There was an impressive flurry of orders for Porsche’s new for 2016 Cayman GT4 Clubsport when it was announced last year with cars sold in Europe and the USA, indeed we wrote earlier this week of the second car fielded by CJ Wilson Racing debuting this weekend at Sebring in the CTSC.
It was some surprise then to arrive at the British GT Championship’s Media Day at Snetterton to find that there was not a single Cayman on parade amongst the 20+ GT cars on track.
This is despite the fact that no fewer than three teams had announced their purchase of a pair of cars apiece (IN2 Racing, Lanan Racing and Simpson Engineering) with plans for British GT campaigns with a pair of cars confirmed on the 33 car full season entry (1 apiece from Lanan and Simpson).
Polite enquiries to the Championship elicited a response that the cars were late in arriving with customers and a discreet use of the editorial contacts book revealed that customers have now been told that their originally communicated February delivery dates have slipped to late April, after the opening round of the British Championship and just a week before Round 2!
That makes it extremely difficult for any team to sustain a contracted full season commitment with teams now looking at the very real possibility of losing customers or finding replacement GT4 machinery for the opening round(s).
There are concerns too amongst some that the original spec of the car appears to have changed from that touted in initial sales conversations with a sizeable ‘upgrades’ package now priced at a five figure sum including some items that early customers maintain they were told were part of the standard car.
And to cap it all DSC understands that the Porsche will not have completed the homologation process for the Cayman even on delivery with the cars then racing under a waiver from the race organisers.
Porsche Motorsport did not respond to a DSC approach for comment.
