Welcome to the club! I have a Cayman S and a 5 year old MK7 GTI. I’m curious, how would you compare driving the Cayman to the Golf R?
So I've only put around 300 miles on the Cayman so far thanks to some less than cooperative weather, but 150 of those happened yesterday, so I feel like I can finally comment beyond what were essentially glorified test drive miles.
For background sake, the R is a 2016 with DSG. APR + tune, Bilstein B6 dampers, and a fat rear sway bar. Tires are PS4S in the summer, and Pilot Alpin PA4 when the weather sucks.
I absolutely love my 7R. I've done 71,000 trouble free miles in the car. The car is quick, and exciting to drive. Very smooth, and can definitely party in the twisties. However, it does start to lose pace to
true sports cars in the corners. My brother and I did a trip to the Dragon last year. He was in a 997.1 C4S, and he would lose me in the technical sections, but I could catch back up on the straights. I have a feeling that will be drastically different next time around. While the R is no slouch, it just doesn't respond the way the 718 does. I've only done limited driving in what I would rate to be OK twisties, but so far the 718 is fantastic. Much more telepathic, much more flat. It's pretty much what I would expect the difference to be, which is to say it's remarkably different.
In terms of straight line speed, I'm surprised at how much bigger the numbers get on the speedometer in the 718. The R has always felt quick, and then really quick after the tune, but holy ****. Using my "standard" fun road outside of town, the numbers get much bigger between corners than they do in the R. If I hit X MPH between two corners in the R, I hit X+20 in the 718. I was not expecting that gap to be as big as it seems to be. Maybe I've just overestimated what the Golf was capable of, underestimated the straight line speed of the 718, or a little bit of both. It definitely requires much more discipline to stay out of reckless territory in the Porsche.
Now comes the best part in my opinion. The comfort situation between the two is crazy. It could be the suspension setup I have on the Golf, although it's not likely, but the 718 seems to be much more comfortable out on the road. Bumps are smoother, noise level in the cabin is comparable. Stereo in the Cayman is better (Bose vs. Fender), and PCM seems to respond much better than the VW system. Seriously looking forward to putting some miles on the car. Once the weather starts to turn the plan is to essentially daily drive it.
