Ruf unveils rear-engine, carbon fiber CTR supercar

Full-build Porsche restomods are big money these days, elevating builders like Singer, Emory, and Magnus Walker to near celebrity status.

The 2017 RUF CTR is the automaker’s first vehicle that was both designed and engineered in house.

Welcome the all-new 350kmph Porsche 911 that comes straight from the 80s. With RUF being an accredited manufacturer, chances are the CTR will be available all over the world provided that one can afford RUF’s latest supercar. Very few were built, stamping the Yellow Bird in the pantheon of modern classics. Herr Ruf is especially proud of the NACA ducts on the rear fenders that feed air into the intercoolers while paying tribute to the original Yellowbird’s intakes.

RUF Automobile, known for tuning Porsche sports cars, has revealed a vehicle which looks an terrible lot like a classic 911 but is actually based on their own independent platform.

Underneath those 1980s bodylines, the new CTR is as modern as anything in Porsche’s current lineup. There’s no reason to fret, though, as the newcomer is still defined by a rear-mounted flat-six, but the structure of the beast now involves a carbon fiber monocoque with steel crash structures. 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.

As CTR turns 30, this fourth-generation vehicle launches with a tamer, more tractable 3.6-liter twin-turbo flat-six that cranks out an even 700 hp and 649 lb-ft or torque bolted to a newly developed six-speed transaxle driving the rear wheels only. It drives the rear wheels and rear wheels alone through a six speed manual gearbox. That output is sufficient to launch the auto to 62 miles per hour in (a traction-limited) 3.5 seconds en route to a 225-mph top speed, Ruf says. Now, the all-new CTR would reach top speeds in excess of 225 miles per hour. Too fast? No problem.

A pushrod double wishbone suspension and carbon-ceramic brakes aim to keep all that power and performance in check.

Inside, the CTR is as bare-bones and driver-focused as can be.

Like the 1987 CTR, there won’t be many of these terrorizing public roads.

Production of the fourth generation CTR begins in 2018, and only 30 examples will be produced excluding the prototype.

If you don’t know, the Yellow Bird was the subject of a cult video, where the original model was thrashed around the Nurburgring Nordschliefe, with plenty of tail-out drifting around the ‘Ring’s notorious curves.