2019 Porsche 718 Cayman Vs. 2019 BMW M2
Vehicles as transportation are one thing: practical people movers that benefit from comfort, efficiency, and plenty of leg room. But that鈥檚 not what you want. What you want is something fun, something that has a connection between the speedometer and your heart rate. Something that can take corners sideways and stop on a dime. But it鈥檚 not just that, either. You want something even more. Something like a 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman or maybe a 2018 BMW M2. There鈥檚 only one country in the world that designs the type of car that you need. Read on to learn more! American sports cars are too coarse, too unrefined. They have power and brute force, but they have no style. Sports cars from Japan have more style. But they鈥檙e all too willing to sacrifice power for comfort and efficiency. They often reach to satisfy all kinds of driving styles, losing focus on sheer performance.
So that leaves you with one location: Germany, the creators and innovators of driver-focused cars. And the best of those options come from Munich and Stuttgart. BMW has a long history of letting the engineers at their performance division, M, take their already fantastic cars and give them that much more. About 150 miles to the northwest are their purpose-built rivals at Porsche, a company dedicated to churning out vehicles that make your blood flow faster. Let鈥檚 take a look at their most fun, most exciting offerings, the 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman and the 2018 BMW M2. While the 911 will always be the poster-child for the Porsche brand, the 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman offers one massive engineering advantage over its big brother: engine placement. The 911 is famous for having its engine hang behind the rear axle. This places a massive amount of weight at the very rear of the vehicle. Genius-level engineering has helped keep this from being a detriment. But the mid-engine structure of the Cayman provides an inherent advantage that the 911 can鈥檛 meet.
When you make that mid-engine one of Porsche鈥檚 signature turbocharged flat-fours, you鈥檙e also getting an engine that offers a lower center of gravity, which spells superior balance. The 2.0-liter engine pumps out 300HP and 280lb-ft of torque when paired with the sublime PDK dual-clutch transmission. Purists can opt for the manual, with no penalty in horsepower or torque. This is good for a 0-60 time of 4.7 seconds (4.9 seconds with the stick). The 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman S features a 2.5-liter flat four that generates 350HP and 309lb-ft of torque. Optional equipment on the 718 Cayman includes Porsche Active Suspension Management, Torque Vectoring, the SportChrono package, and much more. All of these add-ons allow you to drive out of the lot like you鈥檙e Antoine Senna. PASM manages the dichotomy of greater handling and greater comfort by constantly matching the suspension to meet the movements of the car and the surface it鈥檚 riding on.
Torque Vectoring ensures that the tires with the most grip get the most power, allowing you to accelerate out of corners quicker. The sports exhaust and 20鈥?tires that come with the SportChrono package round out the details by giving your car the note and stance to help it stand out. New for the 2013 model year, the M2 was the result of BMW鈥檚 rebranding of coupe offerings to even-numbered vehicles, keeping the sedan offerings odd-numbered. Think of the 3 and 5 series as the daily drivers and the 4 and 6 as the sports variants. The 2, the smallest offering from Munich, has consistently been BMW鈥檚 most fun car to drive, however. After being run through the M house, that fun has increased exponentially. Wider bumpers and a larger grill lend to a more aggressive face, hinting at what lay underneath. A big 3.0 liter turbo-charged inline-six cylinder engine boasts 365 horsepower and 343 lb-ft of torque, besting Cayman S in both categories. A six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch transmission can be bolted to the engine.
The 19-inch wheels feature four-piston calipers at all four corners, 15鈥?in the front and 14.5鈥?in the back. Understeer is managed by the Active M Differential which ensures that the right tires get the right amount of power through corners. The M2 edges the PDK-equipped Cayman S in a straight-line, taking only four-seconds to reach 60MPH from a standstill. Now that we have the lay of the land when it comes to the two cars, let鈥檚 go in-depth and compare them in some more specific ways. Raw numbers in regards to horsepower and torque don鈥檛 really tell you too much on their own. A Chrysler Town and Country has a higher output than a Mazda MX-5. But the little droptop would win any drag race between the two due to its massive weight advantage. Despite its diminutive size relative to the brand, the M2 still weighs in at 3450 lbs.