New Porsche Cayman to debut in LA, coming to dealerships shortly after

Since the new Porsche Boxster early this year, German sports car lovers have been clamoring for the hardtopped version and according to Automotive News, the new Porsche Cayman will make its grand debut at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show in November – with these new entry level coupes arriving in dealerships by early 2013.

The 2013 Porsche Cayman will debut at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show this November and while details are limited, we would expect the main attraction to be a spread of physical changes that mimic those featured on the new Boxster. This includes a slightly smaller chassis with a lower curb weight – helping to improve fuel economy without making any sacrifices in performance. In fact, we would expect that the 2013 Porsche Cayman will offer better performance in terms of both acceleration and handling thanks to the lower curb weight, even though it is expected to offer very similar power outputs to the 2012 Cayman.

The 2013 Porsche Boxster is available in the base and S trimlines and we would expect that the new Cayman would include those same trimlines when it debuts in November. Like the Boxster, the 2013 Cayman will likely come with a pair of transmission – a proper 6-speed manual unit or an optional 7-speed Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) dual clutch transmission that actually offers better performance in the 2013 Boxster than the manual transmission. That being said, I would still go with the 6-speed manual as the manually shifted Boxster is great fun to drive. The PDK might make the car slightly faster but the fun of rowing your own gears is unreplaceable.

The 2013 Porsche Cayman will likely include the same new 2.7L Boxer engine that is found in the topless Boxster, packing 265 horsepower and 206lb-ft of torque. This is slightly less torque than is produced by the 2.9L Boxer engine in the current Cayman but the lighter engine should help keep the 2013 Cayman outperform the current base model coupes. Automotive News speculates that the new base Cayman will offer around 280 horsepower.

The 2013 Porsche Cayman S will likely pack the same 3.4L Boxer engine as the new Boxster S but it will be interesting to see how much power this new motor offers. In the Boxster, this motor produced 315 horsepower and 266lb-ft of torque but this output in the 2013 Cayman S would bring about reductions of 5 horsepower and 7lbp-ft of torque. The lighter chassis will likely ensure that the 2013 models will at least perform as well as the outgoing models but a reduction in power figures for a performance model is generally a no-no…so perhaps Porsche will juice the 3.4L motor to at least offer the same power output as the 2012 models. Rumors indicate that the 2013 Cayman S will pack the same 330hp that is offered by the current range-topping Cayman R – but none of the engine details have been reported from the automaker.

The third trimline currently offered for the 2012 Porsche Cayman is the R line (shown above on the right), which increases the power output of the 3.4L Boxer motor by 10hp and adds some sporty design cues inside and out. The 2012 Cayman R also reduces the curb weight to help increase the performance. There has been no mention of a Cayman R debuting in LA but we can expect some more details over the next five months…hopefully including some hints as to how many trimlines will meet the world in LA.

The 2013 Porsche Cayman is expected to reach US dealerships late in the 4th quarter of 2012 or during the first quarter of 2013.

Source: Automotive News