If you’ve been keeping up with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” on Fox, you may be familiar with the concept of the multiverse — the idea that our universe is just one among a potentially infinite number of others. If true, there could be some alternate universe almost just like ours, but slightly different.

Over on that other Earth, Porsche’s early cars had nothing to do with the Volkswagen Beetle. Porsche started with a blank slate, and its signature product, the 911, has a midmounted engine — the ideal setup for traction and handling. In fact, there was no Beetle, because Hitler got into art school and thus never commissioned the People’s Car.

Is your mind blown yet? Wait till I tell you about President Pauly Shore.

Lacking a wormhole to the multiverse, but having access to a galaxy of cash, Porsche introduced the Cayman in 2006. A two-seat coupe with a horizontally opposed 6-cylinder mounted amidships, the Cayman has always appealed as an alternate vision of the 911 — albeit, a slower one, because Porsche isn’t stupid.

A Cayman might hound a 911 in the corners, but it’ll be a long time before you can buy one that cracks off a 0-to-60 m.p.h. time of 2.6 seconds, as the quickest 911s can manage. With a base price of $85,295 and at least 350 horsepower under the rear deck, the 911 is calibrated to pick up where the Cayman leaves off.