Porsche Built a 1,073-HP Cayman GT4 Clubsport, and It’s Electric
It’s not a production model, but it’s one step closer to reality than the Mission R Concept.
Porsche's marvelous Mission R was one of its most impressive concept cars in recent years. With more than 1,000 horsepower, instant torque, and a five-to-80 percent recharge taking just 15 minutes, it had many of the ideal features an EV-curious enthusiast would want. Plus, it screams like an absolute madman whilst going around the track.
Now, Porsche has ripped the important guts straight from the Mission R and slapped them into a 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport like some sort of Dr. Frankenstein experiment that went absolutely right. The result of this fine-tuning is the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 ePerformance.
Okay, sure, it looks a lot like a Cayman GT4. But you should think of this more like Porsche's actual prototype for a customer-facing electric motorsport machine, whereas the Mission R was more of a technical concept. In fact, Porsche's GT Racing Vehicle Project Manager Matthias Scholz confirmed to Chris Harris that the ePerformance has the exact same technical vision of the Mission R, even though it presents itself in a different wrapper.
Porsche widened the factory GT4 Clubsport by about 5.5 inches and gave it some unique styling and aero to separate it from the current Clubsport, but the outside only tells a small portion of the story.
Inside are the bits that make the GT4 ePerformance tick. That includes its dual-motor drivetrain that Scholz says features improved versions of the electric motors found in the Taycan, though engineered to be directly oil-cooled for better performance. The electric Cayman uses three separate battery packs—one mounted at the front, rear, and mid-section of the car—that are configured to utilize Porsche's 900-volt charging system. The packs are oil-cooled and share the same cooling loop as the drivetrain units.
The setup's 986 horsepower is unlocked when the car is switched to "qualification mode," or as its engineers have affectionately named it, "party mode." Porsche says the drive units are capable of a combined peak output of 1,073 hp, which is what we saw with the Mission R. A dual-motor drivetrain means that this is also the first all-wheel-drive Cayman from the factory, although it's a non-production model.
A more modest "race mode" can offer a sustained 604 horsepower for 30 minutes. Don't let that number fool you, though, because it's still more than enough to thrash around the pavement considering that the car weighs 3,300 pounds—pretty lightweight for a car that's powered by batteries. And perhaps most impressively, it makes the Cayman ePerformance just as fast as a 911 GT3 Cup car 'round the track. Woof.
If your pockets are deep enough, you're probably already wondering when you can buy it and for how much. Unfortunately, this is just a concept, so it's not for sale.
It does, however, give a glimpse into what could underpin the "exclusively" electric Cayman when it hits the road in 2025. While Porsche isn't likely to let the road-going version outpace its flagship 911, this certainly shows how it envisions the future of electric sports cars, and I'm absolutely here for it.
