2014 Cayman S
What was your first impression of the Porsche Cayman?
LAURIE: When I got my first glimpse of that eye- popping, metallic sapphire blue Porsche Caymen two-door sports coupe with red leather interior, and heard the wild, leopard-like purr of its Boxer 325 hp, 7400 rpm engine driving that sleek, ground-hugging chassis, I thought, “How the heck am I going to get into that car? And how am I going to pry myself out?
JOHN: My first impression? Wow!!!!!!!! Followed by, “Are you kidding me?” I’m sixty-five and live in a village where the speed limit is usually 25 mph, 35 tops.” Followed by, “Thank you, God!”
What did you think about the way the Cayman drives?
2014 Cayman S – Interior.
LAURIE: Not much because Johnny wouldn’t give me a chance to drive it. Well, that’s not quite true. I drove to the post office and back, but that’s a distance of about a thousand yards, round-trip… Anyway, he made up excuses just so he could go out for a drive in the Porsche. Like, yesterday we went to the grocery store and when we got home, he said, “We forgot to get the carrots.” Carrots! Johnny hates carrots. He just wanted to drive the Porsche some more! But I called his bluff and said, “You don’t eat carrots!” And he says, “I meant, chocolate cake.” So I said, “Okay, maybe you’d better go back to the grocery store,” even though I knew chocolate cake wasn’t on the shopping list. So I let him go. I mean, marriage is about give and take, right?
JOHN: You want to know what I think about the Porsche Cayman? It is a road-hugging, curve-loving, built-for-driving, fantasy-making machine. I loved it. We have lots of circles and right-hand turns around here and I could do them so easily, with no braking. Gearing down for sharp turns brought back the James Bond image of my teens and twenties. When you get to be my age, it is good to dream a little.
What about the Porsche Cayman’s acceleration?
2014 Cayman driven within speed limits; it feels naughty even at such mundane speeds.
LAURIE: Sure, sure…I know. Believe me, I know. The Porsche Cayman can go from zero to sixty miles per hour in 6.7 seconds. John kept trying to do it in 6.6. Like, going home from the grocery store. Or the time we pulled up in front of the church for the eleven o’clock service, and the Choir began singing “All Hail the Power.”
JOHN: Let me reiterate, I live in an area where the speed limit is 35. Occasionally, rarely, hardly ever; okay, once in a while, I had to improvise, like going around the circle to a long straight away with no one in front, beside, or behind me. I might have, might have I say, pressed down on the accelerator while in third gear just to see the acceleration. It only lasted a second as Laurie’s screams drowned out any joy I perceived. It will jump. Again, living in Pinehurst, as beautiful as it is, doesn’t exactly offer any test track type of opportunity for a car like this beauty.
Did you know the Porsche Cayman can reach a top speed of 175 miles an hour?
LAURIE: See this swelling on my neck? That’s where my heart got stuck in my throat. I freaked out. I thought Johnny was going to break the sound barrier. One night, we were coming home from dinner with some friends on a long stretch of road and Johnny put the pedal to the metal. I prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let there be a policeman hiding behind some longleaf pine.” Thankfully, the Lord heard my prayer.”
JOHN: Perception is a part of the driving mystique. I never got the car past seventy-five miles an hour…
LAURIE (interrupting): Oh, really? You’ve got to be kidding…
JOHN (ignoring Laurie): …and that was on Route 1, where the speed limit is seventy in the open stretch between here and Raleigh. When you are low to the ground in what we called in the Sixties, a “pocket rocket,” you appear to be going much faster than you really are. I don’t know how fast it will go, and don’t need to know. It goes plenty fast for a guy my age, and just being seen in a car that people know can go real fast is something in and of itself. That’s my story.
What do you think about Porsche Cayman’s looks?
Two 2014 Cayman parked alongside an inland sea route.
LAURIE: Oh, no question—it’s a beautiful sports coupe. The lines are elegant and the red interior in the car we drove made a real statement. As it happened, we got the Porsche Cayman during the week of the Concours d’Elegance last May at the Pinehurst Resort, here in Pinehurst, North Carolina, you know, where we live. The security at the Resort thought we were one of the special cars meant to be displayed the exhibition grounds and kept trying to wave us onto the field.
JOHN: We drove over to the Resort to look at the Porsche-sponsored event, and they had probably six different Porsches parked out front for people to drive. They were all silver or white, and, compared to what I was driving, pretty drab. I stopped by the sign-up tent and told the manager in charge that I would loan them mine if they wanted to add some color to their grouping. Somehow he missed the humor. The car was a stunning, eye catching, metallic sapphire that really draws attention when you roll by. It is exquisitely handsome. “Clothes,”—and in this case, the car— really “do make the man.”
Do you have one final thought about the Porsche Cayman?
2014 Cayman.
JOHN: If I get below 200 pounds, Laurie has told me she will buy me one for Christmas. Having your mouth sewn shut might seem drastic, but some things are worth the price. Get back to me on this one at Christmas.
LAURIE: I told Johnny, he’s going to have to be very, very good if Santa’s going to bring him one…
Driving Me Crazy Columnists Laurie and John Wiles.
John and Laurie Wiles have a combined driving history of ninety-five years. Laurie is one of only thirty-six journalists who are members of the prestigious New England Automotive Press Association (Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of National Public Radio’s “Car Talk” among them.) Since 1998, Laurie has test-driven and reviewed over eight-hundred new model cars, trucks, and SUVs. John, a lifelong car enthusiast, has owned more than forty vehicles (so far.)
John and Laurie recently got the idea of combining on a weekly car review. Laurie explains. “One day, a gorgeous blue Porsche Cayman pulled in the drive. Johnny slides behind the wheel, cocks an eyebrow, and says, ‘The name’s Bond. James Bond,’ like he’s Sean Connery or something. The next week, a Chevy Camaro rolls in. Johnny gets one glimpse of that muscle car and shouts out, ‘Can you say N-A-S-C-A-R?’ Once I realized he wasn’t speaking in tongues, I realized his voice, together with mine, might be fun. After all, ‘sixty is the new forty.’”
John adds, “Men and women have very different opinions about cars and I think it’s good for people to get an understanding of what a couple think about a car, and what they like and don’t like. Of course, that doesn’t mean they have to agree on everything—you know, like the way it is in a marriage.”
Laurie, whose professional name is Laurie Bogart Morrow, is the author of a dozen books, including The Hardscrabble Chronicles (Penguin Putnam) and The Giant Book of Dog Names (Simon and Schuster. John is a retired program manager in the National Defense contracting industry and a teacher in the public school system. They live happily in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
