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10 May 2016

On the Cayman and wheels .

Scott,an Aussie based in Dearborn,has just taken delivery of a Porsche Cayman. Over the years Scott's had a few Porsches on different continents including most recently a battered 944 - but he's been working towards this Cayman for some time.
As he is an automotive stylist you'd expect him to go for the biggest wheels - car stylists always doodle cars with enormous wheels- but he's chosen the 19" wheels because of the potholed roads around Dearborn.
The car looks gorgeous particularly in the dark blue and Scott has picked up a thing or two about photographing cars over the years. The photos were taken on an iPhone 5S.

I'd love a Cayman - particularly a GTS. I think of the Cayman as today's embodiment of the original ethos of the 911 whereas today's 911 is a bloated,overweight machine which may go like a scalded cat but it is just too big and the driving experience has been dumbed down and softened. I'd take a Cayman anyday over a current 911.
For years Porsche has held back on producing higher performance versions of the Cayman and supporting the Cayman in racing presumably out of a concern that the Cayman would cannibalise 911 sales. This stance is now softening and we have the GT4 and GTS versions and Caymans racing. There was a Cayman competing in the recent Bathurst 12 hour GT race here in Australia.

On the subject of wheels and tyres I reckon that I am seeing fewer cars with extreme wheel and tyre combinations around locally. Maybe the facts that on the increasingly under- maintained local roads the extreme wheels and tyres give an awful ride and instances of wheel damage are quite frequent are forcing drivers to go for smaller wheels and higher profile tyres.
Whilst some new high profile tyres were being fittted to one of my cars a few weeks back I asked the tyre shop owner how the fancy big custom wheels he sold stood up to local conditions. He explained that wheel damage was frequent -both bent rims and even fractured spokes  -and so owners who fitted the wheels and paired them with very low profile tyres inflated the tyres to 40-45psi (2.75-3.10 bar) to provide a harder cushion against road shocks to try and avoid wheel damage. The result was a bone jarring ride and odd handling - particularly in the wet. The price of fashion. A bit like extreme high heel shoes.




1 comment:

  1. I tried to find out why that makes sense. Apparently, directing the tires this way leads to better braking characteristics on muddy surfaces. Cheap Tyres Milperra

    ReplyDelete