kgorman

whatever the market will bear

BiggerTwin

My first priority was getting a fun car to drive and any 987S or Carrera would have satisfied my needs. While I prefer a coupe, when I ordered my Cayman they weren't even released and were selling at MSRP while a Boxster S could be picked up for a substantial discount. I spent a night thinking about whether the Cayman S was worth the difference. I decided it was and have no regrets about my decision.

Alan

pstoppani

There are other coupes that cost more than their convertible counterpart. Viper comes to mind.

Michael Russell

Exige as well.

Rick Longano

I was looking for a mid engined Porsche coupe. Once it was introduced, I placed my order. Pricing of the Boxster had nothing to do with it.

ltc

I thought you were referring to a 914-6
For some strange reason, I found the Cayman to be 'claustrophobic' compared to a Carrera or Boxster....I have no idea why, it just seemed smaller than it is.

epbrown01

Exactly - I've read of people getting 5 and 6 thousand dollar discounts on the Cayman S; apply that to the base Cayman and things are more sensible.

Paul523

Ignore the Boxster/Cayman price differential. The number that Porsche is counting on exploiting is $9500.. the difference in MSRP between Cayman S and non-S -- in other words, 16% lower. Both versions of the Cayman are priced too high considering their base content and cost of options, I'll venture $7K discounts will be the norm a year from now.

Still, it's a boon to PAG & the base Cayman will do well in serving its primary purpose (present company excepted)-- attracting more first-time Porsche buyers to the 987 than the Boxster would alone, at lower price point than 911. I hope they work the same fantastic Cayman S induction/exhaust noise into the base Cayman. Like ltc, interior felt a little pinched to me, probably just that I am accustomed to having back seat and sunroof on 997.

Doug&Julie

Yeah, that's all just relative to what you're used to. For somebody who has driven Boxsters a lot, the Cayman S feels perfectly fine. Cozy...intimate...like a sports car should.

designman

Rick you make a good point. If a car hits your bulls eye the price will mean nothing if you can afford it.

However the price formulas are still curious considering the Carrera coupe/cab relationship and also the price/performance relationship between Cayman/Boxster and CaymanS/BoxsterS. Porsche has moved strangely here and it would be interesting to know the reason.

Here’s my guess. Cayman is a work-in-progress market research project being positioned between the Boxster and Carrera. I think they want to get a barometer for acceptance. Base Carrera coupe sales are down considerably and this is what they are watching. If Cayman sales meet their predetermined expectations, we can expect desirable Cayman performance increases, possible elimination of the base Carrera and of course Cayman S prices will move into Carrera territory.

And then again maybe they won’t eliminate the Carrera. Heck, if they can get $4400 for a difference of 5 horsepower on the low end of their product spectrum, the number a variants they can produce is virtually endless.

Jim in St.Louis

This new Cayman pricing makes me feel the same way that MIchael Schumacher's suspicious stall at Monaco made me feel. I was looking forward to the base engined coupe, but it sounds a little fishy. The specs are too close together for that much money.
Time will tell.
Jim

andrew911

To me, convertibles like the 911 or corvette can justify a premium due to extra costs of the convertible top motors and mechanism as well as the body structure reinforcements. Tough to justify an otherwise comparably equipped coupe costing more than a convertible. I understand. however, ultimately the sticker price doesn't matter, the supply and demand drives the purchase price.

My prediction is that most likely Porsche will make more than enough caymans and the actual selling prices will be about the same as the boxter, with the less likely scenario that Porsche limits production which keeps the price premium in place for those few who simply love the cayman and will have nothing else. My prediction excludes the present time when there may be too few caymen to go around since it's a new model- that will wear off once the people who have to have the "first one on their block" get their cars. I did find what that salesman said about them not selling well - of course that's in NYC and it may be a regional thing. If I go to the dealer by my house in NJ, I'm sure they are selling a bunch.

CP

If Porsche needs to discount the base Cayman, they will discount the base Boxster as well (I don't see a huge demand for the base Boxster). Thus the pricing disparity still exists, albeit each will move down some $5k or so from MSRP.

CP

TheOtherEric

Let me try to describe what makes me uncomfortable about this pricing. We buyers like to live in our own little fantasy worlds where we get good value for our money, and the manufacturers just barely eeke out enough profit to stay in business. It's a happy place for all. So when we are faced with a pricing structure so blatantly constructed to extract the maximum possible revenues, we feel a twinge of resentment like they're trying to either fool us or screw us.

And this is how the base Cayman kinda seems. After all, they price the 997 coupe at $10,100 LESS than the cabrio! So why be inconsistent here? If they used "cost-plus" pricing like we'd want, the Cayman would likely be $5k cheaper than the Boxster...but alas that's not how things work.

fletch

On my 04 base Boxster I purchased it OTD for it's sticker price. If I can plan doing a bit better than that on a base Cayman than maybe I can get a decent one for 57k or so. That is sensible to me a 5k discount is forseeable I believe from what I have read.
The question is how do I get the 6spd without the whole PASM sport chrono package $$$$$ ouch?