What Does That Mean, Exactly?

I need you to understand what it's like to drive this car. Engineers stretched the Cayman wheelbase by nearly 2.4 inches and widened the front track by 1.6 inches, and the result is a car with all four wheels pushed well to each corner. Thanks to shorter overhangs front and rear, total vehicle length has grown by a manageable 1.3 inches from stem to stern. That means it will take a keen eye to spot the machine's swell. Instead, onlookers are likely to first take note of the dramatic upkick from rocker panel to air inlet. Porsche calls the feature a "dynamic recess," and the contrasting black inlets really do shuttle air to the flat six mounted mid-ship. Up front, the Cayman S splits from its more demure Cayman sibling with larger front air inlets framed by black plastic strakes instead of the standard body color treatment. Base models are left to suffer with a black front splitter while the S trim gets a bit of paint on the lower aero. Around back, the two can be separated via the exhaust outlet, where the Cayman uses one tip and S gets the double barrel treatment.

Otherwise, the stern looks awfully familiar. Boxster fans will recognize the integrated lip spoiler stretching from tail lamp to tail lamp across the rear deck. The vehicle's mechanized spoiler, meanwhile, has grown in surface area by 40 percent to increase downforce at higher speeds. This youngest of the Porsche sisters is still the fairest of them all, 911 included. Designers did move the windscreen forward by nearly four inches, resulting in a finished product that looks a bit less like someone simply tack welded a roof onto the company's entry convertible. Still, the two cars share more than a few strands of DNA, and despite protests from engineers and designers alike, shoppers will inevitably look at the pair's third generation as two shades of the same hue. As if that were a slight. This car is drop-dead gorgeous in the flesh. With its lusty flanks and new, optional 20-inch wheels, the Cayman looks more mature than ever.

While purists can hem and haw all they like, the truth is the youngest of the Porsche sisters is still the fairest of them all, 911 included. Meanwhile, the cabin has remained largely untouched for 2014. Drivers will welcome the addition of new sport seats. The thrones manage to thumb that fragile line between support and comfort, serving up fantastic lateral support without cutting off circulation to the body's more sensitive environs over a long haul. If I could afford it, I'd have them for every seat in the house, toilet included. Standard trim serves up a set of manually adjustable buckets with Alcantara inserts, though our tester came rocking power adjustable seats dipped in leather. European buyers, meanwhile, get to option up to a set of carbon fiber, fixed-back race buckets capable of bonding the seat of your jeans to the car's chassis on a molecular level. Unfortunately, the gear doesn't pass crash safety in the US, though we hear Porsche is working on that one. Keep your fingers crossed.

Otherwise, the Cayman cabin features redesigned air vents, and the option sheet now comes packed with a 12-speaker Burmester sound system. By some engineering wizardry, the system turns out some 851 watts of power while tipping the scales at a scant 14.3 pounds. Regardless of whether or not you opt for the black-art stereo, odds are you'll appreciate the extra interior room over the second-gen Cayman. For 2014, the model boasts a total of 15 cubic feet of cargo area, up a little over half a cube overall. In addition, the longer wheelbase delivers a bit more leg room as well. As with most Porsche products, it's what you don't see that separates Cayman generations, starting with the chassis itself. The body shell is now 44-percent aluminum for the first time. The move slashed body-in-white weight by some 103 pounds while increasing torsional rigidity by a baffling 40 percent. What does that mean, exactly? Porsche says the base Cayman is now twice as rigid as the Boxster and substantially stiffer than even the 911, making it one of the most rigid sports car chassis in the world.

Both the 2014 Cayman and Cayman S bring extra muscle to the table. Our S tester came with a 3.4-liter flat-six engine pumping out 325 horsepower at a screaming 7,400 rpm and 272 pound-feet of torque from between 4,500 and 5,800 rpm. More impressively, the six can wrap its tach all the way to 7,800 rpm before hitting the limiter. While a six-speed manual transmission is standard equipment, our machine came equipped with the nutty-good PDK dual-clutch seven-speed transmission. Those who stick with the row-your-own can now look forward to rev-matched downshifts when in Sport mode. Hit the key and that menacing flat six barks and snarls before settling into a smooth idle. Engineers also turned a keen eye on helping the Cayman S get down from speed, and as a result, the coupe now features the same front brakes as the mighty 911 itself. But again, all that information doesn't so much as utter a syllable about how it feels to pilot this car.