Cayman S - day of awakening

Occasionally, a car comes along that shifts your perspective of what a single vehicle is capable of. Last Friday, I drove two.
It wasn’t on the tracks at Mira in the Jaguar XFR that realisation hit, it was on the M25 as I prodded the throttle to get out of a static line of traffic into a slip road. Nothing else on sale could have soothed away the stress of an hour spent in static Friday afternoon traffic on the London orbital and then provided such a massive rush of adrenaline so effortlessly. Let alone also proving to be one of the most sideways cars I or my more experience colleagues have driven.
Very few cars have ever left me with such a profound awe for what man can do with some oily metal and wiring as the XFR did.
Until I stepped into the Porsche Cayman S that I was lucky enough to be tasked with driving to Scotland over the weekend.

I knew it was good – I’d read the articles, talked to the fans and a passing comment from Features ed Matt Saunders on how I was stepping into the best car in the world also gave me an inkling that this was probably quite a good car.
I wasn’t prepared for just how good. Where it lacks the fist in the back acceleration of a 911, it offers a sense of balance and response that the more expensive and heavy Porsche can’t match. Driving it around some obscure Scottish mountain roads was a defining moment in my driving career.
The XFR changed my ideas on just how broad a range of capabilities any one car could have. The Porsche Cayman S took my whole-hearted enthusiasm for motoring, screwed it up and turned it into a raving addiction to one vehicle. I shall never be the same again.