Not new, at all, to the racetrack is Boopesh Reddy. And the Cayman GT4 is the car he bought to feed his track day hunger. Boopesh’s Bren Garage has the sweetest collection of sports and supercars in the country. The 2015, 2016 and 2017 evo Cars of the Year, all three, are in his garage (evo India October 2017). On the Bren Garage Instagram page, you will find the 458 Speciale, Lambos, Astons, an AMG GT R, and what not, yet the brand that’s closest to his heart is Porsche. “It just suits me,” says Boopesh. His first Porsche was a Carrera S six years ago and he still has it, has no intentions to sell it. The last Porsche he bought was the Turbo S, one of the first 991.2 Turbos in the country, purchased with the sole intent of sending it off to TechArt to have it transmogrified into the fastest, most exclusive, most carbon fibre-y, most radical and, well, one of the maddest Porsches in the country. That car, the TechArt-tuned GT Street R (featured in evo India, April 2018) was what Boopesh set off from Bangalore in, for our track day in Chennai, except it picked up a slow puncture halfway through the journey and Boopesh had it sent back. Boopesh is another one of those who uses his cars! Maybe this impression we have of sports cars sitting in garages ought to be revisited.
Anyway, the Cayman GT4, evo’s Car of the Year in 2015. “The engagement,” exclaims Boopesh. “It’s a manual car, the car is very precise, it’s amazing on the track.” In fact, it’s no secret that the Cayman, with its mid-engined layout, has inherently better dynamics than the rear-engined 911 – all arguments to the contrary laid to rest when Porsche Motorsport pushed the flat-six engine ahead of the rear axle in the latest Nurburgring 24 hours and Le Mans 24 hours winning 911 RSR.
There is so much precision, you can hold beautiful lines, and in Chennai it is perfect.
Elaborating on the GT4 Boopesh adds, “There is so much precision, you can hold beautiful lines, and in Chennai it is perfect.” We echoed similar sentiments when we first drove the GT4 – in fact, our cover line raised a fair bit of controversy. “Sell your kids,” we shrieked back in April 2015.
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The GT4 is so exclusive, so rare, you only need your fingers to count how many were allocated to India. But that’s nothing compared to the 911R of which there is… only one in the country. And the man instrumental in bringing evo’s 2017 Car of the Year to India, one of only 991 units worldwide, is the boss of Porsche India, Pavan Shetty.
Big deal, I hear you say. Except it is. A BFD if you know what I mean. The 911 R was – and is! – so rare and in such demand that collectors are now willing to pay six times its original list price! And that’s where the real action is for Porsche these days, not so much in terms of volumes but massive in terms of brand image and bragging rights among the sports/supercar community. Pavan adds, “If you see the demand for GT cars today, the way it has progressed over the last 4 or 5 years, the demand surpasses what we can supply.” The south used to be the traditional bastion for Porsche’s GT cars but now the north has latched on to the trend, discovered the bragging rights that an edition Porsche affords you.
The celebration isn’t over yet! Wait for the part 3 that will be up tomorrow (hint: it features a crazy track maniac)