I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, pandemic boredom has finally motivated me enough to follow through. This may not be an overly exciting thread; most of the point is to force myself to document things because I’m historically awful at that.
So some back story: Recently I owned a couple of newer german sports cars, a supercharged S52 M roadster and a 986 Boxster. I really liked both cars but never totally fell in love with either and always managed to make excuses to not drive them as much as I wanted to. I decided to ditch both cars and get something that could “do it all” – daily driving, road trips, autocross, track days. Something that would be fun to drive hard, but comfortable the rest of the time and with no reliability worries. So I went looking for something that combined the best attributes of the 986 and M with modern car comfort and reliability.
Given how much the 986 driving experience exceeded my expectations, the obvious choice was a Cayman S. The 987.2 seemed like the best choice as it got over the reliability issues of the M96/M97 engines and got a serious power bump at the same time, and was reasonably modern but old enough to be budget friendly. Unfortunately, those cars were produced during peak recession time so there aren’t many out there to begin with, plus most of them are pretty low on options and even fewer of them are exciting colors. Trying to find one with a reasonable option list AND in an interesting color…basically impossible, as it turns out. So I spent a few months fruitlessly searching, until one day out of frustration and curiosity I extended my search range to include 2014s, the first year of the 981 chassis. And of course one of the first results was a 2014 with nearly the exact option list I wanted, in one of my favorite Porsche colors, for $5-10k under market and just barely more than I had resigned myself to having to pay for a decent 987.2, and not on the opposite side of the country. So after getting a few more photos and details from the seller, I sent a deposit and then a couple of weeks later headed down to Nashville with a friend to finish the deal and collect the car. This was mid-november 2019.
The car, as it was, dirty from sitting for a few months:
Safely in the trailer and ready for the trip home:
And finally back home, cleaned up a bit and sitting next to its older sibling:
The interior is a kind of weird brown over white color scheme. Not what I would have chosen but it’s not bad and has been growing on me.
It’s got pretty much all the equipment I wanted:
-manual transmission
-PASM (active suspension with 10mm lowering and slightly stiffer springs and bars)
-PTV (brake torque vectoring and a mechanical LSD)
-Bi-Xenon headlights with active cornering system (which are really awesome)
-sport seats (unfortunately not the fancy 18 way power ones)
But of course there’s reasons it was so cheap; according to the Carfax it sideswiped a guardrail very early on in its life and was repaired. As best we could tell the car has been fully repainted. There’s definitely bondo in the right rear quarter panel but all in all the work looks very well done; no visible signs of damage, the car aligns fine and drives straight. It’s pushing 65k miles which isn’t exactly high mileage, but most of these are in the 20-40k range. The paint hasn’t been cared for tremendously well; it’s fine from a few feet away but up close it’s filled with micro scratches, as well as a handful of larger ones. But all of that makes it pretty much perfect for a car that’s hopefully going to see 5-10k miles a year of street driving and a fair amount of autocross and track time.
At this point my plan is pretty simple; catch up on any maintenance it needs, maybe a few minor upgrades, and a moderate prep for SCCA A Street autocross. Wheels, tires, and maybe a sway bar if it seems like it needs it. My only real concern with that setup is the limited front camber, but we’ll see how that goes. The SCCA is currently working on refreshing STU to make it more popular, and the 981 S is on the list of potential additions (987S and 981 base are currently classed). The current proposed allowances include 11” wheels and 315 width tires for everyone which means the 981S wouldn’t really be a contender but I’m guessing it would be at least as competitive as it is in AS and a lot more fun with a bit more tire all around and a good amount of front camber. So that’s a potential consideration for the future if the car ends up getting classed.