Study the story behind Ruf Car

Ruf Car is likely one of the giants of the tuning trade. The corporate-produced documentary “Ruf: Love on the Pink Line” traces its 80-year historical past.

What finally grew to become Ruf Car began out in 1939 as an strange storage in Pfaffenhausen, Germany, opened by Alois Ruf, Sr., His son Alois Ruf, Jr., would finally develop the enterprise right into a Porsche-tuning powerhouse thanks to at least one driver’s misfortune.

Within the documentary, Ruf Jr. explains that at some point in 1963 a Porsche 356 overtook his father’s bus and crashed. His father introduced the motive force to the hospital and repaired the automobile. This began Ruf, Jr.’s love affair with Porsches and a gradual enterprise fixing and sustaining the sports activities vehicles.

1987 Ruf CTR ‘Yellowbird’

Ruf started promoting its personal modified Porsches within the late Seventies, in response to Porsche’s curbing of the 911 lineup in favor of the 928. Porsche wished to exchange the 911 with the 928, and whereas that did not occur, this created a distinct segment for Ruf’s tuned 911s.

Shortly after that, Alois Ruf, Jr., started concocting the automobile that will earn Ruf Car lasting fame—the CTR Yellowbird. The venture began in 1979 because the 945R, with plans to make use of a 450-hp twin-turbo flat-6 derived from the engine used within the Porsche 935 race automobile. The precise Yellowbird launched in 1987 utilizing a 911 Carrera 3.2 physique shell and a 3.4-liter twin-turbo flat-6 making about 460 hp.

The Yellowbird grew to become world well-known by successful a 1987 Highway & Monitor “World’s Quickest Vehicles” competitors, beating the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini with a 211-mph high pace. It is solely prior high-speed shakedown was a run on a German Autobahn on the way in which to the check. Alois Ruf, Jr., mentioned.

In 1989, Ruf adopted that up with the video “Fascination on the Nürburgring,” once more starring the CTR. In-car footage and a few spectacular drifts made this arguably the primary automotive viral video, however in these pre-internet days it was distributed on VHS.

One other key element of the Ruf mystique is the “Gran Turismo” online game collection. In 1998, producer Kazunori Yamauchi tracked down Ruf, Jr., at a Japanese resort to safe permission to make use of Ruf vehicles within the video games. Yamauchi mentioned he wished to incorporate Ruf due to the model’s heroic standing amongst automobile lovers.

Ruf regularly branched out to different Porsche fashions, and even a Volkswagen van, earlier than taking up the problem of constructing a automobile from scratch. The 2017 Ruf CTR appeared like the unique Yellowbird, however with a bespoke carbon-fiber chassis tub and bodywork. Ruf has continued that theme lately with different retro-looking vehicles, and restomods of a few of its Nineteen Nineties fashions.

Take a look at the whole video above for extra on the corporate’s historical past and a have a look at how the manufacturing facility goes about its work.