Styling
With the Weissach Package fitted, which'll relieve you of £9,309, the carbon content on the outside of the 718 Spyder RS is enhanced, although our test car didn't have the exposed carbon bonnet. Doesn't matter though, because with its rear visually stretched by the ducktail spoiler on the Porsche's rump - an item fitted to generate the Spyder RS some downforce, as it doesn't have the big fixed-wing effort of the related Cayman GT4 RS - and featuring that crazy tent-like roof cover up top, this is a car that'll draw attention wherever it goes. Our test model was painted in brilliant Racing Yellow, but no matter what colour you go for, anything with slats on top of its front wheel arches, air intakes mounted up high on the Porsche's shoulders and gorgeous centre-lock alloys is an aesthetic winner in our eyes.
Interior
It's much the same story inside the 718 Spyder RS, where its top-end, focused nature gives you all the visual highlights of the cabin, which surely do enough to distract you from the fact the basic architecture in the Porsche roadster is, by modern-car standards, now ancient. For example, it still has the three-dial cluster, two of which (speedo and rev counter) are analogue items with the small digital screen over to the right, while the Porsche Communication Management (PCM) infotainment system is presented on a tiddly seven-inch screen.
But. There are very good arguments to be made that, actually, analogue cluster dials are much easier to read on the move than fancy digital items, while no one is going to be buying the 718 Spyder RS primarily for how well (or otherwise) it presents Apple Maps on its central touchscreen. And with separate physical climate controls, various drive-related switches running down the transmission tunnel, and some nicely separated column stalks (four of them, for the indicators/main beam, wipers, cruise control and also to command the digital dial in the cluster), you get into the RS and can operate every function on it with second nature within minutes of getting behind the wheel. That, of course, then leaves the person sitting in the most exciting chair in the cabin able to focus on the important things, such as the extraordinary driving experience of the car, rather than (for example) worrying about how the heck you turn its foglights on in a hurry if the weather turns.
Which is not to say the ambience in the 718 Spyder RS is lacking, because it isn't. The perfect, perfect steering wheel is entirely free from buttons as a result of the clever ergonomics elsewhere, there's a proper large shift lever for the PDK gearbox, and those majestic carbon-fibre bucket seats are so beautifully encompassing and are mounted at just the right height too, all of which add up to a driving position that's without fault. Another Weissach Package (£1,365) extends the Race-Tex content within and the fabric door-pulls are a nice motorsport-y touch, with the net result being that the Porsche's interior is a very special place to be.
Practicality
It's not great in the 718 Spyder RS. Even getting into and out of it is a bit of a faff, if the car is roof-up and you're of the, er, more solidly built persuasion, and it'll probably leave you with a bruised thigh before long as the unyielding bucket seat's frame takes a bite out of your leg each time you haul yourself in and out. And talking of the roof, putting it up and taking it down is not the work of a moment, although it does at least stow away neatly under the long rear deck of the Porsche when it's 'down'. There are two boots, of a fashion, with one at the front measuring 125 litres and another behind the engine bay rated at 120 litres, but you're really not going to be picking this car and trying to use it as a pseudo-GT.
Performance
Like the Cayman GT4 RS is an altogether more serious confection than the already-stellar
Cayman GT4, those extra, hallowed two letters in the Porsche's badging here mark a serious technical upgrade from mesmerising
Spyder to this Spyder RS. It's more closely related to the aforementioned GT4 RS, because it uses the 'proper' 4.0-litre GT Department engine from one of the
911 GT3 derivatives, rather than what the GT4 and 718 Spyder use, which is a variation on the regular
Carrera's 3.0-litre twin-turbo engine - only with the turbochargers removed, and the bore increased to take it out to 4.0 litres.
What's the difference, you might ask? Seeing as both the Spyder and the Spyder RS both have normally aspirated, flat-six, 4.0-litre petrol engines, as well as the involvement of the much-vaunted GT Department and a fiddly roof arrangement that's far more convoluted than that of a regular
718 Boxster? Well, the chief differences are 80 more horsepower in the RS, for a peak of 500hp, an additional 30Nm of torque (max is 450Nm here)... and perhaps most pertinently of all, another 1,000rpm of revs to play with. The RS is a car with a tachometer that reads to that most tantalising of numbers for a road car, 10,000rpm, with a redline at 9k.
Unfortunately, due to borrowing the engine from a 911 GT3, it means a manual transmission isn't a possibility for the Spyder RS. That's because on the 911, the six-speed manual would be in front of the engine which is rear-mounted; but for its application in the 718, the mid-mounted unit has been spun through 180 degrees, so a manual would have to trail out behind it, and thus is just doesn't fit. As recompense, the seven-speed PDK fitted to the RS is a short-ratio 'box, helping to make the most of the stratospheric revs the flat-six can summon up.
So, installed in 1,410kg of very compact car, 500hp has all the devastating potency you could possibly imagine. Porsche claims a 0-62mph time of 3.4 seconds for the RS, fully one second quicker than a regular Spyder, and a top speed of 191mph, numbers which basically place it in the same ballpark as the monster GT3 RS (1,450kg, PDK only) with almost the same engine - albeit the 911 has a little more power again. But seriously, the RS is ballistic, hauling through second and third, and deep into three figures with ease if you let it sing the full album version of its thoroughly beguiling song.
Which has to be one of the all-time finest motoring tunes we've ever heard. You are sitting closer to that GT 4.0-litre engine than in anything else bar the Cayman GT4 RS, and not only that but it is isolated minimally in the Spyder RS by the flimsy roof and a rear screen that's not even made of glass. And then, just for good measure, Porsche has mounted the carbon intakes right behind your ears.
So when you open the car up, following on from a typically Porsche flat-six lower-revs symphony that's delightful as it is - a cacophony of hard-edged growling and snarling through 2,000-5,000rpm - all holy hell breaks loose at 6,000rpm onwards. The Spyder RS suddenly emits an ear-splitting metallic yowl from there up to 8,000rpm, and if you can stay brave enough to keep the throttle pinned then the final thousand revs are a deafening crescendo unlike anything we've heard that
isn't a full-on competition car. It's quite, quite tremendous and one of the loudest, most intoxicating noises we've ever heard in a car. Or, in fact, ever.
Therefore, the 718 Spyder RS has a dream-like powertrain, with massive speed, spectacular linearity of power delivery, and a soundtrack to die for. Even the gearbox is magnificent, if you can temper your sadness at it not being a correct three-pedal manual. Every downshift elicits a superbly vicious bark from the flat-six sequestered behind your head and the transmission never once baulked a reasonable change we requested of it, either via the paddles on the back of the wheel or using the shift lever's side-gate. About your biggest concerns will be not exceeding 124mph with the hood in place (that's right; the Spyder RS' 191mph top speed is only achievable roof-off!) and also fuel use, but we managed to get the right side of 20mpg (just: 21.2mpg) in more than 400 miles of mixed-roads motoring, which isn't bad at all for a shrunken supercar like this.
Ride & Handling
Let's be clear, we're praising the noisiness of the 718 Spyder RS in the section above, because it's the kind of thing you buy a highly specialised car like this for in the first place. That said, we can think of about ten thousand vehicles that are going to be better on the motorway than it is. At a 70mph(ish) cruise, the RS is remarkably loud inside. You'd need to have the stereo, in our test car's case a £917 Bose Surround Sound system, turned up about two-thirds of the way to even hope to drown out the tyre and wind noise, with the latter making some very, um... 'interesting' susurrations as it negotiates the roof's rear canopy and those red-loop tassels which disconnect it from the transom.
However, if you can filter through the noise, you realise the way the 718 Spyder RS rides is genuinely pretty fantastic. Complaints have been levelled at the hard-topped Cayman GT4 RS that it's a bit too frenetic for the roads, so the set-up of the Spyder RS has been dialled down a bit to make it happier on the public highways. And the outcome is most welcome, as the Porsche makes a very decent fist of smoothing out highways, so at least you're not having your teeth shaken out and your spine compressed as it attempts to pierce your eardrums with its mechanical din.
It's probably no surprise, though, that while the rolling refinement isn't setting any new benchmarks, the handling might well be. There's been an embarrassment of GT Department riches in the Porsche portfolio in recent times, with GT3, GT3 RS, GT4, GT4 RS, Spyder and Spyder RS models having all been on sale at some point since 2020. And while these cars are phenomenal in their own special ways, there's a suspicion that the Spyder RS is a manual gearbox away from being the undisputed king of them all.
The reason for this comes down to the classic 718 v 911 conundrum, in that the latter is the most historic model Porsche makes and the supposed pinnacle of the Germany company's sports-car lineage. But you also know, deep down in your heart of hearts, that a mid-engined layout is plainly superior to a rear-engined one, no matter how good Zuffenhausen's engineering expertise - it's a simple law-of-physics thing.
Therefore, with its 4.0-litre engined housed in between its axles, the 718 Spyder RS serves up a driving experience that is every bit as thrilling and memorable as some of the greatest cars we've ever driven - despite the fact it's a convertible. Or maybe
because of that fact, we don't know. Whatever; with immaculate steering, supreme body and wheel control, and the sort of approachable adjustability on the throttle that you might think would elude something mid-engined on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres and boasting a power-to-weight ratio of 355hp/tonne, there is not a road out there that the RS cannot excel upon.
It's just sensational: sweetly balanced, hyper-agile and thoroughly rewarding, with the calibration of all of its major controls absolutely spot-on. The levels of feedback and feel it transmits to its driver are immense, and so we find ourselves coming to one conclusion: unless you're on a track, the 718 Spyder RS is probably the best road-going Porsche we've ever been behind the wheel of (as-yet-untried Carrera GT or 918 Spyder notwithstanding). And that's some serious accolade, we're sure you can agree.
Value
At £125,500 basic, the 718 Spyder RS is comfortably more than double the entry-level price of a Boxster (£55,800), but then we'd contest it's also comfortably more than twice the car as well. Options on our test car pushed it up to £143,821, which a) we have no doubt you could eclipse with even more injudicious box-ticking when ordering your RS if you wanted to, and b) is undoubtedly a huge pile of money for what started life as Porsche's affordable roadster. But when the last GT3 RS we drove was £243,000-plus with options, the astounding Spyder RS almost seems underpriced. Especially as it's blatantly apparent that once examples of this 500hp soft-top 718 hit the second-hand market, they're going to cost about £50,000 more (at least) than they would do if you could even get on the waiting list for a new one.
Verdict
If you apply a semblance of rationality to the Porsche 718 Spyder RS, you could say it's significantly flawed in several ways. The roof is a kerfuffle, getting into and out of it isn't easy, the practicality of it is non-existent, the Cup 2 tyres mean you'll treat it with circumspection (at the minimum) if the outside temperatures and road conditions aren't entirely perfect, and at nearly £150,000 optioned-up it's not the most attainable of sports cars going.
But it's one of the very, very best. Rationality be damned, when you're (finally) installed behind the 718 Spyder RS' flawless steering wheel, you really won't want to be anywhere else for even the slightest nanosecond. It is an exquisite machine and a quite outstanding way for the mid-engined, petrol-powered Porsche era to sign off.
