Any of you lucky devils who happen to own a Porsche Cayman S will already be all too aware of its performance capabilities. If we take a quick peek at the basics, we’ll find a 3.4l flat-six boxer engine, 320hp, 0-100kph in 4.9s, and a 277kph top speed. All off which means this two-seater’s likely to be pretty nippy out of the corners.
But ORZ Performance – a sister company to OffRoad-Zone located in Dubai’s Al Quoz Industrial area – recently demonstrated to crankandpiston a pretty effective way to make the Cayman faster INTO the corners. Whalloping an extra handful of horsepower under the bonnet, tightening the suspension and ‘being brave’ is one way, but the guys feel the Brembo GT-R kit is an altogether better option.
“This is a special GT-R kit”, says Performance Manager Andrew Hardoon. “It’s a big piece of kit that’s derived from Formula One technology. The entire hub, as well as the caliper, has been cut from a single piece of aluminum, so it’s much lighter than standard brakes. And the performance is unbeatable. There’s a bit of a bling value attached because they’re nickel plate, giving them a chrome colour(!), but the kit is basically the stepping stone between an actual race kit and something you’d find at a track.”
Now before you all get too swamped down with the title, yes, Off Road Zone was initially conceived as a 4×4 specialist centre. In fact, the whole establishment came about when CEO Ara Sahakian tried to take his beloved Jeep Wrangler for a service.
“I love cars,” explains Ara, “and I used to specialise in the automotive sector at Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Canada. So when I came to the Middle East, I saw an opportunity. I just couldn’t get my car serviced. I waited for three weeks, heard nothing, and basically called a friend and said ‘let’s set something up’. And now we’ve just passed the ten-year mark.
“OffRoad-Zone focuses on 4x4s, but a lot of our customers will have an old Mercedes or a BMW that they need working on, so they come to us because of our technical knowhow.”
Clearly then the team has already flexed their sportscar tuning muscles. Indeed, talk of previous projects with Aston Martins, Dodge Vipers and a Lamborghini abound whilst we chat. And with their garages swollen to bursting point with Jeeps, BMW X5s and the occasional Range Rover, Ara has already developed the new branch to the company: ORZ Performance.
