RUF’s Yellow Bird all set to soar again
Alois Ruf Jr. was 14 when a Porsche 901 prototype screamed past him on the road, the sound of the car echoing through his soul. It was 1964, the debut year for the Porsche 911. He can hear the sound of that flat-six engine still.
“That gave me goosebumps that never left me alone,” says Ruf during a conversation about his all-new car, a 710-horsepower, 1,200-kilogram descendant of the vehicle that made him and his company, RUF Automobile, internationally famous.
That car, of which only 29 were built, went on to sell many more virtual copies through Sony’s PlayStation. The popularity of the CTR “Yellow Bird” was due in part to the fact it was an ultracool version of the 1964 model Porsche 911, but more so that it set the record in 1987 as the world’s fastest production car, hitting 340 km/h and beating such iconic superstars of the day as the Ferrari F-40, Lamborghini Countach, and even the coveted Porsche 959.
While Ruf rated the CTR and its highly tuned 3.2-litre flat-six engine at 469 horsepower, many suspected he was being modest. In subsequent tests, the real number exceeded 500, an astonishing figure for such a small car. Then, in 1995, Ruf achieved 349 km/h with his CTR2, making him father to the second fastest road-legal production car in the world, just behind the McLaren F1 that cost several times as much. No wonder Sony cut a licensing deal with Ruf, letting kids of all ages go feral with one of the wildest cars of our time that isn’t an outrageous supercar.
Perhaps not surprisingly, many of those kids grew up to be successful. And which car do they want to buy and drive today?
“The kids that used to play that game, they are now our customers again. That’s a lovely feeling,” says Ruf, his eyes watering a little while chatting at the Geneva Motor Show, where his 2017 production CTR, at a cost of €750,000 ($1.07 million), sits on a rotating stand, resplendent in the same soaring yellow as his original CTR.
The new RUF is not, however, a Porsche replica or a modified 911 like Rob Dickinson’s Singer 911s. While a Singer car and an RUF car might command similarly crazy money, Singer adopts a different philosophy, Ruf says. Singer is reimagining the 911, and “doing a very nice job,” whereas RUF is a car manufacturer in its own right, building its own chassis, engines and other components. Each car gets its own RUF serial number, the company staying true to its roots as a builder of extremely fast, very competent sports cars that happen to look like one of the most beautiful automotive renderings of our ages — the Porsche 911 that continues to unfold with every new generation, each holding true to the car’s original design.
RUF’s new, rear-wheel-drive car has a skin and monocoque chassis made of carbon fibre. Crash structures are lightweight steel, as is an integrated roll cage. The engine, a 3.6-L twin-turbo flat six, was built by RUF and puts down a walloping 649 lb-ft of torque. Zero to 100 km/h takes 3.5 seconds, zero to 200 requires less than nine, and top speed is “in excess” of 360 km/h, Ruf says.
The interior is bathed in Alcantara with a dash reminiscent of the Porsche 993. The transmission is a six-speed manual, the wheels 19inch forged centre locks.
The idea was to follow the footsteps of the original CTR, Ruf says, a “new interpretation” of his most legendary car.
“It has the finest of chassis work, not too much electronic, so it’s still a very analogue car,” he says. At only 1,200 kilograms, “it’s so light, it’s part of your body. I claim the car doesn’t feel like a car; it feels like you’re wearing it.”
And that’s exactly what young people want today, he says. In today’s increasingly digital and virtual world, they’re craving the kind of car their father, or uncle, used to drive, and are less interested in the latest gimmicks in electronics that can be had on just about any car. Many want a manual transmission to make that connection.
But no matter their age, all RUF customers still want to go fast, still want to feel raw horsepower, still want to feel truly alive.
“They still want that kick, that feeling of overwhelming power and lightness,” Ruf says, “because performance is a feel between lightness and engine performance. It’s a big mistake to believe you can make up extra weight with extra horsepower.
“That’s the wrong way to go. You have to keep the absolute weight as low as possible, then you don’t need to exaggerate with horsepower.”