks sitting on a shelf somewhere for two years until 718 GT4 production starts, would they have to keep the foundries and machining that produce the 9A1 intact? Is the process of making engine blocks and its components fluid enough to pause for a few years? Are enough of the designs shared between the NA 9A1 and the new turbo blocks that restarting NA production in a few years would be trivial? I don't know enough about this to take an educated guess. Someone else please chime in.

Otherwise, the one unbroken line in Porsche's NA engine development for the next few years is the GT3 engine block. Which means that if the 718 GT4 is going to be NA and not use a detuned X51 9A1, then it'd have to use a detuned GT3 engine. The product marketing manager in me would never allow a GT4 to house a GT3 engine (the prospective 718 GT4 owner in me would kill for one).

electronspeeder

From a business/marketing perspective, if I were Porsche, I would just release a tuned version of the current 718. Higher levels of boost, push the power numbers past 400 HP. New suspension and brakes, and call it a GT4. No need for a new engine.

CarAholic

While I would love to see another NA GT4 I just don't see it happening. It doesn't make sense that they would keep one engine around for years that isn't being used in any other vehicle for just a small run. The GT3 motor going in I don't think will happen as even de tuned, puts it in the same league as the GT3. The only way I see an NA motor going in is a bespoke motor but this is highly unlikely as the production costs wouldn't make sense for a small run. I believe it will be a turbo motor but I would love to be proven wrong.