2024 Porsche 718 Cayman imagined with Mission R electric power and style

Last week’s Munich motor show saw Porsche take the wraps off the Mission R concept, a hardcore, all-electric look at the future of customer-backed sports car racing – one that could preview the next-generation Porsche 718 Cayman.

While the Mission R was officially billed by Porsche as a “vision of what customer motorsports will look like in the future”, it left plenty (including the Drive team) wondering whether we were in fact staring at a thinly-veiled, bewinged preview of the next-generation 718 Cayman, which is widely rumoured to switch to (or offer the option of) electric power.

Using the Mission R as a base, Drive’s resident Photoshop expert Theophilus Chin stripped the concept of its race-bred splitters, diffusers and ‘swan-neck’ rear wing, revealing a simply-styled sports car with classical mid-engined proportions, despite an all-electric powertrain.

The concept’s quad-beam headlights (with 996-generation 911-like indicators), front bumper ‘air curtains’, one-piece glass tailgate and other design cues have all been retained, blended with styling cues from Porsche’s maiden Taycan electric vehicle (EV), and hints of today’s petrol-powered Cayman.

The Mission R measures 4326mm long, 1990mm wide and 1190mm tall, making it 53mm shorter in length, 99mm wider and 86mm lower than the current Cayman. Expect a road-legal version of the concept to be a touch shorter and narrower, owing to its more civilised aerodynamic package, and wheel arches no longer required to house wide slick racing tyres.

Inside, the Mission R’s stripped-out cabin and race-prepped safety systems would be swapped out for a cabin not unlike the Taycan, with a digital instrument cluster, large infotainment touchscreen, and available sporty touches including well-bolstered sports seats and swathes of sustainable Race-Tex suede trim.

Also unlikely to make it to production is the concept’s ultra-high-performance drivetrain, with its dual motors and 82kWh battery offering a ‘qualifying’ overboost mode capable of dialing power up to 800kW – good for a sub-2.5-second 0-100km/h dash, and a top speed in excess of 300km/h.

Even the 500kW ‘race mode’ output could prove too extreme, given Porsche has spent decades ensuring the cheaper, mid-engined Cayman never treads on the toes of the larger, rear-engined 911 – and the performance offered by a 500kW Cayman EV could frighten the 478kW 911 Turbo S’s 2.7-second sprint, or the upcoming, faster-still hybrid variant.

The 420kW dual-motor system in the Taycan 4S sedan (with the larger Performance Battery Plus) could be an appropriate fit for the electric Cayman, with the four-door’s 4.0-second 0-100km/h time to translate well to the smaller, more aerodynamic two-door.

Underpinning the vehicle would likely be a bespoke platform designed specifically for sports cars, rather than Audi and Porsche’s co-developed PPE architecture set for use in larger luxury sedans and SUVs.

While some overseas rumours suggest buyers could get their first taste of a zero-emissions Cayman as early as next year, it remains to be seen when an all-electric, next-generation Porsche 718 Cayman would break cover.

Speaking to UK outlet Auto Express earlier this year, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume hinted at the possibility, saying: "There is an opportunity that we will do the 718 electric but we are still in a concept period, where we haven't decided yet. To go electric now we need future battery evolution.

"We will wait a couple of months more before we decide which concept we will use. But I think there is a positive potential to do this, and when we do the 718 electric it should be driven like a 911 and all the other sports cars."

With a few months passing since Blume’s interview with the British publication, the chances of a Cayman EV seeing the light of day appear to have grown stronger, with Porsche Motorsport GT racing boss Matthias Scholz reminding the UK’s Autocar earlier this month that Porsche customer racing machines “are every time based on a street-legal car”.

Exterior designer Ingo Bauer-Scheinhutte also told the publication: “At the same time as we were working on this car the same team [is] working on production cars as well. No matter what is underneath that car you will see very similar design cues on our future production cars.”

It’s also worth noting the last Porsche concept cars to wear ‘Mission’ branding, the 2015 Mission E and 2018 Mission E Cross Turismo, made their way to production in 2019 and 2021 respectively as the two body styles in the Taycan family – with the road-legal vehicles’ styling remaining faithful to the show cars that previewed them.

More news is likely to be shared on the future of the 2024 Porsche 718 Cayman within the coming months, following rumours earlier this year that an electric 718 Boxster convertible concept is in development.

The seven- to eight-year life cycles of most Porsche model generations will see the current Boxster and Cayman family primed for a replacement close to the middle of the decade, following their 2016 introduction – and the lack of any meaningful prototype sightings means a successor is at least two years away.