Test drive: 2007 Porsche Cayman
Monday March 5, 2007
As a long-time Porscheophile, it made sense to assign our review of the 2007 Porsche Cayman to Philip Powell, who was racing Porsches before my folks were entertaining thoughts of settling down and starting a family. Much as I enjoy driving fast German cars, I don't have the same credentials as Philip: The perspective on Porsche history, the familiarity with the quirks of older Porsche designs, and the cojones to drive a brand-new Porsche at 125 miles per hour on a public road. Check out Philip's Porsche Cayman review for the whole story. -- Aaron Gold
Photo © Philip Powell
I can’t afford one but thanks for letting me daydream about one! If you ever lived in California you’ve dreamed of owning a Porsche.
My dad taught me to drive a stick on a Porsche and 20 years later I still want one!
Why should Pillip be allowed to have all the fun? I’m very sure that more than 95% of Porsche owners have never driven a race car. This is the kind of car test that would make you a better writer.
It’s not fair! If someone dangled the opportunity to drive something like this car and then they tell me that I am not qualified to do so because there is someone else that is better than me, I would raise a big issue with it. Does that mean that if a new Lamborgini needs to be test driven for a write up then you will be denied the experience also?
Hey Gemphoto — Appreciate the righteous indignation. Actually, it was me who assigned him the review. Sadly I just don’t have time to review everything, and Philip writes such great reviews, I was pleased to have him take the assignment.
If we ever get an offer from Lamborghini to test-drive a car, don’t worry, I’ll be first in line for the keys.
good for you aaron…leave the test drive to the expert on porsches…a potential porsche buyer would be able to be more influenced by someone who knows all the quirks of porsches gone before…or the rest of us as well…but aaron, i hope you didn’t give up on a little lazy drive on mulholland dr, did you? if you passed on that, than shame on you and turn in you “car nut card”!!!
Don –
Would have loved to have taken the Cayman for a spin on Mulholland Drive (actually, I prefer Decker Canyon Road) — sadly Philip’s located in Vancouver, British Columbia, as was the Cayman. Never occured to me to ask if he would take a quick trip down here… of course, once Porsche discovered that we put 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles to you and me) on their Caymen, we’d have a bit of ’splainin’ to do!
see, i couldn’t wait for him to come down to so.cal., but would fly up to vancouver start across the lionsgate bridge, turn west on marine drive, have lunch in horse shoe bay, drive thru squamish, whistler and back…it doesn’t get any better than that, aaron. call me for self-indulgent/hedonistic car ides any time…
With due respect to my colleague, Aaron, I do not live in Vancouver but in the town of Sidney on Vancouver Island. The southern end of the Island is heavily trafficked and the roads few (due to the mountains) so opportunities to really hang it out seldom happen. The Vancouver route your previous commenter mentioned would be perfect if I still lived in that beautiful city. I’ve also been known to blast up Mulholland Drive in a Porsche while shooting commercials in LA during a prior life as an ad writer. Actually “known” is not quite correct. “Cursed at” by my producer would be more accurate. Having done this last blast at 125 mph (and another at 156 mph in a 911 two years ago) I’m now hanging up my helmet and driving with dignity in my little 2003 Accent GT. As the great auto journalist L.K.J. Setright once wrote: “It is more fun to drive a slow car fast than to drive a fast car slow.”
– Philip
I love that line and I’m going to mount it on the dash of our civic and point to it every time wife curses at me as a drift thru another turn up here in the no. Georgia mountains!