2021 Porsche 718 GTS | Medicine for the Soul

the porsche 718 gts 4 liter boxster now that is one hell of a name but the gts 4 leader along with its bigger brothers the spider and gt4 mark a return to form for the 718 lineup reintroducing the much missed flat 6. so in this video we're going to talk about what this thing's like to drive some of the engineering has gone into the four liter variants of the 718 as well as whether you should or should not buy this quite frankly very expensive porsche [Music] product [Music] [Applause] [Music] inside the 718 gts 4 liter now the first thing to talk about before we get into price is that most of this cabin is a carryover from the prior generation cayman or boxster so if you want to learn everything there is to learn about this cabin watch our prior generation video on the gt4 i'm really going to focus on the highlights of what's changed and give you a quick overview so let's get into price and it's a big one because this car as tested is a hundred and sixteen thousand dollars which is unfair because this is a press car which means it has every option conceivable but note the boxster variants of the 718 start at about 88 thousand dollars i think it's 88.8 where the cayman or the coupe variants started 86 000 and according to porsche the average car out the door has about 18 thousand dollars worth of options added to it which makes these cars a six-figure proposition and in the changing sports car landscape that's something to note it's quiet even as a convertible with a top up you can expect interior noise volume say below the c7 corvette closer to the c8 and a little bit louder than the supra so it's very very livable despite being a soft top the interior space the ergonomics of this cabin are also great your inputs are exactly where you want them to be the steering wheel feels good the pedal box is great and this cabin fits all sizes as far as body types go you can be smaller you can be taller you can be heavier and because they have different seat options your girth or your width of your body can also be accommodated this car has these sports plus seats which have slightly more adjustments in the base seats i find them very very comfortable next infotainment and that's what's been changed on this generation gts really this cabin is not the most practical however the trunk and the frunk do make this car a very usable daily driver because compared to most sports cars there is far more storage in this car i actually think it has more usable storage than the 911 the next thing is the interior layout many will argue that this system is cluttered and not intuitive i like the physical controls i think they're easier to use once you know where everything is but a lot of people that have gotten into this car find it overwhelming when they're trying to find where things are this cabin otherwise is superb so with that let's head to the shop so mark this is the 718 gts 4 liter and yet again this is another porsche video i know yeah and we did a gt4 video before this the previous generation so check that out but a lot of that surprise only from that car is a carry over here and why is that jack because the 981 was such a large leap forward from the prior generation cayman and boxster that this 982 porsche didn't feel they had to change too much and they really didn't now they this is now on one of their new global architectures yes this is the mmb architecture which is a modular platform that the 911 and the cayman and boxster are now on which is smart and a lot of this what we're talking about here modularity is the name of the game even for porsche gone are some of the more extreme bespoke cars so they can get things through the plant flow they can consolidate manufacturing from engine design to body structure the ability to send this down the line and just swap out some subframes for whatever they're doing and it's smart because this is how you stay in business and sports cars don't sell this would not keep the lights on as you mentioned with what was it the ticon yeah both it doesn't matter what other model other than the panamera you list the macan the cayenne and i believe the ticon all outsell their dedicated sports cars that's crazy so let's talk about some of the trim levels here jack so the boxster and cayman the 718s are basically mechanically identical just one is a coupe and one is a convertible and the models are largely a carryover between all of them you have the base cayman the cayman s the cayman t and all of those are four poppers mind you the gts which is now a four liter flat six they replace the prior gts which is still a four popper okay and then you have the gt4 and the spyder okay so all of those from gts up all get the four liter yes and there's subtle differences in tuning from the gts to the gt4 and the spyder in the engine and suspension is all different though gts has largely the same suspension found on the s and the regular variants where the gt4 and spider get the more gt oriented suspension which is changes a lot in the front and the rear this however gets pasm and the sport suspension which lowers this car about 20 millimeters and then the gts also gets larger front brakes okay as standard with the steels however the carbon ceramics i believe are largely unchanged okay so with this car the big thing to say this is a german spec car this is a euro pre-production model it's not the same as what we get in the us so things like the particulate filter here for emissions and the exhaust is more muted and there might be some engine tuning differences for the euro market and the u.s market but again pre-production cars so this may not look exactly final yep so what you get here in the front is all aluminum suspension and pasm is an adaptive damper and the front suspension are struts correct and this is on an aluminum subframe all the suspension components are aluminum and porsche strut's a little bit different it almost looks like a hybrid multi-link and a double wishbone but you can tell they're struts because the shock absorber is integrated into the knuckle the shock absorbers are load bearing which makes them a strut design and it's the same front and rear so the only other thing to say is like most porsches this is completely flat underneath every nook and cranny has been covered up either by body sealer composite panels and this is one of the reasons why these cars are so aerostable at speed the front does not have any active arrow the girls are just wide open there's no fishing nets or any like fake grills it's just wide open for cooling and you have kick-ups here to feed air into the radiator and most of the air blows out into the wheel wells there are air directors here for the back of the brakes and it has a hybrid dust shield some of it's open some it's not so this is going to have a high overhead for thermal capacity but let's get in the back jack and take a look at the back half all right so we made it to the rear of the 718 gts the first thing to talk about before we talk about the engine is the suspension it's largely the same as the front it's all aluminum and it's still strut based next thing to talk about transmission the 718 gts you get two options a pdk which comes with an edif or a six-speed manual which has a mechanical limited slip and it has a dual mass flywheel that was shared with the prior generation gt3 next thing to talk about is the engine so when this car first came out the 718 was introduced with a four cylinder which caused a lot of controversy it objectively was better than the flat six in the 981 generation in every way faster better fuel economy yadda yadda yadda but according to most people including me is it lost a lot of the character that made these cars fun it was no longer you no longer had that flat six whale which and and part of this is the engineering side of this development is in contradiction of what's here and here for consumers and it's hard to explain sometimes engineers while something might be on paper physically objectively better it doesn't have that same connection that's not something you can spell out and that's why the new six cylinder or the six cylinder options have started to come back yeah and it makes total sense in a car like this so this is the four liter and in fact actually all porsche motors except for the gt cars like the upcoming gt3 are all in the same architecture for their sports cars it's called the 982 platform which is entirely modular so the four cylinder which is either the 2 liter or the 2.5 the 3 liter which is a twin turbo found in the carrera and the crear s the video we just did and the turbo are all on the same platform including this four liter and there's a commonality in parts because again you could have warehousing of all these common parts send it down the same line and then have the same block or foundation or multi you know different versions of those pieces yep so this four liter one compared to the three liter found in the carrer s is naturally aspirated it revs to 7 800 rpm in the gts and to 8 000 rpm in the gt4 and spider the last thing to talk about before the drive we're on tires that have been absolutely annihilated by the previous press outlets or whatever tour of duty this car is on so this car the gts and lower gets a standard set of like high performance summer tires when you go to the gt4 and the spider spider you get a stickier compound like a cup too so let's get this out on the road and see how it drives all right oh jack we're in the uh seven one eight gts four liter mark oh boy let's let's just start this off right in the turn because you know we're not going fast whoa mid-engine mid-engine design over the 911. first time i got in this you saw you told me oh mark you're going to hate this car because i know you don't like porsches and this engine is more muted because it's one of the as we talked about it's the euro spec car once you get past that and the fact that it's a little more refined and kind of numb feeling a little bit because it's trying to be an everything car you know be a good daily be a good sports car it's a little compromised it's superb but you know i know how you feel about the germans this car is amazing i'm so surprised to hear you say this it's like like we talked about in the 911 the carrera was it the s the carrera s yes i was so floored by how good that car is and this is just another version of that this is the mid-engine version yes it may not have some of the prestige and all the things that go along with it but the new styling manual gearbox the way that you feel instantly connected to this car without feeling like you're getting beat up and it is so comfortable i love it [Music] carbon ceramics it's cold out but you know what you would never be able to tell it's i think everything about this car is so neutral and so natural that if you have any type of driving aptitude you feel that i i there's rare that i feel disconnected to a car all the inputs are so balanced and this is something that we talked about on the 911 from steering gearbox the the pedals it's not just pedal layout which is a little bit skewed on this car but i don't particularly notice it like you do but clutch take up it's so natural to be smooth when you drive this i have zero issues heel-toeing and obviously this has rev matching and a whole bunch of other things going on for it but oh yeah baby it's funny to me love driving this car bro it's funny to me that you like this so much because you didn't like the gt4 no i didn't the last giant well there's a huge pro to this compared to the other gt4 just listen the engine yeah this 4-liter is incredible it is far superior to the the drivetrain that was in the gt4 in the fire gen car and this is even a muted variant of it i don't think it sounds as sweet as say the avora gt we just had it doesn't have the character the but it revs yeah it's naturally aspirated it's like a microcosm well not a microcosm it's it's like 75 of what the gt3 engine is for 50 grand less yes it shaved off some rpm it shaved off some of the veracity of getting up there and part of that is because the damn gearing on these cars and i know why porsche did it they kind of explained that to to rework the gearbox to make it fit was not possible they said it was a mechanical reason they couldn't but also a cost reason they don't sell enough of these to to make up a smoke gearbox to make shorter gearing and i think that's again like most of these cars that's what holds it back in the fun factor yeah the problem with these gears is by the time you want to rev this thing out to redline in second gear you're like 80 miles an hour which i don't know where most people live but by us it does limit some of the fun-having factor without going to jail and when you have one of the most beautiful sounding naturally aspirated engines like this in the gt3 it really really hampers the fun factor so you have to then lean on doing stupid and the fact that this car feels so friggin neutral to i don't like putting cars sideways you're not me but it just wants to rotate so effortlessly and so neutral that you never feel like this thing's getting out of control even with bald ass tires in the back it's remarkable this is a very very balanced car and it does exactly what you want it to do when you tell it to do it you're not fighting the car almost ever all of its reactions are from you doing it not something wrong with the suspension i will say though after driving the avora gt which to me is probably the closest competitor to say the gt4 spyder in this gts it lacks some of the character that comes from that car's flaws yeah and here's the thing with the avora right the avora has one of the best front ends of any car you can get in but it's right on that cusp of being a track day-only car they tried to make it more like a 911 by design but you never get in that car and think oh i'm gonna drive this every day and that's where the porsches with all their money all the technology their ability to have an interior space that doesn't feel like a coffin this could be a second car that you want to drive all the time and maybe if you're crazy a first car in a good climate or the avora always gets bumped down in that third car you're always thinking about is the weather good what's the traffic like do i want to haul stuff do i want to put people in it and the avora becomes more of a toy compared to this where this gives you about 75 of what that car is and it's definitely faster there's no doubt it's faster than the avora but the avora has a better connected feel all the way around here's the next question i have for you because i know it's going to come up what about the c8 i don't like the c8 and you don't like the c8 and watch our video to figure out why but that car really the prices are like 80 to 90 grand in today's climate this is a c8 to me where it stands as of 2020 2021 it's not a driver's no it's not it's it's a gt car that is extremely fast in a straight line that car has a lot more development development to be done to make that a complete connected experience as it stands you do not feel like you're connected to that car it may put down all the numbers but this is a far more special driving experience emotionally and the avora just kind of amps that up even more if you love to drive a car these are the ones this is like the middle ground driver's car you you don't sacrifice a lot that thing where it has to be all things all people you could drive this every single day you know it rides while it's comfortable the drive train's good the suspension doesn't beat you up and it's very connected without being so hyper focused like the avora were it is very compromised and i think we're going to be doing a gt4 and uh all the other variants of this so we're not going to beat this to death in this drive but let's get into the final thoughts jack all right final thoughts on the 718 with a 4 liter and manual transmission now cars like this are essentially non-existent anymore and even knowing that coming into driving this i was not excited for it i drove the previous generation 718 and while there was nothing wrong with it the 4-popper as quick as it was was just kind of a numb experience so what i thought was going to happen i'm going gonna get into this and like why bother it's expensive so when i drove it for the first time i already had a negative kind of connotation in my head the first time i turned that wheel and i accelerated i instantly felt like this was one of those rare experiences where one if you bought it right and you could afford this car and not be in total debt this is one of the best driving experiences i've had in a long time it reminds me a lot of kind of what the miata is trying to do the s2000 is more those affordable sports cars combining some of the elements of like the modern subra but because it's a med engine it doesn't have that pushiness of the 911s like you can do more stupid stuff you can brake harder without having to kind of constantly manage weight this thing wants to rotate under throttle and when i say rotate it's not like hellcat it's not like mustangs where you're like mash the gas and just like you're flipping the wheel around i mean it's subtle inputs subtle corrections it is such a balanced wonderful car to drive that this would be because of the manual transmission because of the engine the naturally aspirated engine this is one of those few cars that you don't just think well i'm going to cycle through this if you could afford it or you could afford a gt4 you buy this you keep it in the garage and you know it's going to keep its value if you don't destroy the thing that's how special it is it's one of the the best driving experiences i've had and i can't wait to kind of do the videos on the gt3s and the gt4s to kind of explain how they take that to the next level but the only negative part here is i wish that they would have updated the interior to what they did to the 992 911 kind of combining the modern-ness getting rid of some of all the like cluttered physical controls and of course the manual trans i'm glad it's there i just wish the gearing was better and i know this has been a complaint on these cars for a long time but even with that said you're gonna love this car if you love driving there's just no other way about it thanks for watching i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: savagegeese

Views: 388,961

Keywords: cars, trucks, 2021, 2020, 2022, best sports cars, Porsche 718, GTS, GT4, GT3, lotus evora, elise, exige, reviews, cars and bids, cargurus, carvanna, porsche 718, cayman, 911, ford mustang, chevy corvette c8, supra, bmw, m4, m3, problems, reliability, mod, MCM, funny, chicago, pixel5, android auto, S21, iphone 12, need for speed, games, exotic cars

Id: EEkE6Qwj9cQ

Length: 20min 53sec (1253 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Gorgenapper]

I really liked that part where they talked about how there is a difference between what engineering sees vs the emotional connection to the end user, because it's not all about numbers when it comes to cars like these, which led nicely to the part where they discuss the C8.

[u/italia06823834]

Obligatory "Something something something long gearing."
But actually, I think this is probably the best (new) Porsche you can buy right now.

Also, SavageGeese has been pumping out new videos it seems like. I try to watch every one, but I've been busy and have backlog now.

[u/michaelalex3]

It’s been fun to watch Mark come around on Porsches, although some of that may just be the Porsches getting better (first gen EPS in the 991/981 was probably a big turn off).

[u/savage_slurpie]

I absolutely adore caymans. Had the opportunity to drive one owned by a friend of my father on some country roads in WI for an afternoon. Most fun that I’ve ever had on four wheels and I really wasn’t even going super fast. They simply feel like a dream to drive.

[u/[deleted]]

Really hope i get my gt4 allocation soon these are so awesome

[u/SecretAntWorshiper]

Did anybody get confused when they talked about the different variants and the different generations?

So many different names and numbers I couldn't keep up 😂

[u/libnon_don]

Beautiful

[u/[deleted]]

Upvote for Savagegeese

[u/TrackAttackCanada]

For the money its actually the better buy over the GT4/Spyder. You get 90% of the performance for $20K less.