ON DAYS LIKE THESE
MONZA, ITALY. OUTSIDE ONE OF THOSE anonymous business hotels that could be pretty much anywhere in the world, a time-worn single-car transporter lowers its carriage towards the ground. The sides are opened up. The delivery driver is happy despite the fierce heat and cheerily walks to each corner, dealing easily with straps and ratchets to free the cargo. Seconds later the unmistakable sound of a Lamborghini V10 is tearing through the molassesthick air and visibly shaking the flimsy structure from which it’s emerging. Now I’m smiling, too.
Any day you get to drive a Huracán STO is a good day. But today there’s an especially heightened sense of expectation. Another delivery driver has already called to update me on his progress from Stuttgart to our meeting point in the south of France. He’s bringing a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS. Speed Yellow, Weissach Pack. Oh, and a spare set of wheels and tyres. Magnesium, of course. Just a few minutes ago a new WhatsApp group, started yesterday and called ‘Mid-engined Screamers’, pinged with a picture of a Honda NSX-R leaving Switzerland. Another owner replied: ‘See you tomorrow, guys. The Speciale is ready. Can’t wait.’
Well, what else were we to do? As soon as the GT4 RS was officially confirmed by Porsche, we knew we’d have to find a way to pull together some extraordinary cars. It promised so much. The basic recipe is a full-blooded 911 GT3 engine in a mid-engined Cayman chassis, but being a product of Porsche Motorsport this is so much more than a simple engine swap. The GT4 RS features considerably shorter gear ratios than the standard GT4, new anti-roll bars, unique springs and damper tuning, fully rose-jointed suspension, revised aero with up to 60 per cent more downforce, carbonfibre front wings and bonnet, a unique intake system, bigger brakes… No stone is left unturned. This is a Cayman capable of lapping the Nürburgring in 7:09.30. And it revs to 9000rpm. It’s a Cayman that costs from £108,370 (and races to £250k on the flipper’s market).
The NSX-R has Nürburgring provenance, too. Back in 2002 it lapped the place in 7:56.73 in the hands of Best Motoring’s Motoharu Kurosawa. Pretty incredible for a car with a 3.2-litre V6 producing a quoted 276bhp at 7300rpm and just 224lb ft at 5300rpm. Yet when you delve into the obsessive work put into creating the R it’s little wonder that Honda’s mid-engined sports car performs at such a high level. It’s almost as if the blueprint for the GT4 RS was cast over 20 years ago. In Japan.
As with the GT4 RS, the NSX’s transformation into the R was remarkably detailed and laser-focused. Each piston and connecting rod is balanced to a tolerance of half that of a standard NSX engine. The crank assembly features carefully matched components to reduce friction, the clutch/flywheel/pulley assembly is hand-machined and rotating weight tolerance is reduced to below 1/10th of that
