Porsche to return to rallying in 2020 with Cayman GT4 Clubsport

While Porsche is known for building some of the fastest road cars and race cars on the planet, the German marque also has a rich history with rallying. Back in the day, Porsche managed to win an overall victory at the infamous Paris-Dakar Rally back in 1984 and 1986 with the 953 and 959, respectively.

Since then however, the folks at Stuttgart have not really dabbled with dirt or rally racing anymore. That is until last year when Porsche quietly revealed the Cayman GT4 Clubsport Rally Concept. At the time though, it was nothing more than a one-off concept complete with livery, quad fog lamps and paint job. 

Now however, Porsche has confirmed that the Cayman GT4 Clubsport Rally Concept will be entering production. More so, it will be ready to race by 2020. The German marque says that the decision comes after the rally car was well received during demo runs at the 2018 ADAC Rallye Deutschland, and that turning it into a proper rally car would also be easy to do.

The production model will come with some changes over last year’s concept though. While the concept was based on the old Cayman GT4 Clubsport, the production car will be built from the new 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport which debuted earlier this year. That said, it will use a 3.8-liter flat-six which produces 425 PS. It will also be getting the plant-fiber composite panels found on the track-only race car.  

For those wondering, Porsche’s upcoming rally car will be built for the FIA’s R-GT class, which is intended for two-door sports cars only and cars closely based to road-going production vehicles. That said, don’t expect to see Porsche in WRC anytime soon despite how awesome that may sound.

*Photos above still show the original Cayman GT4 Clubsport Rally Concept from 2018