Sorry, The Porsche Cayman GT4's N/A 4.0 Won't Be Used In The 911

Porsche went to an awful lot of trouble to develop the ‘9A2’ Evo engine. First seen in the 718 Cayman GT4 and 718 Boxster Spyder, it shares precious little with the 9A2 911 Carrera engine from which it’s derived.

It wasn’t ever going to power just those cars, so we weren’t in the least bit surprised to see it appear in the higher production volume Cayman and Boxster GTS 4.0 models. If you’re now hoping it’ll make it into the 911 Carrera, though, perhaps a new Carrera T, prepare for disappointment.

At the reveal of the new 911 Targa, Porsche sports car boss Dr Frank-Steffen Walliser confirmed that naturally-aspirated engines won’t return to the Carrera range, Car Throttle sister publication evo reports.

“The 4.0-litre engine in the GTS can’t be rotated through 180 degrees to fit in the 911. We will not see them again [N/A engines in the Carrera range]. I’m sorry about that,” he said. “The R&D costs are too high to develop such an engine for the Carrera,” he added.

When Car Throttle spoke to Porsche GT chief Andreas Preuninger last year, a similar argument was used for the 911 GT3/Speedster engine not being used in the GT4. If you need to flip the thing around to put the gearbox in the right place for a mid-engine configuration, a bunch of other stuff needs to be moved too. “You can make it fit in with a hammer and take sheet metal out, but that’s not fit for mass production,” he concluded.

We shouldn’t grumble, however, as the 9A2 engine in the 992 911 Carrera range is powerful, very responsive for a turbocharged engine, and quite happy to rev beyond 7000rpm. Plus, Walliser suggested a few months ago that its naturally-aspirated ‘Evo’ relative could be sticking around until 2026.