Anyone who has played a version of the long-running Gran Turismo video-game franchise will be familiar with the name of RUF. Due to Porsche?s unwise-in-hindsight decision to grant the recently expired but heretofore exclusive use of its brand and models to a rival software company, RUF, which has been building Porsche-based monsters for more than 30 years, has always stood in for Germany?s more famous sports-car maker. But now the pupil wants to become the master, with RUF set to launch a new model, one that will use a carbon-fiber chassis that the company has designed itself.
We?re told that inspiration for the new RUF CTR comes from its namesake, the 1987 CTR ?Yellowbird,? which is almost certainly the most famous of RUF?s former models, whether real or virtual. Based on the contemporary 911 Carrera 2, it had a lightened and strengthened body and a turbocharged flat-six of sufficient potency to make the one that Porsche offered in its own 930 Turbo look positively anemic. The CTR weighed 2535 pounds and had about 470 horsepower, making it one of the very quickest cars of its era. When Road & Track tested the car, it ran from zero to 60 mph in 4.0 seconds and from zero to 100 mph in 7.3 seconds on its way to an 11.7-second quarter-mile. It was possibly even better known for its oversteer-heavy handling, immortalized in the video ?Fascination on the Nürburgring,? in which German tester Stefan Rosser wrestles it around the Nordschleife at huge speed and frequently ...