EOTR Cayman GT4
Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:35 pm
Somewhat unexpectedly I’ve found myself in the headspace where it’s time to move on from my GT4. More on why later
Need to know: Bought the car with 1500 miles, now has 25,200 miles.
I’m going to outline the money side of things first.
I bought the car in October 2018 “for £85,000”. It was the first time I’ve used any finance on a car.
Late 2018 was undoubtedly close to the top of the market for GT4s, I could see this myself but I was feeling fairly flush at that time and saw the opportunity to catch the end of season at the nurburgring, so I took the plunge and went for the GT4. After getting zero interest privately for my high mileage E92 M3 at £14k I was able to trade it for this full amount against the GT4, which felt like a real escape from how undesirable thirsty, high mileage performance cars had become. I’d managed to save up a further £14k over the previous few months so my deposit totalled £28k. The remaining £57k was to be financed.
I was offered a hire purchase deal over 4 years which came to about £2k/month or a PCP which would be a monthly £701. Since my income can be relatively volatile and I’ve never had a significant ‘direct debit’ before (no mortgage, very fortunate inheritance) the PCP looked far more manageable and I could worry about saving for the ballon at a later date.
So after 26 months I’ve paid £28k deposit and £18,226 in monthlies and my settlement figure is £50,500. I’ll be paying the settlement figure next week which means I’ve spent £96,726 on a car which is now worth £65k. Put simply £20k of this is depreciation over 2 and a bit years and 24k miles and £11,700 is interest on the £57k borrowed.
Full disclosure - I have a house removals company and the last 3 months has seen an extraordinary boom in this sector which is how I’ve managed to save the £50.5k needed to settle the finance.
So about the actual car....
It’s nowhere near as good a road car as people say. I’m going to judge it against my other car, a Golf Clubsport S. The golf is so much better as a fast road car in so many areas I would consider crucial.
1. Visibility. Whilst probably not bad for a mid engined car, the GT4 is embarrassed relative to the golf in terms of being able to foresee and plan wheel and car positioning on a challenging A or B road.
2. Ride/wheel articulation. Both the golf and GT4 undoubtedly have exceptionally well tuned dampers, but the golf has so much more travel to work with, which gives it more flexibility and feedback and often pace across country too
3. Bloody cost! There’s no anxiety to tossing a hot hatch over and through a British back road but the anxiety doing the same in an expensive sports car can be prohibitively intrusive
4. Control weights. The GT4 has a stupidly heavy clutch, baffling heavy steering and a needlessly ‘chunky’ gear shift action. In the golf you never think about any of these which is testament to how well judged they are for concentrating on flinging it down a challenging back road.
.......And I can forgive all of the above because of my ongoing affair with the nurburgring. Make no mistake, the GT4 is near perfect for an intermediate circuit enthusiast like myself. Over the last 2 ‘seasons’ I’ve done around 250 laps of the nurburgring in the GT4 (around 3k of it’s 25k miles) and it’s been absolutely sensational. The grip, balance, feedback, speed, adjustability, durability and sense of occasion all contribute to make it a petrolhead fantasy. None of the road shortfalls apply and the car is your best friend from start to finish of the day.
About the best way I can summarise is the 8 or 9 times on the nordschleife I’ve found myself in a suddenly unpredictable swerve/4 wheel drift/misjudged entry speed situations and each time the car has behaved near miraculously, way beyond my capabilities as a driver and guided me out of trouble. I’m fairly sure a GT3 wouldn’t have been as accommodating.
So now the question is what to replace it with? AMG GTRs look like fantastic value at £90-£95k although it’s not really my sort of car - too big, heavy and lacking finesse in an ideal world. So I’m doing the numbers on a 600LT. It looks affordable with a full £65k deposit (sale price of the GT4) but may end up being a bit stressful to use/enjoy as it’s a big step up in terms of track maintenance and depreciation.
Any suggestions welcome!
“Crazy” Pete
Need to know: Bought the car with 1500 miles, now has 25,200 miles.
I’m going to outline the money side of things first.
I bought the car in October 2018 “for £85,000”. It was the first time I’ve used any finance on a car.
Late 2018 was undoubtedly close to the top of the market for GT4s, I could see this myself but I was feeling fairly flush at that time and saw the opportunity to catch the end of season at the nurburgring, so I took the plunge and went for the GT4. After getting zero interest privately for my high mileage E92 M3 at £14k I was able to trade it for this full amount against the GT4, which felt like a real escape from how undesirable thirsty, high mileage performance cars had become. I’d managed to save up a further £14k over the previous few months so my deposit totalled £28k. The remaining £57k was to be financed.
I was offered a hire purchase deal over 4 years which came to about £2k/month or a PCP which would be a monthly £701. Since my income can be relatively volatile and I’ve never had a significant ‘direct debit’ before (no mortgage, very fortunate inheritance) the PCP looked far more manageable and I could worry about saving for the ballon at a later date.
So after 26 months I’ve paid £28k deposit and £18,226 in monthlies and my settlement figure is £50,500. I’ll be paying the settlement figure next week which means I’ve spent £96,726 on a car which is now worth £65k. Put simply £20k of this is depreciation over 2 and a bit years and 24k miles and £11,700 is interest on the £57k borrowed.
Full disclosure - I have a house removals company and the last 3 months has seen an extraordinary boom in this sector which is how I’ve managed to save the £50.5k needed to settle the finance.
So about the actual car....
It’s nowhere near as good a road car as people say. I’m going to judge it against my other car, a Golf Clubsport S. The golf is so much better as a fast road car in so many areas I would consider crucial.
1. Visibility. Whilst probably not bad for a mid engined car, the GT4 is embarrassed relative to the golf in terms of being able to foresee and plan wheel and car positioning on a challenging A or B road.
2. Ride/wheel articulation. Both the golf and GT4 undoubtedly have exceptionally well tuned dampers, but the golf has so much more travel to work with, which gives it more flexibility and feedback and often pace across country too
3. Bloody cost! There’s no anxiety to tossing a hot hatch over and through a British back road but the anxiety doing the same in an expensive sports car can be prohibitively intrusive
4. Control weights. The GT4 has a stupidly heavy clutch, baffling heavy steering and a needlessly ‘chunky’ gear shift action. In the golf you never think about any of these which is testament to how well judged they are for concentrating on flinging it down a challenging back road.
.......And I can forgive all of the above because of my ongoing affair with the nurburgring. Make no mistake, the GT4 is near perfect for an intermediate circuit enthusiast like myself. Over the last 2 ‘seasons’ I’ve done around 250 laps of the nurburgring in the GT4 (around 3k of it’s 25k miles) and it’s been absolutely sensational. The grip, balance, feedback, speed, adjustability, durability and sense of occasion all contribute to make it a petrolhead fantasy. None of the road shortfalls apply and the car is your best friend from start to finish of the day.
About the best way I can summarise is the 8 or 9 times on the nordschleife I’ve found myself in a suddenly unpredictable swerve/4 wheel drift/misjudged entry speed situations and each time the car has behaved near miraculously, way beyond my capabilities as a driver and guided me out of trouble. I’m fairly sure a GT3 wouldn’t have been as accommodating.
So now the question is what to replace it with? AMG GTRs look like fantastic value at £90-£95k although it’s not really my sort of car - too big, heavy and lacking finesse in an ideal world. So I’m doing the numbers on a 600LT. It looks affordable with a full £65k deposit (sale price of the GT4) but may end up being a bit stressful to use/enjoy as it’s a big step up in terms of track maintenance and depreciation.
Any suggestions welcome!
“Crazy” Pete
